These two incidents involve folks from my neighborhood. Both elderly, one involves a man & the other a woman.

First the man’s story. It happened early morning before 8 or so. He was seated at a small tea shop having just completed his tea. A young man on a bike comes over to him & says, “Your nephew has come from town, he wants to meet you, he is over there, he sent me to get you”. The man apparently was guarded initially & didn’t buy the point. But the guy on the bike sold his theory convincingly and managed to get the man to travel with him on the bike. This is at a point near Sivan Shetty Garden (near the RBANMS Grounds). The guy on the bike takes the man all the way up to Hosur Road, near Baldwin’s Boys School & drops him on the main road saying he’ll go get the nephew. Immediately after he leaves two other men approach this man waiting & threaten him to give up whatever he has on him. The road is silent, early morning time hence not much traffic and hence not many people around. Eventually the man is robbed off his gold finger ring, for that is all he had worthy on him at that point of time. Having got something out of him the two men flee from there. The man walks back home to tell the tale.

Now the woman’s story. This happened in the morning as well. Not very early must be around 10 or 11. This elderly woman sits in a shop down the road from where I stay. I have seen her there on a regular basis. That day two guys approached her. They tell her that they know some magic & they can take her two ear rings & make two others exactly like them. Obviously much ensues thereafter but what eventually happened was the lady agrees to try it out & removes her ear rings & gives it to one of the men. The man tells her to close her eyes for a while. And that is all the lady heard from him last. For when she opened her eyes both the men had disappeared. With her ear rings.

Sounds too movie like. But these affected people live just a few meters away from home. These are people like us & they are being conned in broad day light. Somebody here said that it is the way these tricksters speak, in a hypnotizing sort of way, which makes you do what they want you to do. Only jewels were taken the people were not harmed.

The first visit to the office situated on Bannerghatta Road, I realized that the Labor office was anything but small. It was a huge building with many floors. Strangely the huge building had a reception area with a lady seated there. Of course it didn’t say it was the reception. Actually it didn’t say anything. But I approached the lady & told her of my business. The lady didn’t know the officer’s name for the designated area I wanted, she asked a guy standing nearby & he didn’t know either. Just then a group of men passed by and the question was put to them. One of them answered. I was guided to the 2^nd floor. Where on 2^nd floor I asked? ‘You ask someone there’ I was told.

The corridors were empty. The many doors that opened into huge halls were divided I guess on the basis of the various areas in Bangalore & Karnataka. Not finding anybody in the corridor to talk to I entered one such hall & approached a person at the desk. When I stated my business, he asked for my area & then guided me to a particular hall & a particular inspector.

Once again I imagined an old, very irritated person sitting at the desk who would look at you like you were from another planet, may be find something missing among the documents & order you to come back again. For some reason dealing with somebody from the administration is always thought of on these lines.  But it was not so. The person I met looked very officer like, had a nice clean & orderly desk. He took a good look at the application I had filled up & asked for the fees. How much I asked? Thousand two fifty he said. And went on to write a receipt for Rs 300. I was actually glad it was only that much & not more.

I had started to converse in Kannada but he spoke to me in English & good fluent English at that. When he handed me the certificate it was handwritten & it was in Kannada He said I should display the certificate in the office & then he went on to list all the other documents I had to maintain. And finally he said, ‘once a year you should visit this office & uhhh…..have a give take policy with this office’. I nodded an OK & asked him the renewal details & occasions when we had to update the office which very strangely he explained in much detail.

All of this took about fifteen minutes. Lucky or what?

First facts, yes the Bangalore International Airport is far from the city. This fact is so drilled into all of us by now that I suppose we are so mentally tuned to a long travel & starting off well in advance. Once the mental tuning is done the ride becomes that much more bearable. Largely the road from the Hebbal flyover is wide & good so a good car should be able to travel 80-100 km/hr. It took us about an hour to get to the Airport from Commercial Street that Saturday evening.

I really don’t know what a layman should expect from an Airport or from a new Airport for that matter. And especially for someone like me who doesn’t travel around by flights then it is once again of very little significance. But all the hype of the new Airport mostly for the wrong reasons got me curious & I wanted to be there & check it out functioning. Luckily, Brother was off to the US so we went there to see him off.

Only the passengers are allowed entry in to the terminal building while those who travel with the passengers to see them off basically have to hang outside the terminal building. Entry inside is allowed only in the Arrival section. That said the facilities for people who go all the way there to see off someone are not great at all.  The Terminal building is all glass & completely see-through type. So the only activity for most people who go there to see someone off is to follow the progress being made by their traveler in the check in queue. Apart from doing that we looked around for two things. One, some place where we could sit & two, for the toilet. Both were not to be seen. When we enquired with some uniformed facility management chaps their answer was, ‘there is no toilet outside’. That definitely had to be wrong. How could BIAL miss out on something as basic as that? Some more enquiries and we got the directions. We had to walk about 500 meters from the Terminal building for the toilet. And honestly there was nothing International about this toilet, at least in its maintenance. It is very Indian & very local.

