It's Dec 1 and it's that time of the year. "The most wonderful time of the year", as we'd fondly like to say. We're leaving behind very harsh memories of 26/11 and although for me I'm afraid it may stick in my head & heart well beyond Christmas, I'm trying to get into the spirit of Christmas and move on.
This month is when the mercury really dips in this city and it's pretty common to see brisk business at the friendly chai stalls in the early mornings and the late nights. I live in North Bangalore where the air is still kind of cleaner compared to the downtown areas and I love the crisp air in the morning and the chirping of birds and sparrows where I live. (I've been told that seeing sparrows in your neighborhood is a good sign) :) In a few days, the skies will clear out ushering in a true blue sky which will also promise misty mornings and the beautiful sight of morning dew.
This is also a month when all the churches in Bangalore come alive and there is a flurry of activity in terms of carols, choirs and cake making! Euphonia just concluded at the Indiranagar Methodist church and 30/11 was when a local christian praise and worship group called "Firebrands" put up a concert at the Garden City Assembly of God church near Hennur Cross. In short, I had a fantastic weekend listening to fantastic music and almost doing biryani 2 times a day!! If you live in this city, you have just got to try the biryanis. (Biryani: a spice flavoured rice cooked in steam with some very yummy mutton or chicken, to be eaten with yoghurt. I recommed the mutton) The coming week has a series of concerts coming up and I'm trying to make it to every one of them. The weekend once again is the famous Symphonia and I already have my tickets.
Time for me to go shopping for fruits and nuts and rum! Need to soak em up for the Plum cake. Ciao, will write in next week. Happy Holidays!
Dec 1, 2008
Nov 3, 2008
Lane Discipline - 101
Dear Bengaloorean (is that what you are called?),
This letteroo is addressed to all the people who live in, work in, drive in Bengalooru City or anywhere else for that matter. I'd like to call your attention to a bunch of monotonous white lines on the road that you drive on day in and day out. If you've noticed, they are (usually) evenly spaced and form apparent divisions or "lanes" on the road. How many lanes these helpful lines decide to split the road up into, depend on the width of the road.
Now that you know what I'm talking about, ever wondered why the authorities spend crores of Rupees every year putting them on our roads?
No, certainly not because it makes the road look good
No, certainly not because it give you a centering tool to stay right on it as you drive home after that wild night out.
No, certainly not for you to zig-zag through the gaps on your two wheeler.
No, certainly not for your dog to walk in a straight line on your morning walks.
No, certainly not for you to switch on your high beam and light up the reflectors.
And MOST IMPORTANTLY: NOT FOR YOU TO IGNORE!!
So then, why were these expensive dashes put on our roads in the first place? To create lanes.
Think of them as creating an exclusive space on the road for your car or vehicle. As long as you keep your car within those lines, you should be safe, you should be able to drive faster and you will not put anyone else in harm's way. So, if that sounds so good, you are wondering what the catch is? Well, the catch is that you need to go one behind the other in the "lane" and follow the vehicle in front of you at a safe distance. It's not that hard is it? Have you seen ants at work? They walk in one neat file one behind the other. That's exactly what you need to do.
What you don't do in the lanes is cut in and out in either direction as you please. To "Switch" lanes, you switch on your indicators (left for left, right for right), glance in the near view mirror, make sure you are not going to rub shoulders with another car and then smoothly switch lanes and then stay on the lane. Important: you switch only ONE lane at a time. What if you do see a car too close to you in your near view mirror? Let him pass and then follow his tail and enter the lane.
Really, it's pretty simple. But you are in a hurry right? SO IS EVERYONE ELSE!! But guess what? A little consideration, a little DISCIPLINE, (we're better than ants you know?) and calm driving will add more kilometers to your mileage, more money to your wallet, more peace in your mind and less stress on the road. You will also realize that if everyone starts doing this, traffic will flow much much faster and there will be far lesser accidents on our roads today. I urge you and implore you to please please try it out and make a difference.
If any of my other learned readers want to contribute to this article, please feel free to..
Happy Driving Bengalooru!
This letteroo is addressed to all the people who live in, work in, drive in Bengalooru City or anywhere else for that matter. I'd like to call your attention to a bunch of monotonous white lines on the road that you drive on day in and day out. If you've noticed, they are (usually) evenly spaced and form apparent divisions or "lanes" on the road. How many lanes these helpful lines decide to split the road up into, depend on the width of the road.
