Bengaluru: In the Wrong Lane

This article probably needs some attention. Because the big authors who travel in cars probably won't be able to see this issue that closely as the average guy on the bus would. Therefore I, a guy who travels to and from office on a bus, decided to write about the small changes being made. Changes that become a loud message as they hit tens of thousands of citizens everyday.

While Bengaluru is desperately waiting for Namma Metro to get into work mode from its present tourist mode, the traffic is not in a mood to wait, and is increasing every day. The number of cars is going up by thousands every month. And while there should be encouragement for public transport users and cyclists in order to not just keep the traffic smooth but help save the environment as well, we seem to be making traffic rules for cars instead. It seems we're forgetting that cars can hardly be the lifeline of a city, even if it's the CEO-city of Bangalore.

Let's talk about the buses in Bangalore. The bus services in the city is in general good, and with a few new buses launched every year, things are not in a very bad shape at least. But other than that, the convenience of a bus taker is a different matter altogether, and depends a lot on the wishes or whims of the drivers and conductors.

First of all, even though there are a lot of buses on the 'popular' routes, a little less popular routes seem to get not enough attention from the BMTC officials, and then bus conductors/drivers as well who may decide not to go on a route if they don't so wish. In fact this is not limited to unpopular roads as I can tell I've never seen a bus going from my home (that is the bustling Whitefield bus stop) to my office on Outer Ring Road, near KR Puram. That is irrespective of the fact that I have caught bus 504A from Whitefield, which should take me to my office.

On top of that, in almost every place, bus stops have been shifted or are being shifted ahead of their earlier locations. This creates inconvenience for those who need to change buses as one needs to walk hundred to three hundred meters extra on an average. Such things definitely discourage any people who think of taking a bus, especially at times when one is in a hurry to reach the office or back home.

Talking of another environment friendly option, i.e. cycling, there are very few cycling tracks for the cyclists, and travelling with all the cars and bikes and superbikes in every nook and corner of the city, things are getting unsafe for cyclists. But that is not all. We now have longer U turns and signal free corridors, which make path much longer, creating unnecessary load for cyclists. In such a situation, even proud cyclists are forced to rethink over their commuting options, leave aside a person who might be still thinking of getting a environment-friendly bike.

So while it's good to give space to cars to travel smoothly, it sends a wrong signal to the city when they get priority over public transport and environment friendly commuters. This discouragement to the latter two, even if looking like creating minimal problems, will in turn force more private vehicles on the road, making this a vicious circle which would harm us even more in longer term. We need to get our priorities right. Right now.

My Bangalore: Tickets, anyone?

Right now it's election time, and so, everybody is busy talking about politics and politicians, and hence, about corruption. But traveling in Bangalore I came to know how deeply we are into corruption. Here are a few examples of what has happened with me in the past six months of BMTC travel.

The first, and a highly common practice is the minimum fair minus one rupee system. When u get into a bus for the smallest ticket journey, (3 rupee or 4 rupee, depending on bus) u give exact change to the conductor and he returns you one rupee, like a substitute for the ticket.

More fearless conductors happen to tend to similar practice on higher scale and leave two-three rupees on tickets for longer journeys.

Now the interesting part is what happens when you protest and demand for a ticket. Mostly conductors don't want problems and give you a ticket if you demand for one. Some do nagging and you may need to raise your voice a bit to get the ticket. But then, there are more interesting incidents taking place too.

Once on my way to Marathahalli bridge from whitefield, I met a conductor of high corruption index. It was a Pushpak bus but when I entered the bus I didn't realize and took exact change of rupees eight in my hand, the normal fare for the distance while the actual fare was rupees ten. Now when the conductor came, I asked him for a ticket to marathahalli and he said it was ten rupees. Now he happened to see the change in my hand and asked how much it was. Before I said it was only eight, he asked me to give that itself and moved ahead without giving the ticket. When I asked for the ticket he first tried to ignore me, and when I raised my voice to call him up, he finally said that it was rupees ten and gave me a ticket after I gave him two more.

And then there was the show time. When I was getting down, the conductor asked me if I had the ticket. And as I showed it to him, he almost snatched it from my hand. now that I was on the steps, I didn't want to argue, and so I came out. And the conductor earned a full ten rupees as I'm sure he'd have reused the ticket.

Another, more interesting case was when I was traveling with three friends by a new BIG 10 bus. This time it was from Marathahalli to whitefield. I asked the conductor for two tickets as two of us had passes and he gave me one ticket and one pass. He also told me in Kannada to give the pass back to him when I get down. Though I don't understand a lot of Kannada, I got what he meant. As I was getting down, the conductor asked me for the pass, and while I gave it back, I commented that he had earned a full eight rupees. At that time he was a bit apologetic in tone and reiterated that there was someone who had not given the money for pass while he had took it out of booklet, and so he was trying to get the money back.

Though in the last incident I felt that the conductor might be true, it is also a fact that conductors sometimes do use passes to make money. Once coming to whitefield again, I was given a used day pass by a conductor when I protested for not being given the ticket. This was after ten at night and so the conductor didn't ask for the pass when I got out of the bus.

Most of these incidents look very small but they are a matter of concern for two reasons. First, these incidents anyway give rise to corruption and bring corruption to our daily lives possibly more than anything else. Secondly, these incidents, when seen from a larger frame, must be costing lacs of rupees everyday to BMTC as BMTC buses make more than 70,000 trips everyday.

I think there should be some effort to stop this practice. My suggestion would be that BMTC customers be given badges carrying their names and a unique ID and one should be able to lodge a complaint against such incidents through Internet, phone, and at BMTC offices and if there is a certain number of complaints against a conductor, there should be action taken against him. I hope the overhead of maintaining such a system would be less than the money lost by BMTC due to the bad practices going on currently. And we shall be making a better society anyway.

