Road manners

If I should write a blog about roads and traffic at Bangalore(or must I India), its going to be never ending. You can blame everyone around you, starting from Government officials, Road Builders, Traffic Police, Bikes, Sumos for the condition of Indian roads and the traffic rules being broken at every possible stage. But whom are we to blame for the behavior of drivers even when its their own fault.

A few days back, a minivan hit the bumper of our car. We were not sure of the damages at first but when my husband turned and looked at the minivan driver, he sighed irately to move since it was not big deal. And in a very small gap that he got, he sped away not bothering what we were concerned about. To hell with him. What if his minivan was hit by bus causing a huge damage? Would he speed away in the same way? Thankfully there were no damages to our car.

Alright, this had no damages, there was one another time when an auto hit the left mirror of our car, and there were scratches in the mirror dome. The auto driver argued saying that it was not big deal. Well, just because he has a auto that he doesn't care to maintain doesn't mean that others need to think in the same lines about their car.

These are materialistic. No damage to life. This one another incident that we witnessed yesterday right in front of our car and our eyes. Two bikes going in the same direction hit at the sides. One biker fell off the bike, at first shot I thought it was going to be bloody. But thankfully, it seemed minor. He survived without major external injuries(except for some bruises). The other biker just turned, saw that this person had fallen down, yet fled off as though it had nothing to do with him. He was too fast that we missed to notice the license plate number. We were in a state of shock as well, after witnessing this.

Courtesy doesn't seem to be a word that these people know about.

P.S.: Before posting this blog entry, I happened to see a program on TV, which showed an accident captured on a camera at a traffic signal somewhere in the US. Briefly, a man who was hit-and-run by a car was being unattended by passers by. After a long time, a woman from the crowd called 911. The man is now left paralyzed from below his neck. Doesn't seem like its different from our Indian story.

Shelter in rain....

Today while returning home it was heavily raining. Though I love rain, for some reason today wasn't so good. This is probably the first time I was out in a car when it rains at Bangalore. All I saw on the roads were not surprising. Its something that we see every time it rains.

It was a pity to see two wheelers riding their vehicle in rain with some just getting drenched and others having a person at the back seat holding an umbrella. Though we started discussing on how bad we(Indians) are when it comes to safety and following the traffic rules, I somehow pitied them for they may not be able to afford a car. Well, they could very well wait and go when the rain stops, yet it was almost late night. Even they would be in a mood to rush home.

What upset me the most on the roads today was when we reached Hosur main road. A lorry right in front of us was carrying, atleast 15, max 20 men, who seemed to be road workers. The only way they could protect themselves from the rain was with the workers-cap. I could not figure out if they were going to work in such dark and rainy night or if they were returning home after work.

We were happily going home in our car whereas they were going to / returning from work in a lorry in the cold rain. I could see them facing down and holding themselves tight so that they could withstand the chillness at least a little bit. I was a little angry and upset, but I don't know whom I should actually be angry at. Is it the politicians or is it the worker's boss who have not provided them with a proper vehicle to travel. After all, a lorry is supposed to carry goods, not human being.

After seeing all these I realize how blessed I am to have such good family and also all the facilities that I enjoy. On one hand I thank God for the blessings he has given, on the other, I sure am upset about these people who don't have these privileges. But I only hope they get good food to eat, good shelter to sleep and proper clothes to wear.

Chennai to Bangalore

If you landed at this blog entry with a thought of finding points for a Chennai - Bangalore debate, you are in the wrong territory. This is a very diplomatic blog entry which gives you details of things that you notice when you move from Chennai to Bangalore.

First and foremost, quoting what my friend had commented, "The whole city of Bangalore seems like centralized AC fit on top to keep it so cool". Yes, the climate is what I am talking about. When move from the sweat and heat of Chennai, Bangalore would be a paradise. The climate is cool, it rains often and you might miss the sun sometimes. But beware. On a bright beautiful sunny day, if you happily want to enjoy a walk under the Sun, be sure to apply two coats of sunscreen. There are all chances that you might get tan and heat boils.

Language? No problem. Almost everyone from auto drivers to vegetable shopkeepers would know Tamil(or Hindi). You notice yourself getting into an auto saying "AABBCC ponum", "right turn pannunga", "left turn pannunga"(Is this really tamil?). Nevertheless, it would be good to know some common words which might be used in public. Like for example, "eshtu" meaning how much, "alli" means there.

Shopping - you might very well miss the crowds and low prices of Ranganathan Street, but there are quite good options here for shopping. Though I haven't explored all, I've heard that Indira Nagar and Jaya Nagar have some good shopping options. Spencers and City center? You have the ultra famous Forum Mall. Its bigger than Spencers and City center and less crowded comparatively.

