Friday, December 30, 2005

Terror in Bangalore

After Wednesday's tragic terror attack at IISc, there have been a few hoax calls and letters about bombs being planted in various parts of the city. I wonder if such a call about a bomb being planted has ever come true. After all, the people who planted the bomb want it to go off and cause maximum casualty, so why would they alert their victims beforehand? Unfortunately no such call can be ignored, which makes it easy for pranksters to have fun making fake calls. It is impossible to protect the whole city against such attacks, so I am afraid that such things can happen again.

Meanwhile, what surprises me is the ease with which the attackers got away from the IISc the other day. How did they manage to make such a clean exit from the crime site and leave the police with absolutely no clues to hunt them down? The police, so far, have clearly figured out that the crime has been committed by 'some' people, now they just need to find out who these 'people' are. They are strongly suspecting that 'terrorists' are involved! Good guess guys!!! They are also suspecting that the attackers used a car or a bike or city bus to arrive at the scene, or else they must have come on foot! Police are probably hoping that one of the terrorist organizations will claim responsibility to the act, making their work easier. Meanwhile they are quickly familiarizing themselves with acronyms of terrorist organizations operating in Kashmir. (For example, LeT is not same as LTTE).

The public meanwhile are wondering how their life will change with these new terrorists in town. So far the only terrorists on road they were afraid of were auto and BMTC drivers. People are also wondering which vehicle allowed the terrorists to flee so easily, without being stuck in Bangalore's traffic jams during that busy hour. The Government is meanwhile wondering how to prevent terrorists from fleeing the site of crime so easily - "We need more traffic jams on our roads!"

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Who are these 'Indians'?

Almost every day, English newspapers in India, especially TOI, report news like "NRI girl is the most popular radio jockey in Canada", "NRI becomes the local council member in US" and recently even "NRI is among the sexiest men in the world"! Whenever I see such news, I read through to see if these NRIs are really Indians by any means. Because after all, NRIs should be Non-Resident INDIANS.

I am often surprised at how easily the press categorizes any famous person with a remote link to India as Indians. For example, if the person's grandmother was half Indian, or if the person's forefathers migrated to Fiji from India a couple of centuries ago, or in extreme cases, any Hindu is categorized as Indian, because after all, Hinduism originated in India ;-) Because this person isn't in India now, he/she should be an NRI :-)

I wish the press was more careful while branding anyone and everyone as NRI. For example, people whose forefathers migrated from India, possibly when Shivaji was alive, are not Indians anymore! Ditto about children of sardars who migrated to Canada in 50s. Even a person born and brought up in India, once he/she takes up citizenship of another country, should not be called Indian or NRI. They are not Indians anymore, forgodsake! The max we could go is call them people of Indian origin.

While at it, there is another class of people - Resident Non Indians - RNIs. These are people who are living in India, but behave as if they are not. This is especially seen in desis returning to India after a stint in the US. You know the type - they fill 'gas' in their car's petrol tank, ask for 'restrooms' instead of toilets, talk with a semi-cooked American accent and begin every sentence with either "This is not how it is in US..." or "When I was in US...". I have heard that some of the RNIs haven't even gone out of India once!

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Shopping in Bangalore

It appears that every day a new mall comes up in Bangalore. So shoppers have more and more choice every day. However, a large percentage of shopping - both wholesale and retail still happens in and around K.R. Market - BVK Iyengar Road area. This is where a number of 'pet's are - Chikpet, Sultanpet, Balepet, Tharagupet, Pearlpet and so on. Oh, sorry, Pearlpet is a company making plastic jars.

I used to be sceptical about the benefits of shopping in these areas and I used to think that the trouble in finding parking place, bargaining and rush in these areas nullifies the advantage of cost savings. However, over the last year I have been to BVK Iyengar Road and surrounding areas a number of times and I can now confidently say that even those who are not good at bargaining, end up saving significant amount of money here compared to other areas. This is pretty much the only area in Bangalore where you can buy everything for less than MRP. Be prepared to start bargaining with at least 25% less over the price he quotes and never stoop below 15%.