Now that you know what I'm talking about, ever wondered why the authorities spend crores of Rupees every year putting them on our roads?
No, certainly not because it makes the road look good
No, certainly not because it give you a centering tool to stay right on it as you drive home after that wild night out.
No, certainly not for you to zig-zag through the gaps on your two wheeler.
No, certainly not for your dog to walk in a straight line on your morning walks.
No, certainly not for you to switch on your high beam and light up the reflectors.
And MOST IMPORTANTLY: NOT FOR YOU TO IGNORE!!
So then, why were these expensive dashes put on our roads in the first place? To create lanes.
Think of them as creating an exclusive space on the road for your car or vehicle. As long as you keep your car within those lines, you should be safe, you should be able to drive faster and you will not put anyone else in harm's way. So, if that sounds so good, you are wondering what the catch is? Well, the catch is that you need to go one behind the other in the "lane" and follow the vehicle in front of you at a safe distance. It's not that hard is it? Have you seen ants at work? They walk in one neat file one behind the other. That's exactly what you need to do.
What you don't do in the lanes is cut in and out in either direction as you please. To "Switch" lanes, you switch on your indicators (left for left, right for right), glance in the near view mirror, make sure you are not going to rub shoulders with another car and then smoothly switch lanes and then stay on the lane. Important: you switch only ONE lane at a time. What if you do see a car too close to you in your near view mirror? Let him pass and then follow his tail and enter the lane.
Really, it's pretty simple. But you are in a hurry right? SO IS EVERYONE ELSE!! But guess what? A little consideration, a little DISCIPLINE, (we're better than ants you know?) and calm driving will add more kilometers to your mileage, more money to your wallet, more peace in your mind and less stress on the road. You will also realize that if everyone starts doing this, traffic will flow much much faster and there will be far lesser accidents on our roads today. I urge you and implore you to please please try it out and make a difference.
If any of my other learned readers want to contribute to this article, please feel free to..
Happy Driving Bengalooru!
Oct 20, 2008
Bottleneck Infrastructure
Our city planners and engineers do have a sense of humor in designing our roads. While road widening is a phenomenon that is so widespread in our city today, there seems to be little thought or advice taken from traffic experts on how these should be designed. What we end up with is BOTTLENECKS.
Here's the Wikipedia Definition for starters:
Metaphorically a bottleneck is a section of a route with a carrying capacity substantially below that characterising other sections of the same route. This is often a narrow part of a road, perhaps also with a smaller number of lanes, or a reduction of the number of tracks of a railway line. It may be due to a narrow bridge or tunnel, a deep cutting or narrow embankment, or work in progress on part of the road or railway
When bottlenecks exist due to construction activity or due to a temporary situation like an accident, I think that is perfectly normal and understandable. What I do not get is many of roads have bottlenecks built into the design. This is going to be the way it is, for a long time. Oh, my, god!!
To me it sounds like common sense that when a road has 4 lanes (in India, our good people upgrade these to anywhere from 6-8 lanes on the fly) and as you get near a junction or because there is a structure spilling over from the pavment, the road suddenly has only 2 lanes. So, you have a situation where 6 parallel vehicles are trying to squeeze (or race) into these 2 lanes. This leads to compression as more and more vehicles try to squeeze through the narrow outlet. A great example of this is where you go under the KR Puram flyover as you leave the city.
Another very usual reason for a bottleneck is unusable lanes. These are caused by bad roads, manholes sticking out into the road, rubble on the streets, dirt piling up in the corners (and we don't want to dirty our tyres, see?)or most usually "on the street parking". Fixing the roads alone and making available all the lanes a road is supposed to have will make a huge difference.
I wonder what our planners do when they go and visit the US to "study" traffic management. My take is that they do not even have to go there. Just sit on your PC and login to Google Earth and "visit" all these cities. The latest renditions are so good that you can even go down to the street levels in large cities and check out the place. Why can we just just simply copy the US??
I pray that God gives all of us the courage to endure the madness, I pray that God give our planners some common sense to create good infra, I pray that God gives all of us traffic sense and the ability to be considerate to our fellow drivers. I pray that God makes horns disappear. Amen.
