Year: 2007

the beggars association of South End Circle Signal (affiliated to the CITU) vehemently protest against the proposed flyover at south end circle. “We are being denied our livelihood”, they will say.

This morning I decided to try the Volvo bus service from close to my house to somewhere near my office. One reason was laziness to drive, while the more important one was to figure out a way to get to work on other days when i’m lazy to drive. I’d made enquiries with the conductor of V500L which I’d taken back from work on Friday and was told that there is a V500K which leaves Vijayanagar around 0720, and is expected to come to Kathriguppe at around 0740.

Not wanting to risk missing it, I was at the bus stop at 0730, and after a 20 minute wait, the bus arrived. Surprisingly, there was just one empty window seat (I didn’t want an aisle seat since I knew that the bus would get damn crowded later on), which I promptly took. And the fare of Rs. 35 was a pleasant surprise (it’s clearly not kilometer-based. Kundalhalli Gate to Corporation costs the same as Kundalhalli Gate to Kathriguppe). Traffic was already heavy. It was past 8 when we crossed Kamakhya (200 meters away) and 0820 when we left Banashankari Bus Stand. Worse was supposed to follow.

We passed the 16th Main signal at BTM layout peacefully (on the first signal) but then began the real trouble. A seemingly endless bottleneck. At least from my last seat, I couldn’t see the end of it. Took around 20 minutes to get past it. The trouble was close to the BTM bus stand. There are three intersections between 16th Main and Silk Board, and all of them are regarded as “minor” (ring road intersects with small roads). #1 and #3 were manned by dutiful home guards, while no one even thought of #2. Tough to describe it without a picture (and i’m too lazy to draw one now), but basic thing is that people who were coming in from the cross road and turning right towards silk board on the ring road had blocked off all traffic on the ring road from silk board towards Jayanagar. A few minutes later, I was to find out that the jam in the opposite direction had extended well into HSR Layout!

I have a simple thumb rule when it comes to traffic bottlenecks. Look at the flow of traffic in the opposite direction. if it is “normal”, then, it means that the jam has partly cleared and there is some hope of moving ahead. If there are no vehicles coming from the other side, things are really bad somewhere, and the process of jam clearing hasn’t started yet. And you can brace yourself for a long wait. Another danger when that happens (no vehicles in the opposite direction) is that auto drivers and taxi drivers will assume that it is a one way and try to be too clever and go on the right side of the road! You can safely take a nap in your car then.

Coming back, there was another hold-up at the Outer Ring Road – Sarjapur Road signal. Reason for that is not known, though I suspect faulty calibration of the signal – not enough time has been given for traffic coming from silk board. After that, the journey was fairly peaceful, with even the notorious Marathhalli bridge being crossed in a minute. Before getting off at Kundalhalli gate, I asked the conductor if it always takes this long. He said normally we should be half an hour quicker than we were today! Some hope are there. Kundalhalli to office was just five minutes and five rupees by a normal bus, and I walked in at 0940.

Driving to work in the morning before the rest of Bangalore wakes up (0700), and returning when most others would’ve just finished their lunch (1600-1630), I’ve been missing out (!!) on a few interesting things. I already mentioned to you about the easily avoidable jam caused in BTM. Then, the once notorious Marathhalli bridge is quite ok nowadays, and you can pass it within a minute (it used to take upto half an hour earlier). But the reconstruction of this bridge has hopelessly exposed bottlenecks in surrounding intersections, such as the Airport Road- Outer Ring Road, or teh one at Kundalhalli gate. The latter was crossed quickly only because I was changing buses there, so could do a bit of walking!

Then, the BMTC seems to be doing a good job with respect to introduction fo buses. While I was waiting for a bus at Kathriguppe, I was easily the guy who waited the longest – since i was specifically looking for a volvo. There seem to be a large number of normal buses, and it looks like people could do with a few more of those – many of those buses were hopelessly crowded. Even at the jam in BTM, most of the vehicles seemed to be buses!

