It seems to be that BDA is doing this out of self frustration, or desperation to meet deadlines towards making the BIAL route signal free. So much so that they are testing the uncompleted CBI junction by allowing vehicles to go through always in only one direction at any time.

Though the CBI magic box is a much better designed magic box than the BDA junction one (which by all means needs to get the “Worst infrastructure project of the year award”), one still cant understand how this magic box is gonna work. Lets try and do some analysis here:

There is one magic box between RT nagar entrance and the other side, and there is another more nearer to the police station side. one possible way of traffic entry and exit could be as shown below:

The question mark in this figure is the place where there could likely be a signal of some sort !! and maybe more confusions too in future! Whatever it is BDA, you have got the access to BIAL through somehow and thats probably what you would be looking at in future as well and not really bother how the other people would fight it out isnt it? 🙂

I for once want this magic box to be opened up real soon and I am tired of all the dust and chaos this junction is undergoing at the moment. Lets hope for the best!

So common BDA open up those barricades soon will ya?

Technorati : BDA, airport, bangalore, bbmp, bengaluru, bial, blog, box, bus, cars, cbi, circle, concrete, devanahalli, dust, free, freeway, hebbal, infrastructure, jam, junction, karnataka, magic, mekhri, noise, police station, pollution, rt nagar, sanjaynagar, signal, traffic, vehicles

So, on day 2, I got most of the snaps that I actually inteded to get. I ll leave you with this blog post to click and enjoy all these snaps. For bigger versions, just click on the thumbnail you are interested in.

Day 2 started off better than day 1, and towards the evening the crackers got louder and better. More and more people actually came onto the streets on yet another chilly (15 degree) day to warm up the air a bit. People from all ages were seen celebrating in Koramangala.

Of specific mention was a 10000 wala necklace cracker, lit on my street that stole the show for about five minutes. The camera did a fantastic job of giving me my undoubtedly best shot of the year 2008. Below are the rest of the photos for you to see and enjoy. Happy Diwali dear readers, once again from the Bengaluru blog @ chowchowbath.com

Technorati : 10.2 megapixel, 10.2MP, 100 shots, 10000 wala, 10k, 2009, 8k, 9k, DSLR, Diwali, bangalore, bengaluru, bhoo chakra, blog, bubble, canon, canon Digital SLR, chennai, city, colours, cracker, crackers, cyclone, deepavali, diyas, environment, flower pot, go down, ground chakra, impact, india, inflation, karnataka, lamps, market, megapixel, necklace, noise, plummet, pollution, rain, rebel XTi, rockets, sales, sensex, sky, smoke, sound, stock, trees, went down

Blame it on the stock market disaster, or blame it on the global economic crisis which inturn has affected India too – Diwali 2009 just got off to a rather lukewarm start. After two to three days of constant rains thanks to a cyclonic effect on the shores of Chennai city, Bangalore finally saw a rather hot winter morning today on the occassion of Diwali.

This time inflation, coupled with increase in cracker prices has surely dampened the spirits a bit, but still towards today evening, the crackers sounded louder and clearer. Smoke filled the air and families got together to brave the chill to celebrate the festive season. In the more recent post on Diwali 2009 above, I bring to you some snaps captured by my Canon DSLR Rebel XTi. Enjoy!

Technorati : 10.2MP, 10k, 2009, 8k, 9k, DSLR, Diwali, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, bubble, canon, chennai, city, crackers, cyclone, deepavali, diyas, environment, go down, impact, india, inflation, karnataka, lamps, market, megapixel, noise, plummet, pollution, rain, rebel XTi, sales, sensex, smoke, sound, stock, went down

Garbage collection programmes are not new in Bengaluru. In fact quite long ago this was initiated by the BBMP as it saw few potential problems getting solved with this venture.

• The garbage problem in the city would get better if all garbage was collected and processed properly.
• The collected garbage could be segregated and then used as landfills outside the city
• BBMP would get revenues if it imposed garbage tax on each household and they have been pretty successful at this by educating the households in prime areas about the issues involved with garbage collection and the need for it in the first place.
• People throwing garbage into drains would stop and hence this could avoid to clogging of waterways throughout the city

Today I noticed many of these billboards being generously put up by the BBMP for those households who were not segregating dry and wet waste. The quality of the advertisements educating households itself was adorable and it also had phone numbers of zonal offices, ward contact mobile numbers amongst other information.