One of the major gripes about going to this area is the lack of car parking. However, I saw a good improvement when I went there this weekend. There is now a new multi-storeyed car parking on the junction of BVK Iyengar road and K.G. Road. It was designed to be just like car parkings in western countries, but due to various reasons it has ended up being slightly different. First of all, the inward ramps are so narrow, they test the driving skills of the driver. If I felt that way in my Alto, people who have bigger cars must be feeling afraid to take their cars through. Downward ramps seemed to be alright, though! The staff manning the place are from a private company and they were very friendly and professional, which was a pleasant surprise. There were a large number of them (staff), just like it is with anything in India. They sent me off with Christmas and new year wishes! Parking fee is quite reasonable for the facility - 10Rs for 1 hour and 20Rs upto 4 hours. I hope the other parking areas being constructed / planned by BDA/BCC reach completion soon.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Mystery of Mona Lisa's smile

Looks like people's fascination about Mona Lisa's smile is not going to subside any time soon, in fact it is only going to worsen, like Bangalore's roads. There was a recent scientific study in this area, through which they 'cracked the enigma of her smile'. "According to findings published in the New Scientist, a British journal, the exact breakdown of Mona Lisa's emotions, as captured by Leonardo da Vinci, were 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful, and 2 percent angry." Heck, I am sure they couldn't have analyzed even their wife's smiles this well.

I have seen Mona Lisa when I visited Paris in 2001. I can surely say her expression is 50% surprise and 50% disbelief. Surprise and disbelief that the people of the world are making so much fuss out of her facial expression. I am sure da Vinci will be laughing himself to death in his grave. Oh wait, he can't do that!

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Fair and (uh!) handsome?

Indians have always been attracted to fair skin and considered fair skin superior. I guess when the British landed on Indian shores centuries ago, all they had to do was to just show up and Indians immediately prayed to them "Rule us, please, rule us". It was only because Michael Jackson turned himself white from black, he is considered a 'white' hot star in India. Most of his Indian fans want to meet him probably just to know who his plastic surgeon is :-) Indian girls have always tried to become fairer, proof being the approximately two thousand skin whitening creams available in the market. Going by the claims of these beauty creams, most Indian women should have become at least as fair as Caucasians by now, leaving the Indian men 'in the dark'!

The Indian male had somehow been left behind in this race to 'whiteness'. But not anymore. Recently I saw a TV ad for a product called 'fair and handsome'! It shows a really fair young man being flanked by beautiful girls, apparently just because he is fairer than them! Ha ha! Now Indian girls will have a 'fair' competition from the boys!

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Sandwiches speak Kannada?

I noticed this while running spell-check for my previous entry in this blog. Google thinks the people who speak Kannada are called - prepare to be surprised - sandwiches!! See the image attached here. It could have made some sense to call them Bisi Bele Baths or something like that. Or is this to indicate that Kannadigas are now sandwiched between people who speak other languages? :-)

Bangalore vs Bengalooru

Ever since the Government announced plans to rename Bangalore as Bengalooru (or Bengaluru) last week, there has been a lot of discussion in mainstream media about the pros and cons of it. English newspapers have written mostly about the cons of it. People have expressed their views on both sides of this issue in newspapers, on radio, near office water coolers and at neighborhood addas. I used to have the opinion that any such name change should not be encouraged. I always agreed with the idea that Governments resort to such gimmicks to distract people from the core issues plaguing the city, like development.

However, a few opinions I saw and heard in the last few days have made me re-evaluate my opinion. I was listening to one argument on RadioCity, where a guy said "Yes we know there are problems with Bangalore, Government is not doing enough to improve infrastructure in the city. However, why should that come in the way of renaming our city Bengalooru? What's the connection? After all, Kannadigas have always been calling it Bengalooru all the time". Another argument against renaming Bangalore was that it will lose it's well known name, thus affecting the city's 'brand value'. However, I was reading about such renamings that were done in many countries of the world. Our own Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkota are good examples as well. I don't think any city has suffered a decrease in brand value due to change in name. So why should it affect Bangalore? Hence I think that argument is not valid.

