Stock market crash

For the last few days I wanted to blog about the stock market crash. All newspapers carry front page articles showing investors in dispair whenever stock market crashes ("Investors lose <an abnoxiously high number> of crores of rupees") However, they don't raise so much noise when it goes up.

Today I found this article reflecting my thoughts on this issue. (first page, at least). So I guess linking to it, in true bloggers' spirit, is good enough.

Eating in Bangalore

If you roam around the main shopping areas in Bangalore during the weekends, one thing clearly strikes you: Bangaloreans like to eat. Eat a lot. Be it a small road-side food joint like paani-puri stall or bonda-bajji shop or fruit juice place or a fancy and expensive restaurant, if it is in the right location, it is going to be crowded. If you go near Cool Joint in Jayanagar 4th block, you can see people putting their arms and legs at risk to grab their sandwich. The line at Ganesha Dosa camp in 3rd block is rumoured to reach at least a couple of kilometers. If you go to a nice restaurant on Saturday evening for dinner, you will be squarely asked to come back on the same time on Monday, because they are booked solid on Saturday and Sunday ;-) Bangaloreans quickly became rich, or at least spendy, but the infrastructure is not keeping up. If you want to have a nice, peaceful dinner during weekends, the only place to have it is your own home! If you are thinking of a second job, there is no better thing than to open a restaurant.

Time flies!

I have now spent 5 years in my current job. So far, so good :-)

Radio Mirchi

The day I realised that Radio Mirchi (I think this is their website, not sure though) had begun it's broadcast in Bangalore (93.3 MHz) was in fact one day before they came out with newspapers advertisements about their existence. But I heard that they had been on air for a while already. I was expecting them to come out with full page ads in all major newspapers the day they started out. This must be one of the softest of the 'soft launches' we have seen.

I like their tagline/slogan - "Sakkath hot maga". I also like the fact that their RJs can (and do) speak Kannada. I think they are after the FM Rainbow listeners first to build up a good listener base before taking on the Radiocity goliath. So far, I am listening. Go Mirchi!

On a related topic, we had just 3 FM stations in Bangalore till now. They differ greatly in the way they communicate with their listeners. Radiocity is the most informal ("Yo man", "hey gals", etc). FM Rainbow has the middle path ("Snehithare, Dinner Time karyakramadondige naanu nimma gelathi "). The other Akashavani station, Vividha Bharathi is still stuck in the 1960s (with a stern voice : "Shrothrugale, nimma mechina geethegalu Akashavaniyinda moodi banthu")! I think Mirchi is trying to fit somewhere between Radiocity and Rainbow in this scale.

A bit about my Delhi trip

I'm just logging a few things about my 1-day visit to Delhi this week. First of all, Bangalore airport. I have heard that the airport is asking airline companies not to introduce any more flights to Bangalore, because it cannot handle any more passengers. In this sense the airport truly represents Bangalore :-) When we got into the flight, there were enough mosquitoes to make an army of them. Just when all of us, especially the numerous westerners in the flight were wondering if we are going to survive the 2.5 hours journey among these mosquitoes, an air hostess brought and sprayed what smelt like a nice perfume. Only after a few minutes, when there were no more mosquitoes flying, did I realize that what she sprayed must have been baygon-spray-from-hell! Apparently, this spray also results in much nicer behavior of passengers towards the crew. Who would risk their life against such a spray ;-)

Delhi was nice. No, really. In my two very brief visits to Delhi, I have realized a few amazing things about the city. First, Delhi has glimpses of a revolutionary concept in vehicular movement, already popular in most other countries, called driving in lanes. Another phenomenon hardly heard of in Bangalore is that fly-over and metrorail construction actually coming to an end (I know that is hardest to believe). When Delhi'ites complain about traffic problems, it is mostly about traffic congestion. I am pretty sure they have not seen the type of jams we see in Bangalore, where all the city roads look like Kissan factory in peak hour. Except for weather, I wonder if anything is going for Bangalore anymore.

Dr. Raj

By now newspapers have written enough, TV channels have shown more than enough, people have seen more than they wanted to see about the demise of Rajkumar and the violent funeral that followed. The mayhem that accompanied the procession and funeral were really ugly, unfortunate and unpardonable. Sure, this is not the first time we have seen processions marred with violence and lathi charges and this won't be the last. So I won't write too much about it.