I really appreciate BBMP for such education and request all residents living in areas where garbage collection is present to spend atleast 5 minutes segregating wet and dry waste so that the BBMP can use that time you spend for something more useful. Its your waste, I am sure BBMP must not be segregating it for you! Do you bit, maintain a clean environment!

Technorati : BBMP, advertisements, association, bangalore, bengaluru, billboards, blog, bruhat, city, contractor, drains, dry, east, education, environment, flooding, garbage collection, household, koramangala, landfill, local corporator, mahanagara, management, north, offices, palike, rains, residents, segregation, south, waste, west, wet, zonal, zone office

I had always wanted to create some memorabilia for my website. The only service I knew to be trustworthy enough was Cafepress, the online destination for t-shirts, mugs, caps, and other stuff including bumper stickers, and mouse pads. While I did like their collection, being a standard foreign company, their pricing was the crux of the matter for me not to use them. Well, paying around 16 to 20$ is ok for a t-shirt, but it was the shipping of an equal amount that really disturbed me.

This was when I decided to find some Indian companies who were capable enough to provide me the same services online. My favourites for t-shirts online were Rediff and a few other companies which I had tried out years back without much satisfaction. After some googling around I did get many results for these kinds of services in the present day. But I also chanced upon an article that mentioned atleast four such companies and what their offerings were. You can read that article here.

The companies mentioned in the article included DilSeBol, Myntra, WebVastra, Gnome and Pringoo.

Atleast three of these sites were in beta, which means “God only knows how our website will work for you!”, and a few of these sites were unintuitive for me. Either the menus were scattered an ununderstandable, or image uploading formats were unsupported or the interface for t-shirt design itself was not so easy. So after checking out all these sites, I finally decided on Pringoo to order my t-shirt. I must mention here that I am a member of ZoomIn.com, another website where I can upload my photos or designs and get a tee shirt done up. They charge only Rs.350 as compared to Pringoo and also provide me with multiple payment options. But still the appeal of Pringoo.com and the fact that ZoomIn’s tee shirt quality as shown on their image, made me feel like using their site for this purchase.

I did up a basic design with text, on a white background, using photo editing tools. One thing people must remember is that all new image compositions are done in 72dpi (dots per inch) which IS NOT sufficient to print on paper or on a tee shirt. The minimum value for this quantity must be atleast 300dpi, and if possible 600dpi for a good print on bigger dimensions. So the next time you want to create a new design, use 600dpi as the resolution for that image. The rest will turn out fine.

The placement enabled me to choose the tee shirt size, and position of the image more or less centered on the tee shirt, along with the type and colour of the tee shirt. One thing that I did not like was the size chart provided by Pringoo, which indicated sizes in inches. When converted to centimetres it did not give a proper indication of the chest size as we know it while we shop on our own. For eg., for large size, it came to 49 centimeters, whereas in India large means 42 cms and extra large means 44-46 cms. This nowhere correalates to what Pringoo advertises. They must understand that people who are making their purchase for the first time are the customers who they can retain forever, if they show the size in a more convenient way. Size is the most important parameter which will either make or break a purchase and going wrong in this means waste of money, like for me.

Well as for the order itself, they send it by registered post, though it reached me via DTDC strangely! And they dont charge me shipping fee for the same. Well done Pringoo. Good to know you are not earning on silly things. The package came to me in about two or three days and contained the teeshirt, a proper printed version of the online bill with bar code and all, and a letter from pringoo explaining the product features. Also they gave a free sticker promoting their website.

They also claim their’s is the first company who deliver tee shirts that are of international quality, and prints on which we can use the iron box without ruining the print, and tee shirts that retain print colour without bleeding the dye. They also as a disclaimer claim that upto 10% shrinkage must be allowed for after wash. As usual they also gave me their customer service email id, for any feedback. But I chose to blog them instead! They prophesize eco-solvent digital printing – a technology they claim is 24 times more expensive than any other available in India today.