Food - Seems to me that Bangalore is not a place for traditional food. But you find excellent options for western food, especially Italian. Chennai is "the" place for chettinad and traditional food.

Oh... How did I forget the most important change!!! TRAFFIC... Chennai was a paradise. I regret the times I had cursed the Traffic Police for badly organizing the cities traffic. But after Bangalore, Chennai seems highly organized. Atleast the traffic police had an idea of how they were directing the traffic and the number of vehicles were less. I'll try and put up another blog entry about Bangalore traffic, adding few pics too.

Auto - Unlike Chennai, it seems cheaper here. You only pay the amount that is shown in the autometer. If the driver asks for more, you just need to find another auto. But most of the drivers are just... except that their meter travels faster than light. As opposed to the Rs. 40 for 2km at Chennai this is good.

There is a lot more to explore here. I'll keep posted on what I find new here. Before I leave, what is the one that I miss the most about Chennai? Beach... There is nothing like beaches at Chennai.

For a software engineer.....Part I

Here are a few things that you need to know to become a software engineer or things that you would learn if you choose to become a software engineer.

• Issues - anything and everything

• No issues - Everytime a software engineer wants to say "No problem" he says this.

• Calls - for onsite, waste of time since offshore doesn't understand anything scribbled in email
  - for offshore, waste of time since onsite is lazy to keyin what is discussed on call
  - the truth, to discuss things off the record
• Clarifications - nobody knows the answer
• Design - doc never opened once it is completed
• Coding - life mantra for developers
• bugs - for QA, life mantra, the more filed - the more lifed
  - for developers, "That can't be","My code can't be wrong","Don't know how the code is behaving so weird","works fine in my machine"
• emails - SE's favorite timepass "forward"
  - sent, to not get screwed up
  - not sent , screw up someone behind the back
• escalation - happiness received in screwing up someone else
• Client - God(they say so)
• night out - regular office timing, wasted time compensated
• leaving home early - taking half a day leave
• Coffee break - Gossip time
• Lunch break - More gossips
• boyfriend in same team - victim to write ur code
• girlfriend in same team - team member when u r the team lead
• love - technically..... no time
• mobile phone - always rings during an important meeting

To be continued.....

Worst Traffic Jam!!!

This time when I came home I travelled for 22 hours in the same bus. Gosh... I didn't travel continously on a single plane when I returned from US to India. We were caught up in a horrible traffic Jam somewhere between Dindivanam and Vilupuram. It was a two lane road, one for each direction and somewhere in the middle of it a carrier lorry had stopped and didnot start again. Until I was awake, it was a three hour Jam and I counted more than 525 vehicles jammed in the opposite direction which included an ambulance with the emergency lights on.

Worst what I saw was how when the vehicles started moving each lorry/tempo travel/car was trying to move ahead one over the other and furthur making a new Jam. Drivers should learn some patience is all that I could think of then. By the time I reached home, my body started aching part by part and I even spoilt my mom's Monty Thursday :-(

So,
What did I liked about the TJ? I enjoyed watching the stillness and darkness of the night, the vast sky covered here and there by clouds, scattered stars, the dark lining of the trees. All in all a picturesque view. I wished I had a cam to capture the view.

What did I hate about the TJ? I hated the TJ on the whole. Apart from that, I hated to watch the arrogance of drivers trying overtake each other whilst in a TJ.

What is it that I learnt? Book train tickets on time :-) I think I would soon get a gold medal in "learing things the hard way".

Relativity

Its intereseting to see how relativity plays an important part in our lives. Wondering what that evasive sentence means? Well, it all starts with today being the last day of my vacation. Oh sorry! Its the penultimate day. And what part is relativity playing for today being the-almost-last-day of my vacation? Well, it goes like this.

Sometimes when you very much want something to last for a longer time, it would just seem to end at the blink of an eye and when you are most expecting something to happen, time seems to be endless and what you want to happen to be at infinity. Like this vacation, it just seemed to start and tomorrow I have to go back to Chennai to join office on Monday and when I went to London, the wait for the Sept 13th was killing. Each day seemed to have 36hrs.

Funny this relativitiy is, isn't it?

"Randomly Me"

I was quite bored seeing the same caption "Beni's Blog" through these days. It didnt really sound like me. It sounded like telling someone "This is Beni's Blog, get out of here". So I decided to change the name. After giving it quite a thought, well, not really, just as a quick thought, I decided to name my blog that would explain me.

Btw.. what I am generally blogging about? Well, nothing specific, just things in random. But its all about me. Its all my thought and my opinion. So, "Randomly Me". Its me, but just random thoughts.