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Taquila – Shakeela

Taquila – Shakeela

It is that part of our life when we started entering a new phase of life, Marriage, a bonding beyond lives, mystery beyond Sherlock Holmes stories, Joy beyond imagination, and the list continues…. Here, by saying we, I am referring to D-Boyz gang. Yes, I was the first in our D-boyz to get married and now the time has come for 2nd wicket to go. It was a looooooooooooooooooong 2 years wait for Madhu and Poorni after they fell (rise) in love.

Madhu came down from UK on a 15 days vacation for his marriage. He proposed for a Bachelor’s party and the D-boyz in Bangalore started planning. He threw a B-party to some of his colleagues in UK in a strip club and the guys here also wanted a similar Sharara Sharara party here. Fortunately or unfortunately, we could not have a sharara sharara party because of various unquotable reasons. We had booze party, a party with Taquila but no Shakeela :-( . A few of D boyz booze occasionally and now we had a great occasion. The fun we had in party was no less than a sharara sharara party. It started with 30 and went on uncountable.

Our chote (famous for remix) was in full form throwing one after the other remix. To quote a few:
1. He put forward a new theorem called Neighborhood theorem. This theorem describes the effect of Alcohol on the person sitting next to one who consumes
2. He did not wanted to go home get scolding for boozing, so he thought of spending the whole night parking the vehicle.
3. “Cows are on strike and You wont get milk shake”
4. The last one: when Madhu told he will go back home via Bangalore University, he said “we did not bother to study during 4 years of Engg., why do you want to go to university at this hour of night and that too when you are getting married in few days time?”

The fun was unlimited, we had stomach ache the next day following continuous laugh. The Party ended on a note that Chote should be bought lot of drinks in any subsequent parties we have, to add fun and flavor to the party

D-boyz

D-boyz is a group that got formed out of common non-interests unlike common interest. The letter ‘D’ means Dynamic. Yes it was during the Golden days of our Engineering Education, the group got formed. 5 guys, the nick name of each starting from eldest to youngest is Bade, Maal, Cabare, Tabara, Logic and Chote. There was also a 6th guy (Africa) who also became a part of the group though he exhibited less Dynamism. He used to switch between static and dynamic behavior often. Frankly speaking, in my views, the original D-boyz considered him in the game but not in the count (aatakke untu, lekkakke illa).

Later there was addition of 3 more guys who had common non-interests. Kochhe, Goodlife and Digamb. The group became complete with these 3 dynamic boyz coming in.

D-boyz group is group that created jealous in many of our classmates who were longing to be like us. I remember one of my classmates saying “it seems like no power in this world can break this group”. One for all and all for one is the motto. It is not possible to describe all the fun we had in those days in any number of words. The good thing is we are continuing the fun and meet quite often. I consider myself most lucky guy this group as I got the opportunity work with few guys in the group in office as well. The local gang has now become a global crossing all Horizons. I wish we emerge as a role model whom upcoming kids can look up to.

Misfortune never comes alone and Blessings never come in pair

Misfortune never comes alone and Blessings never come in pair

A beautiful Friday morning, got up a little early than usual, dropped the idea of shaving and got ready soon. Well, it may seem absurd why anyone would like to start early when weekend is approaching? This is a habit I have developed off late. I start early on Fridays so that I can leave early from office, to reach home and spend time with much awaited family members, with whom I hardly get enough time to spend during week days.

I decided to go to office by bike instead of car, as my brother was not accompanied. Few kms from home, I entered some narrow lanes with the hope of reaching office early, and the clutch wire of the Bike is gone for a toss. I had to push it for around a km only to find a Mechanic shop closed. It is too ambitious of me to find a mechanic shop open at early morning hours.

I started day dreaming, waiting in front of Mechanic shop, of days where in all these kind of service will become 24/7. Whenever there is a break down, you just phone a tow vehicle service (ideal if it’s a toll free # and you can find such emergency call boxes in every street) and it will towed to nearest service shop. I was able to kill some time till the mechanic shop got opened by this day dreaming. Though the mechanic shop got opened around 9:10 AM, it did not have the required spare part, which simply meant the wait does not end here.

I managed to reach office around 10:45 AM after getting the bike repaired. To my Agony, I hit the 3 miraculous keys (CTRL+ALT+DEL) on the key board of my comp and phat!! I see a blue screen with weird message saying a physical memory dump error. For a moment I thought, the hard drive of my machine is crashed and all the important data I wanted is lost. However, the damage was not to an extent I imagined. Thanks to ITS dept. of our office which got the system back to working mode by the time I finished 2 meetings that were scheduled.

Finally as the saying goes, Man proposes but God disposes, I had to stay back in office until regular closure time to complete all my tasks. Now I have to fight with the toughest guy killing most Bangaloreans, the traffic on my way back home.

Kannada Rajyotsava

Kannada Rajyotsava is the day on which the state KARNATAKA was formed by Independent India. On 01 November 1950, a little over 3 years of independence from British rule the state got formed.

As a remembrance of this, many people, associations, groups and Organizations celebrate the occasion by performing a pooja to goddess KannaDambe and hoist state flag. The state flag of Karnataka is twicolored with Yellow forming the upper part and Red forming the lower part. Frankly, I do not know what these colors signify. The National flag of India is a tricolored one with Saffron, White and Green. It also has emblem of Ashoka Chakra. The saffron stands for courage, sacrifice and the spirit of renunciation; the white, for purity and truth; the green for faith and fertility.

A group of Kannadigas (people who speak Kannada) in my office got together and decided to celebrate Kannada Rajyotsava. The good thing is the entire event is planned to kept unofficial (not involving office). The date has been chosen as 13th of Nov. List of Kannadigas in office was prepared, an e-group was also formed to carry out communication.