So finally to end this blog post, let me show you the actual product in flesh and blood. Decide for yourself if you like it !

CLICK ON THESE FOR BIGGER IMAGES!

So what are you waiting for? Head to Pringoo.com and make your own style statement! 🙂

Technorati : DTDC, Pringoo, Pringoo.com, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, cafepress, chest size, design, digital, dilsebol, dots per inch, dpi, eco-solvent, fabric, free, gnome, gnome.in, india, india registered post, iron box, memorabilia, myntra, online, printing, promotion, rediff, resolution, size chart, sizes, sticker, t-shirt, t-shirts, tee shirts, tshirts, website, webvastra, your own, zoomin, zoomin.com

It was my wife’s birthday and I decided to take her out to Total Mall @ Madiwala for some shopping. Also since there was a karaoke competition, I decided to enroll her and ask her to sing a song accompanied by lyrics to the public. I myself wanted to sing a song, but decided that I did not want to screw up other people’s pleasant evening shopping, so kept quiet.

Pic courtesy: www.bangalorebeats.com

The total mall as you would know in Madiwala is refurbished over the old madiwala shopping complex that was supposed to actually house all the grocery stalls out on that road. For whatever reasons such as maybe high rentals or otherwise, these grocery vendors did not occupy the complex, leaving it in tatters. Slowly but steadily the commerical value of this piece of real estate was well underestimated and the government had a high priced property which was not getting properly utilized. With the advent of low cost retailing such as Total (I say low cost as compared to malls such as Forum, which was of a high standard), they took up this space and transformed it into what you see above. Note the older building in the last four floors and you know how bad it was!

I was expecting a TOTAL surprise, and ended up with a TOTAL disaster. Before I bash up TOTAL on this blog, some good points about the shopping. My wife participated in the Karaoke contest with the song Tere Mere Pyaar Ke Charche har zaban par …. a beauty!

The lyrics were on the screen and all one had to do was get used to this and sing along! My wife did sing well enough, more better that what I thought she sung at home! And I did enjoy those moments with my son too. After that when the crowds started piling up, I decided to go shopping within the mall which gave away some of the ridiculous arrangements of this mall. Here I list a few of them:

• Right in the middle of the mall where people must have been walking is a CD store occupying all the space
• The only eateries include MacD, Serengeti and yet another restaurant (no food court or nothing of that sort)
• Rides for very young kids like the horse, car, etc (swing along) costs 20 bucks which I thought was meaningless!
• The mall is designed in such a way that once you enter the shopping area in a floor the only way out is to take a full round of all stalls, and go up another floor, hold your breath, take a full round all over again and then reach the billing counter. Damn, I wonder what these people were thinking when they built the mall this way. Absolutely ridiculous waste of time and energy.
• The AC was terrible or non existent making me sweat like hell all the time, its a pity such a big mall felt like a furnace (so much for pleasant shopping)
• The travelator (Total’s modified meaning of eslacator) is pure hell served to you. Twice the length of the normal elevator, and double the distance to reach the other end meant only longer walks and even more outrageous waste of time
• Just when you thought you could get things billed and get out, you had to remember your personal things kept at one floor below! Waste time again and over again.
• The staircase leading to the car park wont even accomodate one thin person around the corners (landing area) – guess only animals like cats and dogs can go through these. Absolute horror.
• My wife being in the architecture field puked at such a design that the government had come up with years ago.
• And just when you thought everything was over, the absolutely horribly designed car park strikes you in the face. Even a car such as my swift diesel brushed against something on its roof, one can only imagine what cars such as scorpios which are SUVs will undergo in this car park. Look for yourself

We did shop a few things in this mall, but vowed never to return again. If you were to heed my advice, take your family to the FORUM mall. Its like comparing well bred labradors or golden retreivers with rabid street mongrels. My two cents, have a good family outing, not a TOTAL DISASTER.