I’m wondering about the wisdom of introducing bus lanes on a few important roads, at least earmark lanes for buses during peak hour.? However, there are a few issues. How do you take care of intersections (there are too many of those)? Private buses and company buses are another menace. They turn and stop and go and speed quite abruptly, and are a major impedance to the flow of traffic. We could think about curbing them on a few roads at least. The most important issue, of course, is if we can afford a bus lane, in terms of availability of space on the road – which are mostly 2-laned. And of course, there is the issue of enforcement!

One more thing is that the bus I traveled in was jam-packed. Clearly, there is a need for more Volvo buses. One issue is there, however – non-peak hour load factors on Volvos are abysmal, and I’m not sure if the BMTC can put in Volvos to use just during peak hours. Maybe off-peak hour discounts could be a good idea.

Looking back, the first time I heard of Google was sometime in 1999/2000, when I read the news report that Yahoo! had changed their search engine from Inktomi to Google

Bhaand has tagged me. So here are eight random facts about myself.

• I wear my watch on my right hand. And it’s a fairly heavy watch. So once when for some reason I had to wear it on my left wrist, I started feeling left-handed
• Most of my “stories” are based on principles called “sampling” and “interpolation” (from the world of digital signal processing) . I pick out a real life incident/chain of incidents, select a few facts from that and then build a story around that.
• I like to use analogies. For example, I used this analogy to explain something to my boss this morning.
• suppose God decides that nothing can be taller than 8000 meters. so he takes a saw and cuts off the tops of all the peaks which are higher than 8000 meters. The himalayas will still generallly look the same

  however, if the height cap is something like say 3000 meters, then the “profile” fo the himalayas will change in a big way

  since in our case the capacity is nearer to the higher end of hte demand than to the lower end, requests and bookings profile look pretty much the same

• I have over 750 friends on orkut, and I know each and every one of them personally
• Back in my IIT days I used to be known as “database”. I used to be the distributor of all the latest gossip, and also knew some not-so-well-known details about a lot of not-so-well-known people
• I frequently suffer from bouts of “NED” (no enthu da), also known as bouts of enthulessness.
• I’m currently suffering from a bout of NED, so i’ll stop here. And i don’t even have the enthu to tag 8 others.

bjbalaji

, baada? and I went for Sivaji yesterday night. “Second show” at PVR. Baada had put fight on saturday itself in order to book the tickets in advance, and since the movie was supposed to start at 10, I had a quick dinner, left my motorcycle and sensibilities behind and proceeded to the Forum by auto. And before I left, my mom had ensured that I emptied my wallet, for I was supposed to return at around 1 am. Out came eight credit/debit cards (i didn’t know that I carried so many), my driving license and PAN card, and in went some 10 rupee notes.

The first part of the Sivaji experience was in getting in into the hall. I guess prints from a show elsewhere had failed to show up on time, so we were kept waiting outside the theater for about half an hour. This was followed by another 15 minute wait inside the theater but just outside the hall. All part of the “experience” I thought. And the latter wait allowed PVR to ensure some basic sales of the highly overpriced chaat and soft drinks and snakes.

The movie began at around 10:45 and I must say it was quite enjoyable (the only Rajnikant movie i’d watched earlier was Hum). It was good that I had left my brains behind, and the action, the fight sequences, the style, the dialogues (yes I managed to understand most of the tam) were a treat. I was happy that I had decided to take in the movie as a comedy – with the same frame of mind in which I take in a Govinda or a Jaggesh movie – for this was the best way to enjoy the movie. And in my opinion, the best part of the movie was the fight choreography! It was a long time since I’d seen a movie with this kind of action.

During the movie, one coudn’t help but wonder if the producers had spent too much. The sets for most songs seemed elaborate and garish, and for the amount they spent filmign them, I don’t think they added any value. I don’t think there would be more than a handful of incremental people who would watch the movie because of the elaborate sets for songs. The director/producer sure needs a lesson in cost cutting. One thign though – the song sequences themselves (they are independent of the storyline) are extremely essential. For the imported heroine Shriya plays a character who is required to wear a sari through the movie, so the dreamy songs were the only way some skin could’ve been shown!