Here's the Wikipedia Definition for starters:
Metaphorically a bottleneck is a section of a route with a carrying capacity substantially below that characterising other sections of the same route. This is often a narrow part of a road, perhaps also with a smaller number of lanes, or a reduction of the number of tracks of a railway line. It may be due to a narrow bridge or tunnel, a deep cutting or narrow embankment, or work in progress on part of the road or railway
When bottlenecks exist due to construction activity or due to a temporary situation like an accident, I think that is perfectly normal and understandable. What I do not get is many of roads have bottlenecks built into the design. This is going to be the way it is, for a long time. Oh, my, god!!
To me it sounds like common sense that when a road has 4 lanes (in India, our good people upgrade these to anywhere from 6-8 lanes on the fly) and as you get near a junction or because there is a structure spilling over from the pavment, the road suddenly has only 2 lanes. So, you have a situation where 6 parallel vehicles are trying to squeeze (or race) into these 2 lanes. This leads to compression as more and more vehicles try to squeeze through the narrow outlet. A great example of this is where you go under the KR Puram flyover as you leave the city.
Another very usual reason for a bottleneck is unusable lanes. These are caused by bad roads, manholes sticking out into the road, rubble on the streets, dirt piling up in the corners (and we don't want to dirty our tyres, see?)or most usually "on the street parking". Fixing the roads alone and making available all the lanes a road is supposed to have will make a huge difference.
I wonder what our planners do when they go and visit the US to "study" traffic management. My take is that they do not even have to go there. Just sit on your PC and login to Google Earth and "visit" all these cities. The latest renditions are so good that you can even go down to the street levels in large cities and check out the place. Why can we just just simply copy the US??
I pray that God gives all of us the courage to endure the madness, I pray that God give our planners some common sense to create good infra, I pray that God gives all of us traffic sense and the ability to be considerate to our fellow drivers. I pray that God makes horns disappear. Amen.
Aug 11, 2008
Bangalore's dying nightlife
Bangalore is a city that attracts many international visitors who come here for business, some for pleasure and some to check out it's entertainment. While these people are all happy as long as they are at work, the problem starts when they get off work and like is done in most other free nations of the world, go out with your friends and unwind.
Seems like the city will have none of this nonsense. Going out in the evening after a marathon 14 hour day is not cool. You need to go back to your family, sip on some filter coffee, watch the news and go to bed. Or perhaps for the ones who like to drink and dance, let your hair down, laugh loudly, it's not ok to do any of these ghastly "western" acts in any public place. You can take your party to Magadi (and get busted) or take it home (and get screamed at by the neighbors).
Let's drill down on this a little bit more. What's the logic here? "Late partying (read, drinking, dancing, singing) creates more crime" Is this true? How many such crimes have taken place that we can talk about that are related to the people who sing and dance?
- Perhaps, the cops are worried about reckless drunk driving. I totally agree with that thought. Clamp down on drunk driving like they do in the rest of the world and come down hard on them. Throw them in jail for a week and take away their license immediately. People will wisely start using our friendly autorickshaws and cabbies to go home.
- Promote the concept of a "designated driver" in the pubs and educate barmen about the concept. It works in the rest of the world, it's worth a shot here.
- Come down hard on druggies, I'm all for a drug free world.
Let's think forward, let's think progressive, let's think global. That's what our city is, but it won't be for too long if we don't change.
Dear Cops, Dayavittu adjust madi. (please adjust - Bangalore slang)
Seems like the city will have none of this nonsense. Going out in the evening after a marathon 14 hour day is not cool. You need to go back to your family, sip on some filter coffee, watch the news and go to bed. Or perhaps for the ones who like to drink and dance, let your hair down, laugh loudly, it's not ok to do any of these ghastly "western" acts in any public place. You can take your party to Magadi (and get busted) or take it home (and get screamed at by the neighbors).
Let's drill down on this a little bit more. What's the logic here? "Late partying (read, drinking, dancing, singing) creates more crime" Is this true? How many such crimes have taken place that we can talk about that are related to the people who sing and dance?
- Perhaps, the cops are worried about reckless drunk driving. I totally agree with that thought. Clamp down on drunk driving like they do in the rest of the world and come down hard on them. Throw them in jail for a week and take away their license immediately. People will wisely start using our friendly autorickshaws and cabbies to go home.