Technorati : AC, aaj kal tere mere pyaar ke sapne har zaban par, air conditioner, aircon, architect, architecture, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, car park, car rides, cd, dvd, escalator, golden retrievers, government, grocery, horse, karaoke, karnataka, koramangala, labradors, lyrics, mac donalds, macd, madivala, madiwala, mongrels, reviews, santhey, scorpio, security, serengeti, shopping, singalong, steps, suv, swift diesel vdi, total mall, travelator, vendor

I had written an article about South Indies, a south indian restaurant in Indiranagar where I had been to sometime last year. The occassion was a meeting with my best friend Kishore, on his visit to India from USA.

To just tell you more here, Kishore and I know each other for more than 15 years now, he is more than just a friend to me, he is part of my family and one of the key influencers of my life. Well, without digressing much, it was one year more of not seeing him, and this time he landed in Bengaluru once more. This time we decided to head straight to BonSouth yet another south indian restaurant in Koramangala, a stone’s throw away from my house.

BonSouth is a restaurant, which is situated bang on the 80′ Road Koramangala and it is built on a huge piece of land. As usual as one would expect, you cannot park anywhere closeby thanks to BTRAC and thousands of no parking boards everywhere (I think this BTRAC aims at inconveniencing people rather than helping them). So BonSouth currently has taken up the land next to their restaurant for parking purposes. These days I find this is being the norm of many people including MTP (More than Paranthas) another Delhi based restaurant in Koramangala adopting the same approach.

We had gone by two wheeler, and I didnt have a problem finding parking for myself. It was night and we landed up for dinner. Knowing and having seen South Indies before I must have realized the costs of going to Bonsouth, but I was not too surprised looking at the menu card. Firstly we were handed over the spirits menu, where it showed one bottle of champagne to be about 12,000 bucks (roughly 250$) which I thought was on the higher side. After some discussions, we decided no to spirits (especially understanding the fact that a brahmin iyer family would not allow me in if they smelt alcohol 🙂 ). We then wanted to go straight to that part of the menu which was synonymous with its name – BonSouth.

The ambience was just right with enough room to talk and catch up for a long while before the food was served and finished. The items on the menu were arranged according to the states in South India – Andhra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, each sporting its own famous cuisines. We settled down on cabbage vada for starters, and some lemon rice and curd rice, along with some andhra veg soup – now dont ask me the names, they were bizzaire! 🙂 A candle was lit for us, and we went ahead and started our meal.

What is of significance that I did not know then but later understood, is the fact that both South Indies and Bon South belonged to the same person and he was running this food chain promoting southern specialities in each area of Bengaluru. So much so also that, I came to know the whole place for both these restaurants were landscaped by a firm called Terra Firma, a company started off by Rohit Marol a well known landscapist today.

The indications were strikingly similar – well dressed waiters (perhaps there is a much more respectful term than this), with suits and coats, all having wireless PDAs to take orders and well mannered too. The landscaping of the place was also done up well with small water bodies here and there and the lighting to suit the mood. Overall for about one starter, two rice items, and one soup (without dessert) the bill was about Rs.800, more or less the same as what we paid at South Indies ealier. But I somehow felt that the food in BonSouth was much better than the one at South Indies given that I could not find any difference in the ambience.

There is also a buffet lunch and breakfast options available somewhere around the Rs.275 mark if you wish to take part in it. Overall, we had a nice dinner and our pockets were lighter by a grand at the end of it. However, given that the prime importance is for the time spent with friends, and a peaceful atmosphere, I would recommend this place as a must visit – atleast once, for the experience, if not again and again. So head straight to BonSouth, and get a taste of what south has always meant to you! 🙂

Technorati : Bon south, LA, ambience, andhra, b-trac, bangalore, bengaluru, bill, blog, bonsouth, breakfast, btrac, buffet, candle, champagne, chowchowbath, cmh road, cost, culinary, delhi, dining, dinner, experience, friends, indiranagar, karnataka, kerala, kishore, koramangala, lifestyle, los angeles, lunch, meal, meals, menu, menu book, more than paranthas, mtp, oasis, parking, pda, restaurant, rice, rohit marol, signal, sony world, soup, south, south indies, spar, spirits, stewards, subhiksha, tamil nadu, tamilnadu, terra firma, usa, waiters, wireless