The Great Bangalore JAM

Just a few months back I was claiming that I enjoy the commute to office, as my Apache RTR would be waiting every morning to zap me through the 12 KM outer ring road stretch in 20 mins, taking a brief break at the few signals that would let me overtake the fast moving 4 wheelers. But this day, it took me 2 hours to reach the office. When I told my friends about this they said that this 10x* delay is nothing when compared to their best scores. But getting drenched both in sweat and drizzles in the same commute, I have my due rights to crib. And here comes this post: on the great Bangalore Traffic JAM

The traffic was fun as I could manage to drive through the small gaps the SUVs would leave for the bikers like me: to have the excitement of leaving the rich commuters behind with their morning radio, the fun that bikers alone would understand and appreciate. And when the theory of particle moment decided no more movement of liquid particles, I stopped.

A moment latter a vibrating tummy stopped next to me, as the scooty carrying it could move no further. The engine stopped when the burning petrol was no longer a global warming concern, but his monthly budget consideration. As global warming and overloading of poor vehicles were not the interesting of the topics, I decided to move ahead to a trail that will take me to the next signal. Apparently there are many more like me on the road, trying to advance. But amazingly the collective effort by all the individual drivers has an inverse effect of the traffic as a whole – it won’t move an inch.

The only cheerful things were the forward jokes on traffic Jams that I could memorize. I remember one of my bro’s friends telling me that he used to take a newspaper with him on the way to office, and would finish reading every corner of it by the time he reached office. If the traffic remained like that for few more days, I would have to think about some innovative idea – a new company till work (female of-course) or a new company to work for (closer to my home)

Am not sure if it’s the weather that responded to my mood or vise-versa, but both of them turned irksome. The sun should have read some twitter update. He came all his way pushing the clouds aside to check out this JAM and bless us with some free vitamins. After what looked like an era the traffic finally started moving. And then the auto guys who were standing on a perfect 45-degree angle to cross the road from the closed drains managed to do the honors. The traffic stopped again, almost– moving at a speed of 2 kmph (~ 1.25 mph for all you NRIs)

The immediate signal finally came within an hour. It’s not just the lack of basic needs of food and shelter; even the frustrating traffic jam drives the senses off people. The rich - poor, educated - illiterate, student - professional, to - fro commuters everybody started squeezing into the small junction – my social teacher john appeared of thin air saying “unity in diversity” to the classroom- me sitting in the second bench. And the realty stuck me “Holy crap! Hallucination – I needed some shade soon or I will faint”

I sure have some powers, within hours* the gods heard me. The sun vanished – probably some other topic was trending on twitter, and soon the clouds took charge drizzling some tears at our apathy.

“Remember SRK’s ‘I DO’, I AM the traffic jam” I said to myself and started steering my bike into the ruthless signal, leaving other poor souls in the back to think about their social teachers.

What was a boring 2 hours in JAM, turned out to be the exciting 15-minute finale. A truck guy with just beard and teeth (if I am to believe only my eyes) started forcing me toward the pavement of the road with his stupid truck blocking my way on to the road. He should be feeling good about helping me- by showing an alternate route he just discovered.

There lies the real reason for the traffic JAM, the fly over under construction. And I am right in the middle of that fbeepng construction. I wonder how these intelligent people think that the red ribbons that they put can really barricade the people entering the site – especially the mini truck terrorists from cross-border.

I turned back furiously to this truck guy and he was gesturing me to go with one hand while his other was on the horn ready to honk if I disobeyed. His only visible white teeth were assuring me that “I am behind you my boy, go ahead”. And few more vehicles followed this Columbus. “Now I can’t really block the innovation”, I convinced myself and moved on.

The road got narrower and the gap between the pits (dug for the pillars of the flyover) smaller as I went on. I turned back, and to my horror, the truck guy wasn’t there. The squander should have found his way towards the Hosur road leaving me in the middle of the construction.

The only spectator was a guy standing at the construction site- should be one of those TV9 Journalists thinking about the right abusive words to blame govt for my death. But to his dismay I managed to cross the patch, thanks to the servicing the previous week, the tires did not skid on that damp scrap.

A twitter post saying “frustrating traffic jam” would have been good enough. But 140 letters are hardly sufficed to let my frustration out. For true, traffic JAM is one of the instances where you realize that it is a myth that you can be in control of your life (circumstances at-least)

eNjoy,
Morus

* PS 1: Time is measured as per Einstein’s theory of relativity "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.”

PS 2: The ending comment is more to keep my mark of giving some gyan with every post of mine.

PS 3: I know traffic jam is not one of the fascinating topics, but wanted to throw a challenge at my writing skills (if I can call it a skill yet). Love to hear your comments

PS 4: The NRI comment is the pitch for my next blog

Did I Win?

