Category: Life in Bengaluru

Trying out Zoundry Raven for blogging

This post is created using Zoundry Raven Blogging platform after my not so good experience with Post2Blog from ByteScout. However I find the Raven editor way too slow and consumes roughly 71MB of physical memory. That is is ridiculously high by all standards! The only other options I have that supports imageshack for image uploads is ByteScout Post2Blog. I wish atleast Windows live writer could support imageshack. As I wait in vain, atleast I have Raven working for now!

I am attaching a small image here just to see how it appears on the blog!

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It happens only in India…

I was on my way to a function in Jayanagar this weekend, and my wife pointed out this hilarious hoarding at a shop in Jayanagar Shopping Complex. I could not help laughing at this

Its only a matter of time by when the moral police book this guy for his prostitutional racket of selling ladies and gents for just Rs.50 onwards, and for other brothels go up in arms for this guy to have ruined their business selling the same in thousands of rupees.This is called the “I too know English” effect !!

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Every Dog has its day

Well yes we have all heard this proverb over and over again and perhaps even used it on our friends and relatives while talking casually many a times. A fortnight back, I was the dog, and it was my dayI had been to the National Media Museum in Bradford to watch an IMAX movie called Lions3D : Roar of the Kalahari. After the movie, me and my friend were really hungry and after taking a couple of snaps (avaialble in my earlier post) at the museum, headed off to a nearby Pizza joint to have a huge big Marghareta pizza. We were so engrossed in eating the pizza and having a chat together that I understood my friend’s wife worked at the college where I studied. Continuing the discussion, the talk went on to cover all the lecturers we knew, and many things about the college itself. When our stomachs were full, we decided enough is enough for the day and left the pizza joint. On the way back to our hotel, about 5 miles away, I just sat in shock and sheer horror in the taxi as thoughts flashed in my mind.

I had forgotten to take my camera from the pizza joint, it was a sunday and there was no phone number of the joint with me, or any guarantee that the joint would be open even 30 minutes later or that he would have my camera stored for me. All I knew was that I was in deep soup having spent 500$ on that camera way back in 2003, and about 50$ more for a charger just 2 days back. The taxi took a U-turn and stopped at the museum. I just ran out of the taxi and up the road leading to the pizza joint. After some running, I noticed the shops ended there and there were no more ahead. Its when i really looked lost. I had actually lost my way and my mind. Somehow I gathered my wits and calculated and remembered the exact directions to the shop and found it finally. The door opened and I flew into the shop like a bird and perched on the counter crawing for my goods. The shop owner was considerate enough to have stored my camera for me, and you must have seen the relief on my face seeing my camera back in my hand.

Moral of the story : EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY!.

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From Saltaire to Bengaluru, muddling through all the mess

Agreed. There has been no posts for sometime on this blog. Well all I can say is I have been COMPLETELY (read that 100% utilization) stressed out. I barely have time even to breathe, or sleep, or even talk to anyone, leave alone blog. There are many complex things happening in my life at the moment and I expect the storm to blow over by another fortnight. The only silver lining to the cloud is that I was away from all the chaos of Namma Bengaluru to a place called Shipley (Saltaire). This is a world heritage site which houses the company I work for, in an industrial mill (Salts mill). It was summer in england and it was really cool. (how about 3 degrees to 10 degrees?)

Saltaire is a village west of Yorkshire and is a self contained locality with peaceful environs. I returned within a week to Bengaluru through an Air france flight. The flight by itself was graceful, but the airport had lots of surprises for me. No security checks on luggage, all staff resigned and joined BIAL. Two conveyor belts of which one was not working and people were sitting on it, a billion mosquitoes all around and to add to that a night temperature of 28 degrees. Imagine a 1 hour exit time, a 1 hour luggage delay and a 30 minute traffic jam at midnight. Welcome to Namma Bengaluru.

I leave you with this short post and some photos of Bradford, Saltaire and Bankfields hotel where we stayed in!

Celebrate the beginning of the Hindu new year – UGADI

Its time for ushering in the new year for the Hindus – Ugadi

Its time to forge new relationships, renew older ones and enjoy the new year ahead with new challenges ahead.

So here’s the bevu (neem leaves)

and here is the bella (jaggery)

(image courtesy : www.nandyala.org)

and here is the significance of UGADI as told by B K Padma to virtualbangalore.com)
Wish you all a very happy UGADI readers!

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It happens only in India

I had written about bad driving and stressed out lifestyles in my previous blog post. This post is somewhat related to it closely. If you are driving on a road and you see a lorry stopped in the middle of the road with a twig of leaves sticking out of it like as if it were a flowering plant, then what do you make out of it? Should you assme the lorry owner is relaxing on the road? Well, welcome to India.

In India such a symbol means the truck has taken a hit either with another, or has a flat tyre, or perhaps even a flat axle or engine. It also means that this truck which you see has no immediate plans of being towed away from the accident spot and it also does not say anything about how many people it killed in that accident.

Take a break and come back tomorrow, perhaps it wont be there on the street. And the driver of the truck, well he has already been recruited by another truck company to drive and crash a different truck tomorrow. This is the biggest pity in India and Benglurur particularly.

If its a small vehicle its a HIT & RUN case, if its a large one, its a HIT & DRIVER RUNS case. The occupants of such trucks walk away stealthily into the crowds even before someone understands who did what at the scene of crime. And the police have no records of who is driving the truck, the truck companies have no records of who they recruit and there are also no records of the lost lives in these accidents. Everything is conveniently put into a file which says HIT & RUN case – now closed.