In the history of Karnataka, I don't think any person has ever enjoyed such a great fan following. Sure, political leaders have managed to rope in a large gathering to listen to their speeches, devotees have gathered in large numbers to listen to their spiritual leader. However, nobody, neither the great political leaders, nor the spiritual Gurus, not even kings have ever managed to build such a great fan following across all economic and social levels of a society. This is the kind of reverence politicians dream about achieving all their lives. If my understanding is right, Rajkumar was the best example of people uniting around a man based just on Kannada and nothing else. Rajkumar is great for having achieved such an iconic stature. If you are a non-Kannadiga and not too knowledgeable about Karnataka, you must be wondering whether Kannadigas are going to go on a rampage like this every time one of their film stars dies. Rest assured, anything quite like this and this spontaneous won't happen ever again. Nobody else has such a pull on the society.

The events at Rajkumar's death was surely going to be unprecedented. But what really happened was far beyond the expectation of the state machinery. How can the police control the mobs, when some lunatics think "I was unable to see Annavru's body. Obviously, it is the fault of that big BMTC bus. Let me go and smash up it's windshield and light it up as a revenge"

The fun about the Time of India...

...is that when pretty much every newspaper makes the fire in Meerut (that killed more than 50 people) the first news on their front page, TOI thinks the news about Salman Khan going to jail is more important! It is quite often that TOI puts 'masala' items on the front page (like dress code being imposed in Mount Carmel College, kids influencing buying habits of parents, etc) that appear on other pages in other newspapers. I guess their motto is "Anything for marketshare"!

Mass exodus from Bangalore

No, this is not about the IT-BT industry relocating to Chennai and Hyderabad. (I am not worried about that anymore).

Most people living in Bangalore, including Kannadigas, are not natural Bangaloreans. So whenever there is a long weekend, a very large number of people take off from the city to visit their hometowns. This happened again last week, when people took off for a 4-day weekend for Ugadi. I was one of them, trying to get onto a bus on 29th night. When my auto eventually approached the bus stand (Majestic), I noticed that traffic had piled up for at least 2 kilometres from the bus stand. I have no idea how any of the vehicles on K.G Road reached the bus stand that day. My auto driver passed through all the narrowest roads around the main road, some of the roads so narrow people fear to attempt them on two-wheelers, and eventually reached the bus stand. Once in, I noticed that KSRTC had introduced a large number of extra buses for this day, so they had piled up all inside the bus stand and all roads surrounding it. They were running a bus EVERY SINGLE MINUTE from 11PM till 11:30PM to Shimoga alone! Of course, once our bus made it's way out of the bus stand (one hour late), it got stuck in a huge traffic pile up on Tumkur road created by numerous vehicles going out of the city. It really looked like people were fleeing a disaster-hit city.

This problem will only get worse as days go by. I plan to take an extra day off in such cases and go out of the city one daysooner from now on.

Winged visitor at my home

I have always felt sorry for the sparrows, which have lost their habitat ever since our cities and towns got filled with RCC buildings. After we shifted to our new house, since there is a lot of free space all around, it is common to see many varieties of birds around our house. Today, when I returned home, I was told that a sparrow had entered the house! I found him sitting very quietly, as if it was just a stuffed model, on a CFL bulb. I am guessing it is a 'he' (and not 'she'), because he is perched on electrical equipement, which is a 'manly' object ;-) I heard that he tried to get out of the house, but could not find his way out. Since he did not ask for directions, there is no doubt it is a 'he'! He is still there, hopefully we will be able to send him off tomorrow morning. I am too scared to even switch on a ceiling fan today, what if he flies right to it? Meanwhile a lizard on the wall has checked him out from a distance. Luckily the lizard did not go too near or tease the bird too much, so they are both at peace now. Good night, dear bird!

Update (4Apr) The bird promptly flew out of my house this morning the moment we opened all doors and windows. Goodbye!

Your favorite cartoon characters now speak Kannada!

Here is a blog that has famous cartoon strips translated to Kannada. Very unique and nice. Instead of doing a literal translation which screws up the humour completely (like most commercials on TV), this blog tries to be creative with the translated text. Names are also 'Kannada-fied'. Garfield becomes Govinda, Calvin is Keshava/Keshu and Wally, the famous co-worker of Dilbert becomes (I am not making this up!) Venkatachala!!

I am not sure how 'legal' these cartoons are, I am pretty sure they are violating some copyrights. Enjoy it while it lasts!

