Happy Republic Day

I used to hate going to school on Republic Day, not that I wanted to sleep, but because I wanted to see India display it’s military might. I used to love the tanks, missiles, the smart army officers, their coordination and yes the sight of national flag flying high and proud!

I couldn’t catch up on the telecast this year (sad) .. But thanks to the Internet I got to see a few pictures from this year’s celebration.

Photo credit: Shailendra Pandey

Filed under: India , India, Indian armed forces, Republic day

Pin is mightier than sword

The saying used to be Pen is mightier than sword, but for a woman, a pin is mightier than a sword? Wondering why? I will tell you a story.. An incident involving a guy, and a girl in a night bus with of course a pin playing the lead role!

The situation is as follows… Girl decides to travel to Kerala from Bangalore and ends up getting her seat next to a guy, who looked ‘decent’.. so she decided not to switch seats next to an another lady like she does usually would. So she sat there waiting for the bus to leave. The crowd who came to see her off had left so she had no one to talk to and that seemed to be the case with the guy as well.. so they set off talking on the surface, not disclosing any information about their lives in Kerala…. Bus started leaving and soon they fell asleep..

The girl was deep asleep, dreaming of makeup, clothes, perfumes, hot guys, the usual girly stuff, when she feels it. A hand; it was gently caressing her; the grip became tighter by the second. Was she just dreaming or was it for real? Her sub-conscious mind couldn’t figure out.. She opens her eyes gently just to come to senses and lo the hand was still there… What should she do now?

1> Create a ruckus and wake up fellow passengers and complain?
2> Get up silently walk to the conductor and tell him what happened?
3> Speak to the guy directly tell him not to do what he is doing?
4> None of the above… (Something else of course)

If you selected 1, the fellow passengers will crib of waking them up from sleep. The fellow next to you will deny all accusations and he will get away with it, as he looks ‘decent’. So bad idea!

If you selected 2, the conductor if awake, may or may not take her seriously. He might even give her that look, which penetrate one’s clothes. Okay, in case he bothers to come and ask the guy, there will be noise, fellow passengers will wake up and even comments like, “because she dressed so,” will come up (even though she was wearing a ‘proper’ top with jeans). Bad idea again.

Option 3, he will deny doing any such thing, and blame you for imagining things and might repeat it again when she go to sleep. Boo again

So what is a lone girl supposed to do? Well here is a part I missed out.. The girl in question had long hair and she uses a hair pin to tie it up in a neat bun…. That’s her weapon in distress, she takes it out, pokes (jabs) the guy (hard) and then goes back to sleep.. If he decides to scream people will shout at him, after all why would a girl poke anyone with a hair pin?

Moral: If you are a guy — Stay away from girls when in a journey. They are armed (dangerous) and have license to kill.. Like Bond!
If you a girl — Pin is mightier than sword!

PS: I wasn’t the guy in the story, in case you thought so. And the girl in question is not my girl friend either just one of my close friends!

Filed under: Bangalore, Kerala, Women , Bangalore, bus journey, family, girls, Kerala

Karnataka vs Kerala

v/s

I have lived the bulk of my life in Kerala, but I have spent the last three years of my life in Karnataka. Both states have a lot in common. Blessed by nature with greenery, plenty of water and frequent fights with TN over water!

But the biggest similarity is with the politicians..

In Kerela there is a father son duo who are hated more than liked; Karnatak too possess one.

In Kerala, the father is known by the name of Leader among his followers, but the common man in the state know him by the name of K Karunakaran. He has a good for nothing son called K Muralidharan.

Getting to Karnataka… The father is known by the name of ex-prime minister but the people here call him Deva Gowda.

He too has a son with great political ambitions and his name is HD Kumaraswamy.

What else do Karunakaran and Gowda have in common?

Here goes

Both wanted to become PM of India (Karunakaran didn’t make it.. Gowda did )

Both of them have ruled a state as CM (Karunakaran managed it thrice)

Both managed to split the party (Karunakaran initiated the spilt and formed DIC(K) Gowda lead the party after the spit)

Both used to be a part of Congress once upon a time!

Gowda was blamed for poor show of JD(S) in the recent election. tie up with Karunakaran’s (party) DIC(K) was blamed for the failure of Cong in the past election!

Both of them are ‘popular’ for heir ability to topple governments

Karunakaran is now sidelined and his word is given no priority… If Gowda continues with his antics I will have one more similarity to add to the list!

PS: On a lighter note.. I dont know who gave the great idea to call a political party DIC(K).. it stands for Democratic Indira Congress(Karunakaran)! But I guess the politicians behind didn’t think much about the acronym and it’s meanings!