There is one argument against renaming Bangalore that will hold good, though. Our Government will project this as their greatest achievement and forget about doing anything else for the city. Government will spend an exhobirant amount of taxpayer's money in this process. Other cities will quickly ask for name change as well (Mysooru, Mangalooru, etc) and that will start off a chain reaction. So in all this, we the citizens lose a lot.

So I think renaming Bangalore is perfectly fine in principle, but the only real reason to oppose it is our corrupt Governments taking undue advantage of it for their own benefits, wasting a lot of taxpayer's money in the process. Unfortunately this reason will hold true for anything and everything in our country.

About Air India

I travelled Air India/Indian Airlines during my visit to US this time. People are always apprehensive about travelling these 'national carriers'. We get to hear horror stories about how badly they they are managed, how badly the staff behaved and so on. I now have first-hand information about these airlines, so I am ready to bust some myths about them.

* Air India/Indian Airlines flights are all old.
- True. But what about ? The fact is, pretty much all American airline companies are under bankruptcy protection or close to getting there. So they are forced to run their crafts until, say, one of the wings falls off. So we can pardon AI/IA there.

* AI flights are not safe
- Baseless.

* AI check-in staff are rude and unhelpful.
- Not true. I saw perfectly helpful and smiling staff at AI/IA check-in desks. Of course there may be some rude staff in some places, but can you say that won't happen with other airlines? The AI check-in desk staff in Chicago turned out to be dumb, though. They insisted that I move some stuff from my cabin luggage to my laptop bag, because cabin luggage was too heavy. I had to convince them that since both go into the same overhead storage in the flight, it won't make a difference :-)

* AI flight crew are old, slow, stiff faced and unhelpful.
- Partially true. If flight crew have to deal with misbehaving passengers every day, we cannot expect them to remain cheerful throughout the journey. Many desis, once they board AI flight, feel obliged to ask for additional servings of alchohol and within a couple of hours of flight, can't control their minds well. Some feel it is the right opportunity to flirt with air hostesses (What is your name? You are very beautiful. Which city are you from? and so on). Pretty much nobody heeds to the announcements made in the flight until the crew force them to (Landing instructions, etc). Very few of the passengers say "Thank you" when being served. So we can compare the state of crew to BMTC conductors at the end of their day. Considering all this, they do a fantastic job.

* AI flights stink
- True only in toilets, but that too not at the beginning of the journey! Many don't like using toilet paper, so they carry cups to the toilets and... you get the idea. So by the end of the journey there will be water logged on the floor of the toilet, so obviously it stinks. Most passengers don't perform the basic courtesy cleaning of the wash basin, so that stinks too.

* Jet Airways is better than IA.
- True. Jet is better than pretty much all of the domestic flights in the US as well :-)

* Food in AI is good.
- True.

So all in all I think AI/IA do a pretty good job. Some people complain about everything that is 'ours', so they surely complain!

Monday, December 12, 2005

How is 'namma Bengalooru'?

I returned to Bangalore last Tuesday and have slowly gotten adjusted back to life here. I was surprised at how much my home city has changed in little less than 6 months. I am sure people who left Bangalore a few years back will find it hard to believe the amount of changes that has happened here. I will try to answer a few questions such people may ask:

Q: I am flying straight to Bangalore from Frankfurt/London. How is the customs and immigration facility in Bangalore?
A: When I landed in Bangalore this time, I was pleasantly surprised to find smiling, friendly staff at immigration counters. No, I am not joking. They were indeed better than the immigration folks in Chicago airport. They surely set us off on a good mood at 5:30AM. However, customs has not improved much :-(

Q: I have heard that Bangalore airport is very crowded now-a-days and it looks like the Majestic bus stand at times?
A: No, Majestic bus stand does not get that crowded.

Q: How is the traffic situation in Bangalore?
A: Contrary to popular belief, Bangalore's roads are now safer than ever before. All cars move at an average 10kmph and bikes at 15kmph now, so number of fatal accidents is coming down drastically. People walk out of head-on collisions without a scratch on their body!

Q: How is the condition roads in Bangalore?
A: You would have seen some jokes a couple of years back comparing Bangalore's roads to moon's rocky surface. Well, those are not jokes anymore. Only Ashok Leyland, Shaktiman and Ambassador have the right technology to build right vehicles for Bangalore's roads.