So much so that the entire truck drivers association (or union or whatever nonsense you may want to call it) are against the government for asking them to install speed governors in their vehicles. Their grouse is that the vehicle consumes too much fuel if driven at lesser speeds purposely. And if driven at higher speeds, others bear the brunt of their driving and land up at hospital or even worse – HELL.

So the government and the unions are not only putting at risk many a life in the city, but also sometimes their own kith and kin by doing such immoral decisions at their own cost.

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Next opens showroom in Koramangala, Bengaluru

I had written earlier about OASIS opening up shop next to my home about 300 metres away. The fun did not stop there! Koramangala seems to be a place of plenty and more and more to come in future too. It has become a hub of very interesting shops and things to do. At this rate it will be a mini Bengaluru in itself. I have Pizza Hut right next to my home. So if I ve gobbled up a huge pizza and am feeling heavy, I can go over to the new NEXT showroom opposite Pizza hut to do some window shopping of all electricals and electronics!

I wonder what more is in the offing for this locality. However I still have fond memories of Everest School, a school run for the little children, the students among which my own cousin was one of them. It was exactly on the same spot where NEXT now stands that once upon a time there was a little school with little kids being taught interesting things. Many a sports day, a flag hoist was conducted at this very place which has now given way to this swanky building selling home appliances. Of course this was exactly 15 years before when Koramangala was close to nothing in terms of economic progress. I guess the owner of this place too has caught a whiff of the real estate smell. Of course one cant imagine a school being run in a building as small as this anymore! Its now the time of International schools, since the national ones have no meat left in themThis building also houses MAX NEW YORK LIFE, an insurance provider of all sorts. While the guy at the bottom ensures you waste your money, the guy on top ensures you save money to waste

So thats it for now, yet another showroom in Koramangala to waste time on!

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Fake-ro Rocher – Of Fakes and Bengaluru

I casually stepped into a bakery near my office to eat something since I was feeling extremely hungry. While I was having my snacks I could not help noticing this box of chocolates which seemed all familiar. Except that name that is. Jinnuo Cocher. Wait a minute, did i say Jinnuo Cocher? Yes of course. But thats not the name we all know it by do we? Look for yourself!

Presenting yet another FAKE of the original FERRERO ROCHER! It happens only in India!

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COBY FM + USB + SD + remote – awesome pastime for a good nights sleep in hot bengaluru

Finally I got some time to write about the COBY CX 266, a model perhaps thats already outdated in days in the USA which i nevertheless procured at $45 from there. I ve purchased a billion radios till date. But I must say there is no one single radio that is giving me as much comfort as the coby baby that i currently have. I was expecting a flimsy radio when I first purchased it. Only when my friend gave it to be after it traveled from USA miles to Bengaluru, did I start appreciating the radio for what it is. My need was simple, I wanted a decent sounding radio supporting FM and having a remote control to operate it with. But what i actually got with the coby was much more than what I asked for!

It has a USB slot and an SD/MMC slot to pull in all the music from the associated devices and play it on the radio. I have not tried this feature yet, but I appreciate that its there! The entire radio is done out of proper wood and the construction quality shows well when you look at it. It just looks so sweet! The six buttons on the radio itself are quite flimsy but who cares, I use the ones on the remote instead! And then there is the aerial antenna which is hooked somewhere to my window for better reception. The big volume knob in white at the middle also serves as a push button on-off power switch for the radio and to increase or decrease the volume but turning a full 360 degrees free flow. I always love radios that welcome me by saying HELLO when you switch them on and BYE when you switch them off. Pretty neat! During the nights the backlighting on the radio is quite clearly readable too. With this the radio has features to auto switch on at a given time, auto switch off after a certain amount of time lasting a maximum of 90 minutes. The latter is a feature that is most welcome especially when you have slept off and your radio intelligently switches itself off without disturbing you! How really nice!! And in case you are those zomibies who dont wake up when the alarm rings (this ones got a radio alarm by the way), you also got a snooze button at your service to keep snoozing until its night time again !

Here a few more pictures and the manual is attached too! For 45$ this is a treat.

So the only things I dont really like about this radio:

– no recording option

– no line in for recording as well

Special thanks to my friend Mahesh, whom we fondly call MASH for this gift. A good night’s sleep is now never really far away!

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The Bengaluru International Airport, music to my ears!

Today i was glancing through the Deccan Herald newspaper, which quotes thus regarding the BIAL.

For the HAL Airport, the shift will be abrupt. The curtains will fall right after 8 pm on March 29, the deadline set for all landings to cease there. “All flights after 20.00 hours will land at Devanahalli

and

Despite demands to retain the HAL Airport at least for domestic flights, the new airport’s operationalisation would mean an end to the old aerodrome. It will be an absolute shutdown for HAL airport, and an absolute opening for the Bengaluru International Airport

For a tortured soul living in Koramangala, for the past 25 years of which the last 20 years have seen a spurt in the amount of flights nothing can be better than this news. Its like soothing a baby with sugar in the mouth or by singing a lullaby to a stressed out soul like me! Atleast 30 flights a day at a span of every half hour and a gazillion international flights wrecking my sleep daily upto 1am and a restart at 6am, my sleep was reduced to just 5 hours a day. Thanks to BIAL the tables are now reversed. While I would get my share of sleep peacefully its the travellers who would lose their sleep perenially travelling up and down to the new Airport !

The BIAL unvieled its new logo which is extremely synonymous with old Bengaluru – the garden city. Analysts of this new logo also noted that the new logo cautiously stays away from the wrecked IT image of Bengaluru.

So then what exactly does the airport look like as of now? You bet it looks awesome already and is awaiting to cater to the first set of travelers by March end! Good job BIAL!

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