- Promote the concept of a "designated driver" in the pubs and educate barmen about the concept. It works in the rest of the world, it's worth a shot here.
- Come down hard on druggies, I'm all for a drug free world.
Let's think forward, let's think progressive, let's think global. That's what our city is, but it won't be for too long if we don't change.
Dear Cops, Dayavittu adjust madi. (please adjust - Bangalore slang)
Aug 8, 2008
Peripheral Ring Road - Bangalore. Ring a bell?
Bangalore will soon have another "Ring Road" that will run concentric to the current Outer Ring Road(ORR). One just hopes that it is not designed like the ORR with a hundred traffic lights, speed-breakers, animal crossings, pedestrian crossings, businesses, bus stands and anything else you can think of that should not be allowed on a road that is meant to connect you to different parts of the city and be able to quickly get you around.
Sometimes, I wonder what our planners do when they "collaborate" with parties in "developed countries" like the USA.. Many of these people have visited countries like the US where it is not too hard to see common sense at it's best in terms of public infra design. These days, we do not even have to physically go to countries like the USA to see how roads are designed, you can just "fly-to" any place you want with Google Earth, "land" there and see what it looks like.
I'm praying that our city designers and planners simply copy what the US has been able to achieve and set as standards for highway/road design to facilitate high speed traffic that will connect large distances. I'd like to see a beautiful 8 lane highway with "on-ramps" and "off-ramps" that will allow you to merge in or fall out into towns and civilization around the road. I'm praying that there are no speed breakers, no pedestrian crossings, no signlas and the like on this road. Those of us who have been outside of India will know exactly what I'm talking about. It's not that difficult considering that public money is wasted all over the place and a big chunk of it is sitting as black money in the hands of our so called administrators.
Off course parallely, we need to educate drivers here what "lanes" are for and how they are used. I remember, I knew nothing about lanes until I went abroad the first time. As a matter of fact, I would drive my two wheeler on the "center line" (as I thought of it)when possible!! Reason?? No one ever taught me. No traffic school, no instructions. Just learnt on my own and guessed the rules. Dangerous? YES!!
Coming back to the PRR, why don't we just outsource these projects to infrastructure builders who will bring international best practices to the fore and give us a decent product that is truly ready for the next generation. China is a good example of transformation. "You have to see it to believe it", I've been told.
There are organizations like Janaagraha that are trying to get citizens involved in running the city as well as participate in the improvements instead of just cribbing about it (like I'm doing here). I'm game.
Not sure where to start though.. Guru, swalpa adjust madi, we are like this only.
Sometimes, I wonder what our planners do when they "collaborate" with parties in "developed countries" like the USA.. Many of these people have visited countries like the US where it is not too hard to see common sense at it's best in terms of public infra design. These days, we do not even have to physically go to countries like the USA to see how roads are designed, you can just "fly-to" any place you want with Google Earth, "land" there and see what it looks like.
I'm praying that our city designers and planners simply copy what the US has been able to achieve and set as standards for highway/road design to facilitate high speed traffic that will connect large distances. I'd like to see a beautiful 8 lane highway with "on-ramps" and "off-ramps" that will allow you to merge in or fall out into towns and civilization around the road. I'm praying that there are no speed breakers, no pedestrian crossings, no signlas and the like on this road. Those of us who have been outside of India will know exactly what I'm talking about. It's not that difficult considering that public money is wasted all over the place and a big chunk of it is sitting as black money in the hands of our so called administrators.
Off course parallely, we need to educate drivers here what "lanes" are for and how they are used. I remember, I knew nothing about lanes until I went abroad the first time. As a matter of fact, I would drive my two wheeler on the "center line" (as I thought of it)when possible!! Reason?? No one ever taught me. No traffic school, no instructions. Just learnt on my own and guessed the rules. Dangerous? YES!!
Coming back to the PRR, why don't we just outsource these projects to infrastructure builders who will bring international best practices to the fore and give us a decent product that is truly ready for the next generation. China is a good example of transformation. "You have to see it to believe it", I've been told.
There are organizations like Janaagraha that are trying to get citizens involved in running the city as well as participate in the improvements instead of just cribbing about it (like I'm doing here). I'm game.