I was keen to know how different can an ‘International Airport’ be from an ‘Airport’. I mean really what can be the difference? Well this is what I realized. There is no difference. An Airport is an Airport. And that’s pretty much it. For all those of us who hang out a lot at the malls in Bangalore, we are already used to the escalators, glow signs, uniformed facility management chaps, colorful chairs in the food zones, the organized parking & so on & so forth. The Bangalore International Airport is no different. But yes where the Bangalore International Airport can learn something from the Mall’s facility management chaps is in the maintenance of the toilets. One other area where they can take tips from a mall is in putting up some displays as to where the toilets are. I guess the kind of people who make malls & airports are the same. Because at both places you cant sit.

But yes where the feel of International comes in according to me is in the fact that you don’t see any autos & two wheelers around (I didn’t see any two wheelers at the air port that day but can’t confirm if they are not allowed there). Another area where you get a feel of International is in the size of the entire thing. It’s big & especially so when it’s compared to the previous HAL Airport. Despite these stand out features where it probably lacks in the International tag is Security. It does seem relaxed. Even the area next to the terminal building where some flights are parked can be clearly seen from the distance. The flights are only about a stone’s throw away.  One other area where some improvement would be great is in the food area. Is darshini type food or South Indian food per se not International? Why is it that we get more North Indian & the burger/sandwich type fare there than South Indian? Where is the promotion of local culture there

To sign off on a good note there is one good thing and that too with the most dreaded aspect about the airport, the connectivity. One can rest assured about the connectivity. BMTC has buses every half hour & round the clock. We took a BMTC Volvo well past mid night. This definitely is more cost effective & convenient but only to get into the city. From there you will have to rely on the auto or a taxi again. Other wise of course there are taxi services round the clock as well at the airport.

In the evenings, when I get onto Kasturba Road from the Hudson Circle, I feel the air around there becoming cooler compared to how it was say at Hudson Circle. It pretty much stays that way all the way up to Vittal Malya Road-Kasturba Road junction & is back to normal once you cross the signal & head towards MG Road.

My only guess for this is the vast number of trees in Cubbon Park that adjoins Kasturba Road. It’s a nice experience really especially now that is summer time here. In the winter it gets much cooler on this stretch compared to how it is elsewhere.

If it is the trees then just imagine what an impact these trees make to the city’s weather conditions. And its general knowledge that the tree cover in the city is on the decline.

One of the earliest good memories I have of auto drivers is of the ‘auto man’ in whose auto I used to travel to school. It was the school auto, the ones that are still around & used for ferrying kids to school & back home. On one occasion this ‘auto man’, found a wallet left behind by some foreigners. He opened it & saw that it contained their passports & some money. Without much thought, he walked up to the police station & deposited the wallet with them. And later found out from the cops that the foreigners had lodged a complaint & as a result found the wallet.

When there is the business of distribution of any invitation cards like for a wedding or a house warming ceremony, till sometime back couples/people entrusted with the distribution would flag down an auto, tell the driver that they have to go around to so many places around Bangalore distributing cards. And the auto drivers would agree bearing in mind that this will involve a lot of waiting time for them. The couple would share with the auto driver the coffee or tea or snacks that are served to them at the house of the invitees. Sometimes they would even do lunch together at a hotel if the card distribution had to extend for some hours post lunch.  I thought this practice had come down over the years but was pleasantly surprised when a family got off an auto & gave us the invite for a wedding. Yes the snacks were shared with the auto driver as well.

It is a horrible experience if one is involved in an accident with an auto. The thought itself is scary. I can visualize other auto drivers gathering around & the choicest of words in Kannada thrown about. And if you had a part in the accident then it is indeed very difficult to get out of the mess. This is exactly what happened with a friend. And those were not normal times. It was the day Dr. Rajkumar got kidnapped. The accident was such that the auto fell to its side. And guess where the accident happened, in the vicinity of the Sadashivnagar area. Needless to say my friend panicked. The city was any way tense that day, almost immediately a crowd gathered. Everyone there seemed to support only the auto driver. But surprise surprise the auto driver turned out to be a gem of a person. First he calmed down the crowd, then sent them away & finally got into a cultured discussion with my friend on how to settle the expenses. Not just that he also ended up giving a good amount of time (days) for my friend to pay up.