Filed under: Bangalore, Kerala , Bangalore, Gowda, Karunakaran, Kerala, politics

Of Indian roads and TATA NANO a rethought

Three days since the release of 1 lakh car from TATA, I am having hick ups on the concept.. agreed; its a great creation packed with innovation. But does it have what it requires to succeed? A lot of people are concerned about the congestion on Indian roads. But that my dear friends is restricted to the major India cities (at least for now), which have an overwhelming population.

The real users of the car will be the middle class who form the majority in the Indian towns. Now let me describe these ’small towns’ the dominant population here are small businessmen and people working in service industry like banking! And this class forms THE target audience for the car.. So what are the problems of having such a small car in these towns?

First of all towns have narrow roads and they may not be able to handle the sudden explosion of traffic! And knowing our politicians they are not bound to widen the roads in a giffy.. they will take their own sweet time by which the small towns will face traffic problems earlier found only in cities like Bangalore.

Also about the roads again.. having driven in these small towns we need to keep in mind that they may not have best of roads and one kilometre out of the town you reach villages where the only form of transport are jeeps and TATA Sumos. Will NANO’s baby tyres be able to carry it on the rough terrain? Can Nano rule the roost in an area under the rule of big brother Sumo? I doubt it!

Filed under: Bangalore, India, Traffic , Bangalore, indian roads, NANO, Tata, Tata NANO

BAJAJ — Rickshaw to TATA Nano

Why should one buy Tata Nano?

Well for one its as cheap as an auto (almost)

An autorickshaw costs Rs 90,000+taxes while a basic model of Nano costs Rs 1 Lakh+taxes

1> It can accommodate 4 people

2> It looks better than an auto.. and goos enough for a car!

3> Its a car.. means u can ride in the rain! ( You wont get drenched like in an auto)

4> Great mileage – 23kmph! (wow!)

5> Eco-friendly (meets bharat 3 and will meet euro-4 standards)

5> Last but not the least — killer price for a car!

Is it just a modified version of an auto?

Here are a few reasons why I believe so!

1> Its has only one viper in the front

2> Base size (platform) is slightly bigger than an auto thats all

3> Wheels look as small as an auto (am not sure if it is :-p )

For Bangaloreans

I have a killer reason why Bangaloreans should buy Auto.. Autowallahs are going on strike on Jan 11! They want the rates to be hiked to Rs 10/metre!

Kewl Idea

Hey taxi guys .. how about running Nano as a Taxi at rates cheaper than taxi slighly more than autos? What say? May be that will cut the autos to size

For those interested here are the specifications of the car

PS: By the way Ram got inspired by GTA series of posts and decided to write smthing about autokkarans in Chennai.. take a look!

GTA – Temple city

Filed under: Bangalore, India, Traffic , autorickshaw, Bangalore, cars, Tata, Tata NANO

What should India do?

Insulted by Australians and made a clown out of by the umpires, should India continue with the series?

My heart wants India to quit the tour and return back home, but the cricket fan in me wants them to stay back and beat Australia in the game they invented and mastered. Playing dirty!

I really hope Ponting will get out on Bhajji bowling again (on the first ball hopefully) and that umpires will get their calls right!

PS: What if Jagmohan Dalmiya was heading the board? What would he have done? I think he would offered a finger salute to Australian board and ICC and asked for a rematch (like in gully cricket) or called the team back home!

Filed under: Cricket , Australia, burp, Cricket, India

Grand Theft Auto – 4!

This is the final post of Grand Theft Autorickshaw series.. to make any sens read GTA , GTA2, GTA3 and then read this post

I speak english!
NOTE: This my dear friends is the rarest bread of auto drivers. You may not find them in any other city in India, but in Bangalore.. What’s special about them? As the headline says.. They speaks english!

Me: Anna.. Jayanaga Jaoge?
Auto: Hindi gothilla.. You know english
Me: eh.. yya.. ya I speak english
Auto: So where do you want to go
Me: Jayanagar
Auto: ok
Me: (I couldn’t hold back my curiosity)
Auto: From where did you learn to speak english so well?
Me: Oh! from my daughter.. There are a lot of non-kannadigas here. So I asked her to teach me hindi so I could talk to these people. But she told me that she will teach me english as there are a lot of tourists here. So I agreed and I learnt
Me: So how long did it take
Auto: 1 year
Me: wow.. thats great.. you did a really good thing…
(the talk continued for half an hour thanks to traffic.. we discussed traffic, garbage issue, auto metre tampering and traffic again)
(on reaching)
Me: Anna, here is the money
Auto: Thank you (gives back change)
Me: No, Thank you!