Now, is the turning point of the story: having lectured about Kannada Rajyotsava above and being born in a Kannada speaking family, I did not wanted to be a part of it. Well, in the era of Globalization, how much importance does it holds to identify myself with a language (mother tongue) I speak, the skin color I am of, the caste I belong to ….?

My belief of forming states in India was to share and delegate Governance. One single body will not be able to handle all the interests of the citizen of the country and hence sharing of task and responsibility is inevitable. This rather has resulted in the barriers (more of mental than physical) among people living this country. The state has witnessed worst of riots and communal clashes during scarcity of potable water from the basins of River Cauvery (Kaveri).

If we do not put an end to barriers of mental discrimination, these barriers will put an end to us.

Diagphram meets Rib Cage

A day when Silicon city of India had to see outburst of sky to the highest in past 49 years. 24th October 2005 made Bangalore literally submereged in water due to heavy rains. This had several effects and after effects, one such major catastrophe was chaotic traffic block in all corner of the city.

It took 3 hrs 18 mins to reach home from office on this special day. we started from office as usual @ 18:15 hrs and reached home around 21:30 hrs.

I was one step away from death due to starvation. Among the mistakes done in my life so far, is not eating the snacks in office on this evening. Human kind would loose faith in food, if anybody tells that I expired because of Hunger. This is because of the fact that I am having so much fat (I weigh just a little above 80) reserves in my Body that a Tiger can have a feast of me for atleast a week.

I started hogging my dinner after reaching home. When I went to bed a while later after dinner, I started feeling uncomfortable. A little later, I found it difficult to breathe properly, also my tummy was bloated like a big gas baloon. I felt as if diagphram was kissing the rib cage. I was immediately rushed to Hospital by my wife. The Doc whom I consulted, diagnosed it as a case of "Accute Gastrities". I was given 2 injections and kept in observation for half an hour or so. Later, the following day, I relaxed at home with nice home made food.

people say, delivering a baby is a re-birth for a woman. The pain I suffered diagphram was foreplaying with Rib cage was no less than delivering a baby.

Bangalore Traffic

Will Constructing Flyovers, making roads one way solve Traffic problem?
Well, this looks like a question to be posted in Times of India opinion poll. The Answer to this question would be both YES and NO.

Bangalore, capital city of Karnataka has manifested itself from Garden city to a Silicon city. This is a city that has no boundaries for growth in all aspects: Area, Population, Intellect, Trend, Vehicles… in short A to Z. As a result of this boundless growth, a need is seen for a corresponding all round development, such as development of Landscape, Roads, Transportation, Standard of living to name a few.

With this the questions that arise are:
Ø Can Development be synchronous with Growth?
Ø What are the ill effects when there is a gap between Growth and Development?
Ø How do we eliminate such ill effects?
Ø Who is responsible to bring in synchronization between the two?

Bangalore that has seen boundless growth has also seen the various measures taken up by Government and Non Government organizations to satisfy the need of Overall Development.

In this article I would like to consider only one major problem/challenge faced by each and every person residing in the city, TRAFFIC.

Development is an opportunity, when not achieved turns out to be a Problem. This is just the converse of saying “Problems are actually not problems, they are opportunities in disguise”.

One of major developments seen to fight traffic menace in city is, increased number of Flyovers and Roads being made One Way. This has proved successful to certain extent and hence the answer to the question is YES, however they have failed to ELIMINATE the problem. This just makes the problem disappear temporarily. Hence the answer is NO as well. In fact, such measures are adding to the problem.

Let us look at few scientific steps that can be taken to achieve overall development at a lower cost as compared against unscientific steps.

Bandwidth cannot be continuously increased. Restrict Traffic instead, by creating Zones:
Ø The city can be divided into FIVE Zones East, West, North, South and Central.
Ø Allocate Public and Commercial transport vehicles corresponding to Population density of each Zone. Confine these vehicles to movements Intra-Zone
Ø Provide Few Inter Zone Transports.
Ø Decentralize Outstation Transports to an entry/exit to the nearest Zone.

This ensures:
Confined number of vehicles within Zone.
Uniform distribution of Public and commercial transportation, hence better availability at the hour of need.
Reduced number of vehicles (outstation transports) entering major parts of city

Create/Develop alternate Paths:
Ø Identify the bottle neck area
Ø Identify possible alternate routes to reduce congestion
Ø Make use of LMVs if alternate routes are not wide enough to allow HTVs

Put a Cap on the number of vehicles to be registered for a year:
It is necessary to put a cap on the number of vehicles a city is prepared to bear for a year, similar to issuance of Visa, a country can welcome foreigners.

Create Road dividers, Fill Pot holes and remove unwanted Speed(back) breakers:
Ø Along with providing safety, Road dividers also ensure vehicles from one side of the road do not take up the entire space.
Ø Removal of unwanted speed breakers smoothen Traffic flow.
Ø Filling Pot holes avoids lot of accidents.

Tow vehicles to move Broken down vehicles:
It is not enough if Tow vehicles are used only to tow away vehicles parked in No Parking zone, the better usage of Tow vehicles lie in towing of broken down vehicles causing congestion.

Move Bus stops, Parking, Taxi/Auto stands to middle of the road or create a Bay :
The scenario seen in city is Bus stops are at the beginning or end of road which cause congestion. Moving these to middle of roads or creating a bay will ease the traffic flow.


Educate Public on Best Driving/Riding Practice:
There is a possibility of general public not being aware of the wrongs they are doing while driving/riding vehicles. Video picture of wrongs and rights displayed on Television network, Bus stations, Railway stations and other public places will help people learn right way of driving or riding. This will be a major (75%) contributing factor for the solution proposed.

With all the mentioned above measures, betterment can be achieved with existing resources and minimal cost.