Some months back a person stepped into the office. As soon as he saw me he said, “Namaskara”. I hesitatingly responded. I didn’t recognize him. He seemed to understand that and asked me in kannada if I didn’t recognize him. I hesitated again. Just then my brother passed by & identified him immediately. This person was the auto driver, who had rushed dad to the hospital when dad had a stroke in his auto. Sadly his efforts were in vain. The incident had happened months earlier and the driver had come down to pay us a courtesy visit.

I am sure a lot of us have such instances involving the auto drivers. It will be nice to look back at those instances. Share some of them here if you can.

It involves Raghuvaran. Raghuvaran is a popular actor who has acted mostly in South Indian films. He plays the doctor who saves Sivaji in the movie Sivaji starring Rajnikanth. This incident happened on Brigade Road. The swanky car was driven by a chauffeur & Raghuvaran was seated backseat & was smoking. I was directly behind the car riding my bike. There was no give away of course that it was him. Just a nice car in front, that is all. But check out the drama that followed. This swanky new car crosses the traffic signal at the Mota Royal Arcade junction & proceeds straight towards sulay circle. Here this swanky car brushes the car in front. So you know what happens in situations like this. Out hops the driver, ready for a duel & collect the damages. The swanky car driver talks/shouts to the affected car’s driver. No resolution in sight. And this is where Raghuvaran steps out from the back seat. He walks to the front & confronts the affected car’s driver. The only thing Raghuvaran does on getting face to face with the affected car’s driver is to raise his hands & point all his fingers towards himself & shake his head as if saying, “Its me. Do you recognize?” He repeats the action once again, when he doesn’t see any reaction. The affected car’s driver recognizes Raghuvaran & smiles. He shakes his head & smiles some more. His intention to duel completely disappears. Raghuvaran shakes hands with the affected car’s driver & walks back to his seat puffing his cigarette.

I have shared this incident with a lot of people. It just goes to show the love & admiration we have for people in the TV or film world. It is anybody’s guess how that argument would have proceeded had it been someone else.

It is sad to know that Raghuvaran is no more amongst us today.

These Real Estate agents are amazingly active. Even as our previous tenant was in the process of shifting his household items we received a call asking if the house was available for rent & what is the rent we were expecting. Who was this guy? Who gave him our number? We only made our guesses.

Over the next few days we continued to get these calls. We had neither advertised anywhere nor hung up a To-let board anywhere. But the calls came. On the insistence of a broker I decided to go over to the house & meet him & the interested ‘party’. The broker turned up on time however the ‘party’ was not with him. The broker made small talk & then announced that the ‘party’ was held up in a meeting & would join shortly. And then hesitatingly he asked, “What will YOU give us?” After waiting for some more time when the ‘party’ did not turn up he said he would get the ‘party’ next day & would call me to confirm. I never heard from this broker thereafter.

Another broker I met called himself Raju. He shook hands with me & obediently folded his hands & stood away. He told me that he worked in the RBI and did this part time mostly in the evenings. Then he voluntarily clarified, “I am not an officer or Manager in the RBI but a clerk & do this for some extra money”. Then he gave details of the two ‘parties’ he had shown the house.

One other guy cut me short when I asked him details of the ‘party’ by saying “Sir I’ll show them the house first & then you can get all the details”.

These interactions with the brokers gave me an impression that they are hesitant to put across their ‘party’ to us immediately and preferred for the ‘party’ to talk to us through them. They probably did not want to lose out on the rent negotiations and as a result on the commission.

Some of these people can play an annoying game. They would give a missed call & expect us to call back. One time when I returned the missed call the guy replied, “Thanks. My currency is low….”

Some of these guys are in it for part time money, some probably as a profession. Most times there is no explicit understanding of the commission they will charge from the house seeker. That is left for later & it does require a lot of convincing ability to get what they want. One broker who had got us our previous tenant hadn’t got paid until a month after the house was occupied.

But these guys are the ones who make getting a house a lot easier. Although I don’t have much of an experience dealing with these guys from the other side I can feel how big a role they play here.

So does the Bangalore team of IPL generate excitement among us Bangaloreans? Not for me to answer. Will this Bangalore team unite all the Bangaloreans exactly the way we get united when India plays? May be. May be Not. All I can feel at this point in time is it is going to be a little different.

I recollect the experience of wandering around the Chinnaswamy Stadium looking to find someone selling tickets in black for an India-Australia test match. When we eventually found a guy selling tickets in black we paid 5 times the tickets original cost. Will this team bring out such a desperate desire to watch them live?

Who will be our ‘arch rivals’? My guess is Chennai.