Happy New Year @ Immadihalli, Whitefield, Bangalore

Happy New Year. Well, I was kind of confused or rather confused without kind of while thinking how to celebrate my new year, that is, the much hyped 00:00:00 of 1st January 2009. I was quite in a fix when I started out around 8.15 and reached the whitefield main road around 8.30. The first thing I saw there was a Red Vajra bus No 333P which goes to MG road and Majestic too, which is on the way to my sister's home. I felt like it was an invitation as I've to wait for this bus whenever I plan to go somewhere. But.. I didn't go.

After moving hundred meters of the cross/bus stop in one direction and a hundred in the other, I settled for 'food first, rest later' strategy and had my dinner at Mayuri Sagar. The food was fine but I felt the thirst I used to at Dhaba, the drink thirst. I don't yet take hard drinks, but can't classify it as soft drink thirst because the effect of soft drinks during this thirst isn't exactly as soft drinks are supposed to leave.

Well, in that mode of mine, I bought an Appy Fizz (cause Mirinda can wasn't there) and started moving in the two hundred meters range I was previously walking, with the deceptive Fizz bottle in my hand, even moving in a way that was deceptive.

While coming back from the Dhaba, I always needed people when I was in such a mode and always got some victims. But this time, there were none present there, so I had to take up the phone. After finishing my Fizz, I called up a friend who tried her best to find some way out for me to celebrate, but since there were actually none, she couldn't find out. Finally I decided to pass some time in the nearby Reliance Fresh and do some shopping, that is biscuits, and more biscuits.

While at Reliance Fresh, I called up my mother and talked to her, and while on the way back, my local guardian, my Jijaji called up. As I reached my room, I and my flatmate Ambuj were thinking how to celebrate our time of the year. Finally, after some usual time pass, I decided to make a list of books I would want to read this year. Ambuj did the same too.

As my list of some twenty-five books was over, sounds of crackers being burst started coming in and we decided to move out of our home to see what was happening outside. I was a bit shocked and a lot surprised to see that people were bursting crackers like anything and everyone looked very enthusiastic, even in the dim lights of street at midnight. And then came the real surprise, when a girl from the party saw us and offered wishes and cake. It was heartening to see people offering cake to us, as we are totally unknown to all in the neighborhood yet.

Later, we both had our time receiving calls from friends and eating biscuits. And then, listening to the Samrat's story of party at UB City when he came at 2.

It was a different type of celebration but it was one. Better than the non-celebration I was afraid of. I wish the year goes well like this too.

Write priorities

Today I read news that says Bangalore shopkeepers will be fined if they do not write their signboards in Kannada. Even if it's not something Raj Tackeray like, I do not think it's the right path that we are taking.

I think we are setting our priorities wrong. I'm not saying that police is not doing it's work, not enforcing law where it should and not catching thieves, robbers and terrorists, but I still think we're in the wrong lane.

I don't really think it matters to those who are shopping whether the signboards are in Kannada or not. Whether they understand English or not. But I think it does matter if somebody hits you and runs and you are not able to read the number of the vehicle.

Yes, I'm talking about the law that deals with the number plates on vehicles in India. As far as law is concerned, every vehicle in India should have a number plate in Roman numerals which is ethically correct too as everyone cannot read numbers in local languages, especially in a city like Bangalore where lot of outsiders are there, while Roman numerals are known to everybody who knows how to read.

But still, I find vehicles on the road, public and private, which do not have number plates in Roman numerals at all. And I don't think anybody tries to fine them.

I don't disagree with the people who feel a shop in Karnataka should have signboards in Kannada. (In fact that way I get more practice of reading Kannada) But I think first we need to set our priorities right.

What's up, Bangalore!

It's been long since I wrote something light on this blog. In fact it's been long since I actually wrote anything on this blog except a Raj Thackeray piece, that is, the one below. So, here we go, on my training in Bangalore.

The fact is that I do not want to write anything about the training or the office. They are too boring to be talked about. Right now I'm in a class of 37 and I hardly remember names of half of them, that is, when there are 5 from my previous batch and a few others from my college also.

So, if the training is boring, what is good at Bangalore. Traffic is certainly not. I start early, at 7-7.15 in the morning so that I reach my center in time. And then, I reach home when the clock is almost in the same position, making it a 12 hour workday for me.

Well, the only good thing at Bangalore is FM. (counting only things, not people, who've been really good, they'll be taken up later sometime) Especially 94.3, the Radio One has been simply great. This channel gives 99.9% Hindi songs (maybe 100, not sure) with Hindi-English-Kannada mixed chattering all the time. They get the credit for my listening to Haule Haule and Guzarish before they reached me through net.

Actually I have a parallel FM too, and that does even have these chatterers in between. It's pure and simple music, songs one after the other. Back to back in the RJs' language. And this is courtesy my cellphone which right now has some 336 songs, that is in a 470 MB memory card. (generally known as a 512 MB card) The only disadvantage with the 'parallel' FM is that it doesn't have ONE song. Here ONE means the latest one.

For example, it didn't have Haule Haule when FM played it for the first time. Then after two days I had all the songs of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, and then after one day I didn't have Guzarish that was being played on FM. So it's just that my FM is one song behind, which is covered up by Radio One.

Other than that, there is 'The Afghan' by Fredrick Forsyth that I'm trying to read in buses and office breaks. But the not-that-interesting book has to fight a lot for my time, with FM and sleep always on the cards. The most surprising thing is that I haven't yet seen Fashion, or any other movie for that matter since I've come here.

Hope things are better when I'm out of training. Till then, it's Java, J2EE, Oracle, RDBMS, tests, projects, JBoss, Eclipse, Head First, Complete Reference....

God Bless Me.