Read an interesting news article recently - the list of top failed countries. Pakistan as one of the top failed counties in the world. The first reaction to the news is a subtle happiness, for some reason that I don’t know.

May be this is the success of all the news hungry media/politicians and the so-called patriotic movies that stole a part of my hard (not really) earned money. For whatever reason, this country is my enemy and the first reaction to the news that it is in the list of failed countries is my victory, even though I have no role to play in its success or failure.

And then when I talked to few of my friends about this news, they too share the same happiness. So I am not the only one who is thinking iniquitous

A little more research on the same topic suggested that few other countries – Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh are also in the top of the list. God all our neighbors failed. Now is this a good sign. May be not.

And then I am confused, not because I have to rule India and talk to all these countries every week and day, but because of the weird correlation that came to my mind – the competitiveness in me. And I think all of us at different levels; share this attitude – fervor to win. And along with it comes this mysterious happiness on others failure, if we consider them as competition.

It’s more like this – all the while you struggle to reach the top. But when you succeed to reach there, then it will become all the more difficult to celebrate it, because you might have lost friends in the journey who would otherwise cheer you. And then you will keep wondering why you are not on cloud 7 at-least if not 9 at your victory.

Well it is not as worse too, but sometimes, a little exaggeration is required for your eyes to see the truth. But seriously, many a times the concept of victory looks dappled – especially if it comes because of other party’s failure. The only thing that can keep your sole at bay is the conviction that you played fair.

eNjoy,
Morus

With the Present - one more time

“It's already late. The traffic of the outer ring road will be insane. And the 3 signals! I am surely to miss the train.” This used to be part of the travel packages almost all the time. Well, you can read that almost as certainly.

But this time it is a little different. Letting 3 buses go at 1 AM, drinking the tea from the platform vendor is not something that I generally do. Just to be transparent to my usual self I chose these reasons - the first bus was crowded, the seats of the second bus were not good and the conductor of the third bus was not shaved properly.

While these reasons will not satisfy my usual self that has mastered the world of reasoning, today I choose to enjoy my journey.
No advance booking, no enquiries of the routes. But this time, the time is spent on all the important unimportant things like copying all the new songs to iPod, thinking about the book to read on the journey.

Part of the excitement is that I am going into the deeper parts of Karnataka to spend time with my dad - the same place that my dad took me when I was 2 feet tall. Now both my Kannada knowledge and my height grew alike (meaning not enough). Nevertheless I can understand if not talk a little more Kannada now.

It feels great to set your foot in a place that you know nothing about - nothing but the fact that you have been there in some distant past.
Yo man! Life is long. (Or I am old!)

This feeling is close to what I used to have back then - the distant past. The magnetic chessboard was all that I cared about and some company to play and loose the game against me, watching the bright round light of the coramandel express.

I think the similarity is that I am living in the present - in both the cases.

Of course it is true that even if I take bike rides, I will reach the 180 odd kilometers by tomorrow morning. But the point I am trying to make here is that I generally loose the charm in life because I am more concerned about the uncertainty of the future, taking it for granted that the present that has not gone wrong is in fact a stage for celebration. (Err, curse my English for yet another long sentence!)

Let me leave you with this thought -
Did you ever have this urge of forwarding all the songs in your play list expecting the next song to be better; while all of them were in-fact the songs chosen by you and your favourites. I have it often - more so when I’m psyched. But now I've been using iPod only to write this blog, enjoying all the songs in my play list.

eNjoy,
Morus

What managers expect...

Am a lil busy guys, these days.. Will catch up with you soon.. and will be something big this time...
(not getting married, of all the things)

meanwhile, dont want you guys to miss the best appraisal fwd mail i got....

What managers expect.... (feel free to use it in your self appraisals, short term/long term goals). A picture is worth 1000 words, if not more :P

It is not my story

Refer to the ‘Wattha Hell Series: The introduction'

It is not my story

If not for that not, the above sentence is heard a lot these days from the India’s best selling author Chetan Bhagat hereinafter called CB. The term of CB means and includes his respective names, nicknames, pen names and extra hyped publicity. (if you want to know more about the controversy, this is your hot stop)
My interest in the topic this time – for a change is not because it managed to reach the top of the crap news that Bangalore Times sells. But because I hold high regards for both the parties involved in the controversy. I am a big fan of direction/plot/screen play of the Munna Bahi series (and 3 idiots just took that regard to the new level), and the other guy for his speeches and columns (I personally feel that his books are crap)

I read this on CB’s blog "I don’t need anything. Even if I have no more movies made on my stories or nobody wants to read my books and columns, I’ll happily join ISKCON and dedicate my life to Krishna. But I will not shy away from the truth – ever." and I felt, what a guy – all the logic in his blog is unquestionable! India needs politicians like him. And then thought about it for a while and felt, what a crap – no surprise if he becomes a politician soon. If this guy talks so much of logic now, what stopped him from using a pitch of it during his involvement in the whole project?