I also noticed a large number of instances (intentional or unintentional) and a large number of missed opportunities for product placements. There was Fair and Lovely, the Apple Mac, IBM TP, British Airways, Delta airlines and even sun TV (surprising since the movie’s rights have been sold to rival and still-in-the-womb Kalaignar). One major missed opportunity I thought was for ITC. There were so many “Vaangos” and “pOngos” in the movie that it would’ve been an ideal vehicle to market Bingo! Maybe ITC was pissed that Rajni doesn’t smoke in the movie. And of course, center fresh’s sales in TN would leapfrog over the next few months, especially with the potential wastage of a large number of chewing gums by people trying to copy Rajni and throw it into their mouths!

Overall it was a fun experience, and I laughed my heart out through the movie. The storyline itself is bad but who cares? We’d rather not have a story at all and instead just have a sequence of fight sequences! There should definitely be more fight sequences set in musical shops, with the Baass playing Baass guitar with the villains!

Once the movie was done, it was a pleasant surprise that there was a large supply of autorickshaws outside the forum and one of the guys agreed to drop me for “double the meter fare”. Of course I paid him a little less than that after pointing out that his meter was tampered. And this morning I woke up to read the headlines that raids have been conducted on a number of real estate developers in Bangalore. Fitting, right?

It was shortly after my sixteenth birthday. Those days, the latest buzz around town was with regards to proposals. Everyone seemed to be proposing to everyone else. In new school, in old school. New film actors, old film actors. I had recently switched to the Times of India (from the Deccan Herald) and that too was full of proposals. So here I was, just turned sixteen and not having proposed to anyone yet. It was so obvious that I was feeling left out.

She was a damn good friend. Actually came close to qualifying for “best friend” status. We used to say “hi” to each other at least eighteen times a day (yes, we used to keep count). Before school. After school. Between classes. During class, when I used to turn back to catch that mischievous smile and the ‘hi’. Or when I turned back to shoot paper pellets (made from carefully collected paper in which the guy at Richmond circle used to wrap roasted peanuts). Oh yeah, and for good measure, she used to wear contact lenses.

And I proposed to her. At least I think I proposed to her. I had no prior experience, as you might have guessed, so I didn’t (and don’t) know what a good proposal speech is supposed to sound like.

The next morning, there was a different air about school. Something seemed different. Not that I had liked it too much in the preceding few months, but today seemed especially gloomy. And the chill winter breeze didn’t help matters. And he was waiting for me at the gate. He was unusually early, i thought – for he used to usually come in not earlier than five minutes before the school bell.

He started with a cold stare, which soon turned into a glare. I was smiling. “How the hell can you do it”, he asked. “How the hell can you propose to my girlfriend?” Oh, so she was his girlfriend. I had heard that there was something going on between them but I didn’t know it was that serious. Rather, I don’t think I knew what girlfriend meant (I don’t think he did, either). For the next five minutes, it sounded like a prepared speech. Had he delivered it on stage, he might have won the school elocution. It was a pity that he was wasting such a powerful speech on me. I pretended to listen, and added seasoning to his speech with timely “ohs” and “ahs”. Soon, I was bored, and quickly drafted a mini speech.

“I’m a free citizen of free India”, I said.

“What?”, he sounded shocked.

“I’m a free citizen of free India and I have the right to freedom of speech and can say whatever I want to whoever. So what’s your problem in life?”

Onlookers later told me that he was on the verge of beating me. And that I was saved by the bell, literally. We soon took our places in the assembly line and then proceeded to class.

What I told you just now makes a nice story, you might agree. It could have been nicer, if only I knew where this girl is now. I’m told that three years back, she had taken a job in Madras. And nothing has been heard about her after that. I asked her friends in engineering. They knew only till the part when she went to Madras. I asked a few classmates from school. No one had a clue. I asked the girl who I thought was her best friend in school. She too said she didn’t know.