Double trouble
NOTE: Ever travelled in a group of five or more in an auto? Chances are quite less for something like that to happen. Unless of course you are in school and auto picks you up from school and takes you home and vice-versa.. well I had ‘encounters’ with auto guys because we travelled in a big group!)
Me: Anna Jayanagar
Auto: okay
Me: There are five people
the smile =) on his face changes shape now =(

Auto: Do (two) auto lena padega
Me: Ek auto mein possible nahi hain? we will give little extra
Auto: No you will have to take two autos!
(out of the blue another auto driver appear who offers to take the second group.. now we don’t have any options you see)
Auto1 (to auto 2): Bhaiyya appa pehle chalo.. I will follow you
Auto 2(to auto 1): nahi nahi aap pahle
Me: (in mind.. am I in Bangalore or Lucknow?)
Auto 1: nahi nahi aap
Auto 2: ok chalo follow.. u have digital metre u put.. i wont
Auto1: ok
Auto1 & 2 together: Boss is that okay.. he has digital so he puts…
Me: okay chalo abhi
(and so the journey starts the auto I was in didn’t have the metre running because ‘he did not have digital meter’ :p)
(fast forward – we reach destination)
(the metre in second auto – digital meter – read 90, when it should have read 60!)
phew!
Me: Boss aapka meter galat hein
Auto1: Wo khoome aana padta hein.. isliye..
Me: (in mind – WTF!)
I have come b same route before also how can you say ‘khoom ke’ now.. don’t crap with me unnecessarily!
Auto 2: Are you trying to say my metre is rigged? digital metre hein bhayya it cannot be
Me: oh come on whom are you kidding.. there is no meter that cannot be rigged.. only if you mess up digital metre the seal will be broken that s all.. move let me check the metre

Auto1 pushes me away

Friend1: Boss.. no need to push around we know your metre is tampered three of us here work in media.. we know many policemen .. we will give you 60 (*2 of course) if you need more you call police. There are five of us here, so don’t mess up.
Auto1: (reality sinks in) okay give.. but remember I know were you live I will come with my friends..

Me: ya ya okay
we will see

(The never turned up.. thank god.. though we put up a bracve face then we were a littel bit scared of the consequences….)

Anything for money

(this one…. came in as a comment from Taju!)

1. I (Taju aka Xylene) called an auto to take ma wife and myself to the Railway station. I bargained and fixed the rate to 125 ( for 15 kms)
Upon seeing ma extra large suitcase he began ” luggage one and a half, extra, more, more, more”

I said “bhaiiyya this auto is for how many ppl?” he said “three”
“So we have me, her and yeh luggage ek admi sumcho (consider this luggage as a person), so no extra… ”
he agreed !
2. On our way back all the autodrivers were bargaining for 150rs (from madiwala to hsr layout 4 kms). I tried ma “consider this luggage as the third person” but dint work !!
So i had to increase my offer to 60 Rs, still no one was agreeing.
Autowalla1 : “sir ur office will begin now”
me ” No its only at 1PM”
Autowalla2 : “Sir the rate is for luggage 70Rs”
Me ” NOOO”
Autowalla picking up my suitcase ” see I am carrying your luggage sirrr”
me ” Oh okay then”
me to wife ” atleast he helped me witht he luggage, so lets give him 70?
upon reachingthe destination. he dint bother to get out of the driver seat. and I pulled..pushed….tried to lift it out of the auto..finally managed to get it out ( his seat got torn, he dint notice, well so be it…)
wife to me ” so wats the extra 10 for??”
me “sigh to get him out of ma sight”

Filed under: Bangalore, GTA, Traffic , autorickshaw, Bangalore, GTA, | Balu |

My new year resolutions!

Resolutions I made this year

1> get a driving license (because I am fed up of being pulled up by cops for driving without license… kidding! because I don’t have a passport or voter’s id card so need some photo identification.. i guess I should get the other two made as well)

2> Read blogs, write blogs, comment on blogs (hmmm that’s not tough thanks to RSS)

3> Watch more mal movies ( I cant remember the last time I saw one! sigh!)

4> Buy a cycle and cycle daily to office!

5> Improve my kannada skills ( as of now its restricted to gothilla and avathu.. i can understand kannada.. its just a matter of speaking it!)

6> Follow all these resolutions

Resolutions I did not even dream of making

1> Become ’serious’ in life (whatever that means)

2> Become an ardent admirer of Paris Hilton

3> Buy myself to a Ferrari.. (ya right in Bangalore of all places..)

4> Spend less money on gaming! (video games that is)

Filed under: chupchap , 2008, Bangalore, | Balu |