I for some reason feel that for all those HR or Chief Fun officers of companies always on the look out for something new & different there is one new type of activity they could use. Sponsor tickets for these matches; play them on big screens at offices etc.

Big names, Big money – Will it all lead to big entertainment & big following as well needs to be seen.

(After much thinking)…I don’t like the fact that I couldn’t open a bank account in a neighborhood bank because the Manager was insisting on a referral, which I was struggling to get. I don’t know what I am suppose to do when some of my team members turn up late to office because there was a hold up in traffic somewhere. And I am thinking again…..

This constant thinking to come up with things that we don’t like here is probably because most times we tend to just move on. Just accept it the way it is & not to actually consider something as a problem. If it takes me a minimum of two hours in a day to get myself a 20 rupee stamp paper, I plan my day around this. I also crib but I move on.

Bangalore is like any other city when it comes to such things. According to me it’s about time that we gave a little importance to this aspect of ‘Satisfaction with the city’ or ‘Ease of Living’ factor.

Just a thought – Apart from all those ministries that the government keeps coming up with, one really needed ministry is for ‘Citizen Satisfaction’. The job of this Ministry should be to in some form or the other in coordination with the other departments keep a tab on the satisfaction levels of the citizens by eradicating or bringing in place measures that keeps everything running smoothly & in turn keeps its citizens happy. Or is it wishful thinking?

Is there anything you don’t like here? Unlikely. So what is it? Also interesting to know will be if you have to also think & then answer the question. Because if that is the case, I feel we are beginning to accept a lot of things as ‘it is like that only’ & getting on with life.

Not giving it much thought we got down to business. We ordered ourselves capsicum bajjis that was handed over after sprinkling some chilli powder on it & chopped onions & carrots. If there is one reason I head to this place it is for this. Ordinary, simple & tasty. Having devoured bajji we moved to the ‘obbattu’ shop. As the chap there poured a spoonful of ghee on a hot piece I remember commenting to my friend, “mom should see me eating this, she would surely corner me with the question – Why don’t you enjoy it when it is made at home?” Well what can one say to that? There is a certain bliss eating it out on a breezy day, with the company of a friend & chatting up on how life’s been to each other. Next stop was at a Dosa shop. Sharing the plain dosa I noticed that things around there had developed to such an extent that this dosa shop guy had a detachable steel wash basin slightly away from the huge rectangular stove on which he was making dosas. He had pretty much settled down there.

The only few push carts that were around there were the types selling corn. We ordered ourselves Butter Masala corn. Once again I was pretty impressed with the way this push cart was equipped with an adjustable & movable fan positioned strategically near the hot glowing charcoal on which the corn was being cooked. A few years back this same guy would have fanned the charcoal with a hand fan, moving it from his left hand to the right.

Shortly there after started the drama. Like in the movies, there was a villain here too. The Police. A couple of khaki wearing police walked around & in their typical style hinted to the push cart vendors & positioned themselves a little away from us all. The owner of another push cart volunteered to pay the policemen. The money was handed over discreetly. It was pushed into the hands of the policeman. No word was exchanged. The policeman quietly pocketed the money. Moments later the duo began to walk away.

By the time we were breathing heavy after munching the spicy Butter Masala corn came Scene two of the drama. Villains again, this time they were the Traffic police. The traffic policeman did one simple thing. He raised his voice & asked the push cart vendors to move away from there immediately. Both the push cart vendors obediently began to move away. But only a couple of meters. Looking at this the policeman raised his voice again. The push carts were moved again. Again only a few meters After a while another officer came by & seeing that the carts hadn’t moved away completely from there began to issue a fine charge to the push cart we had bought our Butter masala corn from. Slightly away an elderly couple selling largely home made stuff like ‘chaklis’ & the like on their push cart were cursing the police under their breath & saying, “why do you do this to us?”

Eating out especially out on the street is an experience. May be not for a certain section of the society, but it does have a certain romance about it. And for someone like me who eats street food regularly & loves the experience, it was pretty disturbing to see the police playing spoilsport of sorts. Had this place been traffic heavy or pedestrian heavy, the act of the police to move them away would be understood. But this place is absolutely not like that. There is hardly any traffic & if the Food Street is completely closed down, it is very likely that we will not see a soul out on that road. So why such treatment towards these push cart vendors? It is incomprehensible to me.

And that is when the earlier wonderment of why this place was less crowded began to make sense. So much was available there on the road. Chinese food. Badam milk & remember that Boti masala I wrote about in an earlier post?

It’ll be really nice if the police stop playing spoilsport & let all those people who did street food business there get back & continue. That road is not the same any more.