Most of my sources agreed on one thing though – that she had split with the guy who had almost beaten me up in school. Apart from that they knew little about her.

The story is that so far she is the only girl I’ve ever proposed to, or so I think (I’m sure i haven’t proposed to anyone else, so it’s either this one or none at all). And I don’t know where she is. Don’t have a clue. Not even the all-pervasive orkut has helped me find her. And oh yes, I’m still a free citizen of free India, though I’m a wee bit more skeptical now regarding the right to freedom of speech.

I find vocal carnatic music extremely irritating. As much as I love the instrumental version, I simply can’t stand the vocal version. The vocal stuff gets on my nerves and drives me mad. On the other hand, I find instrumental stuff extremely pleasing and soothing, and an excellent background music when mugging, etc.

Could it be because of the fact that I am more familiar with the instrumental version (i’m a trained violinist)? I don’t know how that should make a difference but perhaps it is a fact that I connect better with string stuff. However, I like instrumental carnatic music across the board – irrespective of the instrument. So this reason is a little hard to believe.

Another reason for it could be the lyrics. As you might know, the basis for most carnatic music is praise for God, and even though most of the lyrics are in Gult/Tam/Sanskrit – languages i’m ok but not very proficient with – that might be a reason why I get put off. instrumental music on the other hand has no lyrics. Just the wonderful note-combinations and the gamakas and and sequences.

I’m also wondering whether it has something to do with the voices. Let’s face it – a large number of “big” singers (those that are usually featured on Shruti – on worldspace) are well past their “prime”. This is not to say that the elderly can’t sing well – Asha Bhonsle I think sings as well as she used to – but maybe the voice-music combination just isn’t right. A lot of voices I here are old and shaky, and while they may sing all the notes perfectly, I’m not sure if they do full justice to the music.

I’m not even sure if it has something to do with the age of the singers. The other day I was listening to a fairly young singer and he too failed to make an impact – in a positive way i mean. Maybe it has to do something with the choice of an extremely low frequency base ‘sa’ note. I’m not really sure.

Of course the irritation is not universal. The other day I was listening to Remember Shakti (yes, i consider that to be Carnatic music) which had Shankar Mahadevan providing the vocals, and it was simply superb. A few differences between this and “normal Carnatic music” I would like to point out. Here, Shankar, was singing but the other instruments also had their share of microphone volume. this is something that seldom happens in classical classical where the singer even drowns out hte other instruments. Another difference was that there were no lyrics in what Shankar was singing. It was mostly “aaaaa” etc. And most importantly it was Shankar – say what you want but Shankar’s voice is definitely superior to that of most contemporary and not-so-contemporary classical classical singers.

Any other reasons you have to offer???

there is no doubt that led zep have created a lot of awersome music -? stairway… , kashmir, whole lotta love, black dog, babe i’m gonna…

but what sets them apart is that they haven’t made any bad songs! i mean, most other bands i listen to have 1-2 really irritating songs which can get on your nerves. none of that with led zep!??

It is common practice in the Indian film industry for characters to be named after the actor playing them. I mean stuff like (ok i can’t get a better example) in Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin, Pooja Bhatt’s screen name is Pooja; or in Andaz Apna Apna, Raveena Tandon’s character is called Raveena and Karisma Kapoor’s character is Karisma, or closer home*, Chandni’s character in A (upendra’s acting debut) is called Chandni!

Also, after ten years of religiously reading reviews of movies, I notice that this practice is more common among women than for men. More importantly, I notice that the above phenomenon is much more common in the southern fim industry than in HIndi. And that this is done usually early in the actor’s career.

In this context, I’m surpised that the Superstar (or the Boss) took more than thirty years to act in a movie where he uses his first name as screen name!

*? “closer home” needs some explanation – Upendra is my neighbor. lives across the street from my house