Q: How is the water shortage situation?
A: This problem has been fixed. This year during the rains the authorities ensured that all houses get enough supply of water in their ground floor rooms. If that was not enough, there was enough water on the roads.

Q: I was asking about drinking water, through the pipes.
A: Oh!

Q: How is the condition of Kannada in Bangalore?
A: The Government has announced the solution to this problem today. Bangalore will be renamed Bengalooru and that will solve all the problems. It is surprising that the earlier Governments could not think of this.

Q: Is there good coverage of mobile phone network?
A: You must have been away from Bangalore for quite a few years. Now-a-days it is impossible to be in any place where Airtel coverage isn't there. Unless you are in a bunker designed to protect from nuclear bombs.

Q: How is the cost of living?
A: Here is where Bangalore is giving serious competition to the cities in western countries. If you have been in a small city in mid-western US and if you are returning to Bangalore, mentally prepare yourself - you are not as rich as you thought you are.

Q: How is the airport road flyover helping? How about the flyover at Jayadeva circle?
A: If you are returning to Bangalore after 2 years, there is nothing to see at the airport road flyover construction place, because nothing has changed! Jayadeva circle flyover is not very different either. Any joke about these is not funny anymore.

Q: When will these flyovers be ready?
A: This year

Q: That is what you said last year!
A: True. And the year before as well.

Q: Are there shopping malls, multiplexes, good cars and high speed internet access in India?
A: Yes. You should visit India more often.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Going away from people I liked

One of the best things about Austin has been meeting good people, many of which are old friends. We get to know people only when we meet them outside work, which mostly does not happen while in India. I would have never known Suresh and Murali this well if I had not met them in Austin. And then I got to meet old friends from my hostel in Mysore. Gururaja has been in Austin for a few years and helped me with various things, including grocery shopping! Balaji, another from my hostel, joined us in the last one month. In a way I am happy that Balaji did not join us any sooner, because I am sure I would have gained a few pounds thanks to his culinary skills.

Of course, meeting Manju was one of the great benefits of coming to Austin. I got to relive all memories from undergrad days in Mysore. I also realized that after all these days, he has not changed in his core principles and behavior. He remains a true friend and it is good that real friendships don't go stale with time.

There are many such people because of whom I find it sad to leave Austin, in spite of the excitement of flying back home after 6 months. I can only take memories with me. Luckily memories don't consume any space in my carry-on luggage.

Speaking of luggage limits, UA has reduced carry-on luggage limits, putting in in great discomfort. I hope they take pity on me tomorrow at the airport. I am all set for the looooong flight back home, starting tomorrow.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Gas prices and SUVs

America's long love affair with monsterous trucks and SUVs now appears to be headed for an end. Over the last few decades, the low gas prices resulted in nobody caring about gas mileage. Ford and GM built bigger and bigger SUVs every year, until it was difficult to distinguish a Chevy SUV from a FedEx delivery vehicle. These vehicles gave roughly as much gas mileage as a typical BMTC bus. I am sure NASA did more research about making their space shuttles more fuel efficient than GM and Ford about their cars.

In this year's summer gas prices went up to more than 3.5 dollars per gallon, shocking the people who had just a few years back had thought paying 1.6 dollars was too much. This made the people think radically and take some unbelievable decisions, like switching to cars! (No, people are not yet thinking of using public transport). Suddenly they realised that the Toyota or Honda sedan that they never thought of driving could cut their gas bill by half! So sales of Honda and Toyota cars is increasing rapidly. GM is realizing that they never invested in making their cars more efficient. They always thought president Bush would wage another war in the Gulf to bring down the gas prices, but this time it is not happening in spite of the war. Honda and Toyota are smiling, thinking about the research they have been doing about hybrid engines.

Though it may seem like high gas prices hurts the US, it is good in the long term. It is forcing the US car makers to think about fuel efficiency and it is making the US consumers aware of this issue. As biggeest consumer of petroleum in the world, any such effort by US will help the whole world. I hope people in the US switch to smaller cars and all cars run 50 miles per gallon in a few years.