Not sure where to start though.. Guru, swalpa adjust madi, we are like this only.
Clean air just won't do! - Bangalore's Garbage bonfires
I'd like to express myself here on the topic of burning garbage, dried leaves or anything else on the streets or in your backyard. As I drove to work this morning, I had my windows rolled down to enjoy the crisp morning air. In less than a minute, I had to scurry to roll up the windows or risk inhaling some toxic gases and hyper-ventilate. The culprit as you can imagine was a heap of burning garbage that was conveniently heaped on the pavement.
A few curses were chanted in my head and I then let the feeling pass. A few kms down, another stream of thick white smoke coming from below a major city flyover near KR market in Bangalore. This fire had not only been polluting its immediate surrounding, but had rendered its ugly presence as far as I could see, creating a very unfriendly, chocking and disgusting smog in the morning air.
The sad part is that cops are all over the place, people are walking around the "bonfires" and life goes on as if nothing is wrong. Pedestrians and children on the streets have their noses covered with their sleeves, their pallus, handkerchieves and some even fanning the dirty air away from their noses as they walk. What a sad sight. What a risky situation.
I remember a few years ago, there was a law that was passed against burning dry leaves in the fall in Bangalore as we'd see our corporation housekeepers rake in the leaves and set them on fire. These fires would burn for hours and create such an unsavoury situation in the neighborhood that someone finally screamed hell. This feeling seems to have passed and now the many hundreds of local bonfires that burn daily, seem to have become acceptable to people in Bangalore.
We need to stop this. Again, my take is that we don't need parliament to discuss this and pass a bill to make this illegal. I think whether or not it is illegal, our common sense will dictate. Clearly, this is not done. Should we call the fire brigade everytime there is a fire burning that could pose a risk to the people in the area? Perhaps we should all start doing that and then somebody will start clamping down on these individuals who start these fires.
Do your part, I'm sure you love your city. Put out these fires. Talk to people. Make it happen. Every one of us can make a difference.
A few curses were chanted in my head and I then let the feeling pass. A few kms down, another stream of thick white smoke coming from below a major city flyover near KR market in Bangalore. This fire had not only been polluting its immediate surrounding, but had rendered its ugly presence as far as I could see, creating a very unfriendly, chocking and disgusting smog in the morning air.
The sad part is that cops are all over the place, people are walking around the "bonfires" and life goes on as if nothing is wrong. Pedestrians and children on the streets have their noses covered with their sleeves, their pallus, handkerchieves and some even fanning the dirty air away from their noses as they walk. What a sad sight. What a risky situation.
I remember a few years ago, there was a law that was passed against burning dry leaves in the fall in Bangalore as we'd see our corporation housekeepers rake in the leaves and set them on fire. These fires would burn for hours and create such an unsavoury situation in the neighborhood that someone finally screamed hell. This feeling seems to have passed and now the many hundreds of local bonfires that burn daily, seem to have become acceptable to people in Bangalore.
We need to stop this. Again, my take is that we don't need parliament to discuss this and pass a bill to make this illegal. I think whether or not it is illegal, our common sense will dictate. Clearly, this is not done. Should we call the fire brigade everytime there is a fire burning that could pose a risk to the people in the area? Perhaps we should all start doing that and then somebody will start clamping down on these individuals who start these fires.
Do your part, I'm sure you love your city. Put out these fires. Talk to people. Make it happen. Every one of us can make a difference.
Stop Honking Bangalore
Having lived in Bangalore for over 34 years, I strongly felt the need to get something rolling to improve the situation with people and their horns in this city. I'm sure all of you would agree that we have a problem in this area. I'm going to refer to our city as Bangalore and for those die hard "Bengaluru" advocates, please accept my apologies.
Bangalore was known as the "pensioners' paradise", "summer retreat", "garden city" and what not, but today, we are faced with a pleathora of problems that we urgently need to address. I'm not saying that I'm trying to get Bangalore back to the good old quiet days that would justify any of it's previously held titles, but merely picking one item that has a big impact and seeing if we can do something about it.
Other cities like Mumbai have tried "anti-honking" campaigns that failed miserably and today the "honkers" continue their mindless honking. Bangalore, like Mumbai has a population of very educated people and coupled with the tag of being the "IT capital" of India, is home to the best of companies who again employ thousands of people who I'm hoping this message will reach out to.