All those who want to fly Air Deccan,

Please demand to see the plane with your own eyes before booking your ticket. Looks like sometimes Air Deccan can be just air. I think the best flying experience in India now-a-days is on Kingfisher airlines. I admire Vijay Mallya - because here is a guy who has money, is willing to spend it and knows how.

First rain of the year

It rained in Bangalore yesterday. Rains in the first week of March are a rarity anywhere in India, but Bangalore has been receiving rains during non-rainy-season regularly in the last few years. Pretty much every year, Bangalore has been receiving considerable amount of rain in March, April and May months. In fact of late Bangalore continues to receive rains all the way till November! So there is no need to be surprised. These occasional rains keep our city cooler and of course, humid.

Old timers in Bangalore are often heard saying "It used to be so cold in Bangalore during that time. Now the city has gets too hot in summer. But contrary to what they say, weather records show that the average summer temperature in Bangalore has only gone up by half degree in the last 50 years. Of course, We have fewer trees inside the city now, so we feel the heat more now.

Rains bring some miseries to me since I moved to my new house in Bilekahalli. First of all, the very first sign of an impending rain results in our area losing electricity. It is as if the rain drops, if allowed to touch electric wires, will cause an explosion or something. Secondly, due to all the construction activity and total lack of asphault on roads, roads quickly turn messy. Third, with empty lands all around, water accumulates in them and does not flow out easily. Hence I hope the rains start late this year. But I am not very hopeful!

Speaking about dust,

there is a lot of it in Bangalore. Approximately 50% of all that dust lives on my car! I am not joking, I think my car winsthe dirtiest car competition hands down at my office. It is not completely my fault, though. All those folks with glistening clean cars, come to Bilekahalli, or for that matter any area under Bommanahalli CMC once. These are areas that have no idea what asphalting is! You will see your car, irrespective of what color it is, quickly turning into a uniform dust color. Some people even write their names in the dust on my car when it is parked!

But it is not all that bad. Dust on the car has it's own advantages. First of all, safety. Miscreants are far more likely to tamper with a shining clean car than one that forces them to take a bath after touching it ;-) Even two-wheeler riders, who normally don't think twice about creaming a car in their quest to get on the footpath, keep distance from my car. Secondly, dust hides the little scratches and dents that are inevitable on all cars in the city. There is another advantage I have realized recently. Many drivers drive with high beam on. If such a vehicle is directly behind your car, especially if that vehicle is a bus or a bigger car, the light from that vehicle shines so brightly in all your rear-view mirrors that you wish you were blind! Tinting the rear windshield solves this problem partially, but nothing like having a layer of dust on the back windshield to protect you! Now I like it so much, I don't want to disturb the dust layer on my back windshield, even accidentally. Come see my car for yourself if you don't believe. While at it, please try not to disturb the fine layer of dust I have meticulously built up!

Alive!

Contrary to popular belief, this blog is NOT DEAD. It will rise from the slumber very soon. Or as a certain politician once said, it will rise from dust ;-)

Weather prediction in India

Two days back the weather forecast department (I don't call it meteorological department, sounds like something to do with meteors) announced that in the next two days Bangalore will be gripped by a cold wave with temperatures hitting all time lows. Somehow this news brought out a chuckle from me. The weather forecast in India has been horrendously off target ever since they started forecasting. True again this time, it has been sunny and warm for the last two days and there is no sign of a cold wave coming. They quickly corrected the forecast today, saying something like "When we said cold wave, we actually meant sunshine and heat"!

I wonder why is the weather forecast so unpredictable in India. I have heard argument that it is because Indians don't depend on weather predictions anyway. But I think it is in fact the other way around! We have the weather satellites (I hope we do, ISRO has been sending all those INSATs for years!), we have the computers, we have the department and people. Why do they go so wrong in forecasting weather? I have seen that in southern England, where the weather can change from pristine sunshine to heavy rains in a matter of half and hour, they do a much better job of forecasting the weather. We in India are talking about a Tsunami warning system, when we cannot predict if it is going to be sunny or raining tomorrow.
I remember watching the weather report on Doordarshan's Kannada channel a number of years back. One day it went something like this: "Rajyada uttara mattu dakshina oLanaadinalli allalli chaduridanthe maLeyaagalide. ULidanthe oNa have munduvariyalide". Gah! Weather reporters on private news channels may look more professional and glamorous now, but the weather forecast is not too better than daily horoscope. May be even worse.

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!"

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!

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.

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!

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!