Well, but let’s not take things too seriously. These guys - both CB and 3 idiots team are doing their job – to keep people entertained and give media a bone to bite.
From his blog, looks like CB (along with his fans) has moved on, without getting any of the credits - for what he fought. But what he got is a percentage increase in this fan following, increase in sales of his book and his popularity. I was doing a Google search for some “check” and when I typed “che”, it suggested chetan bhagat (while chess. check, cheap all start with che). Look at his whuffie bank stats for a visual clue of that he achieved – popularity. His books are there for 5 years and he is aleady FAMOUS. But the stats say differently. ( i mean not just this analytics bit, but how often did you hear him in the media pannel discussions before this issue?)




“Read my book, watch the movie – and then you decide” is what he has to say. In the gusto of being a judge, looks like junta are doing both – reading book and watching movie. The sales of his books have been shot up by 30% apparently and 3 idiots movie is crossing breaching all the box office records.
I’ll not be hesitant to believe any rumor saying that this is a self-created melodrama – after all he is an IIM alumni and ex-Investment Banker, who has to now live solely on writings.

By the way, if CB gets his due credit for the movie - will the title be changed to 4 idiots?

eNjoy,
Morus
P.S 1: Since I borrowed most of his dialogues (not sure of the percentage), not to create any controversy, I am giving this post’s credits to CB (that too before any other end rolls)
P.S 2: Did not include 3idiots team, as they don’t take this credits funda seriously

Happy New Year!

Let me start this blog and the year with my status message on IM

History will remember 2009 as the year of slowdown... but lets forget it while we are marching into 2010... Happy New Year

I just closed the 67 open browsers in firefox, safari, and sea monkey and quit all of them before I opened this window to pen down this post.

The 30 minutes rain drive back home locked me at home for the remaining part of the day (not that I had plans otherwise). So decided to take a step back and plan on how I will welcome the New Year now that partying is ruled out.

Not a difficult task at all, looking at my room that was like the Xerox store - full of papers and the white marble floor self decorated with the dust that got accumulated for ages.
Definitely I needed to clear this mess before I plan of my welcome to the New Year.
But before that there are other things that I had to address in the list of my personal mess, like my hair (that falls more than it grows), that needed a haircut for more than a ... (don’t even remember for how long) and by the time I am done with these basic un- screwing up, I realized there is a little time left to plan or execute anything.

But then, when the clock stuck 12 and 2009 mentally departed from my mind I needed no more thinking or planning about this welcome party! I am not partying, not even watching TV exclusive New Year realty shows (that sucks anyways). But I liked this, conscious effort to clear the mess of the past and welcoming the future with a clean board to write upon. Closing these 67 tabs was one such effort.

And that in itself filled me with energy that was long concealed in the pretest of busy life!

For those of you, for whom occasions like New Year are just another day, try this – just try to complete something(s) that is (are) long pending and just wait for it to come. You are sure to make it a special day!

Stay tuned… a lot is to come into this space in 2010

Happy New Year!

eNjoy,

Morus

P.S: Just got myself a pen name – Morus (not sure how long it’ll stay though)

Only they didn’t

I am up to a lot of things these days, and to be frank all of them are quite urgent to handle and very important for me.
I would have been surprised if I managed all of them… even decently sound. But the present circumstance, I definitely am not surprising myself. Well… partly because I’ve been bought into the fact that I cannot handle all of them effectively.

One of them is my Guitar. This is my second attempt to learn Guitar, and I believe that I am far better this time than my first attempt. But that’s where I stopped. Not able to go any further I’ve stopped going to classes for almost a month. That is the equal amount of time that I have actually gone to the classes. One of my reasons was that I would get time to practice my entire backlog if I had time to practice. I am proving myself wrong till now.

Hmmm, this is not one of those confession stuffs. I am not even complaining, but this is what came to my mind when I read this today:
“The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in mind. Folks seem to have just landed in them. But I expect they had lot of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those that just went on” Sam Gamgee chatting with his master Frodo in The Lord Of The Rings. If a good sentence can change a life, I don’t need anything more inspiring than this.

How much of wisdom can these old tales give you? But only, if you care to open your ears and listen. Not everything is relevant to what I am. I definitely am not one of those who want to go out and try adventures. But surely all the people/characters in the famous stories are remembered because they didn’t turn back at lot of chances that would have come to them. And here we live as their legacy. And for those who did, they just never mattered… like many others.
Well… I don’t know what I really would do this time, but here I have a chance to turn back (as always).