Without further ado, let's get into the problem:
Bangalore has tens of thousands of motor vehicles that are on the roads today. Each and every one of these vehicles are fitted with at least 1 horn. Over the years, we have all seen the traffic multiply on our roads that were build to accommodate nothing more than the Wodeyar family's cars and their support staff. The floating population is also ever growing with Bangalore being well connected and being an important commercial hub. Bottom line - We have a lot of vehicles and a lot of people that "stress" the city today.
I'm sure all of you who are reading this own a vehicle of some sort and have used your horns.
Do you really think that you needed to use your horn as many times as you did on your way to office today?
Do you really think you care a damn about some fellow behind you who is honking away like his wife's in labor and he needs to get to a hospital?
Do you really think you feel powerful because you have a louder horn than the "putt-putt" Bajaj auto next to you at a signal.
As you see the lights turn orange or in the last 10 seconds in the signal timer, do you start honking to "wake" everyone up so you can move along behind everyone else?
COME ON! Think about it, it's all ABSOLUTELY meaningless and useless and all that it does is just adds a ton of noise to our already crying and polluted city. Just realize that everyone is headed somewhere and no one is parking in the middle of MG road to have a picnic. Just be patient and the vehicle in front of you will move, I promise. Just don't use your horn, please.
We need to STOP this, NOW. Like they say, it needs to begin at home first.
Let's start with a small experiment, the next time you take your vehicle out, DO NOT USE YOUR HORN AT ALL and see if it makes any difference in terms of your journey time, your ego, your mood or anything else at all. Comeback here and let us know what you thought happened. Needless to say, spread the word and tell people to stop honking and drive with their head.
Let's take baby steps here and I'm sure this will grow into a sensible movement and bring back the peace to Bangalore.
Take it away Bangalore.
Bangalore was known as the "pensioners' paradise", "summer retreat", "garden city" and what not, but today, we are faced with a pleathora of problems that we urgently need to address. I'm not saying that I'm trying to get Bangalore back to the good old quiet days that would justify any of it's previously held titles, but merely picking one item that has a big impact and seeing if we can do something about it.
Other cities like Mumbai have tried "anti-honking" campaigns that failed miserably and today the "honkers" continue their mindless honking. Bangalore, like Mumbai has a population of very educated people and coupled with the tag of being the "IT capital" of India, is home to the best of companies who again employ thousands of people who I'm hoping this message will reach out to.
Without further ado, let's get into the problem:
Bangalore has tens of thousands of motor vehicles that are on the roads today. Each and every one of these vehicles are fitted with at least 1 horn. Over the years, we have all seen the traffic multiply on our roads that were build to accommodate nothing more than the Wodeyar family's cars and their support staff. The floating population is also ever growing with Bangalore being well connected and being an important commercial hub. Bottom line - We have a lot of vehicles and a lot of people that "stress" the city today.
I'm sure all of you who are reading this own a vehicle of some sort and have used your horns.
Do you really think that you needed to use your horn as many times as you did on your way to office today?
Do you really think you care a damn about some fellow behind you who is honking away like his wife's in labor and he needs to get to a hospital?
Do you really think you feel powerful because you have a louder horn than the "putt-putt" Bajaj auto next to you at a signal.
As you see the lights turn orange or in the last 10 seconds in the signal timer, do you start honking to "wake" everyone up so you can move along behind everyone else?
COME ON! Think about it, it's all ABSOLUTELY meaningless and useless and all that it does is just adds a ton of noise to our already crying and polluted city. Just realize that everyone is headed somewhere and no one is parking in the middle of MG road to have a picnic. Just be patient and the vehicle in front of you will move, I promise. Just don't use your horn, please.
We need to STOP this, NOW. Like they say, it needs to begin at home first.
Let's start with a small experiment, the next time you take your vehicle out, DO NOT USE YOUR HORN AT ALL and see if it makes any difference in terms of your journey time, your ego, your mood or anything else at all. Comeback here and let us know what you thought happened. Needless to say, spread the word and tell people to stop honking and drive with their head.
Let's take baby steps here and I'm sure this will grow into a sensible movement and bring back the peace to Bangalore.
Take it away Bangalore.
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