I am currently living in b’lore and I live 7kms from my office so roads of Bangalore are very critical part of my life. Being from north India they remind me of jalebi’s. For the people who do not know jalebi’s. It’s very calligraphic sweet & mostly invented by the drunken halwais’. Because Jalebi is only sweet that you can make after getting drunk.
Jelebi is so flexible in design that anything sweet can be called a Jalebi.
Well going back on describing roads. The roads of B’lore are so calligraphic that I really get surprised that they take me somewhere. Btw, this phenomenon is very common with roads in hill stations. You travel for 30 kms and then realize that origin is just above you. I feel gliding can be better mode of transportation in such places.
One good point of Bangalore roads is that there are infinite ways to go from one place (one is always via glamorous MG Road and tumultuous Majestic). So you never find driving monotonous. In fact it’s even more improved by suspense element added by people turning bikes from middle of the road. People say that road surface area of B’lore is larger compared to that of roads in metros but still unfortunately we face serious traffic problems in Bangalore. There are too many roads but they are not wide. I sometimes think it might be because ancient b’lore did not have concept of main roads so there were many streets and later they renamed them as main roads. Well renaming brings me to other point; all roads of b’lore have many names. I feel first roads were named after British people but after independence Indian politicians also wanted roads on their names but due to lack of funds they could not construct any so they started renaming all old roads on their names (hard to speak names). I feel hard to speaks names are better than names like Pappu road or Tinku road. And last but not least, sometimes roads of b'lore are so bumpy that while driving you feel like going on roller coaster ride. I feel there are so many natural potholes that control speed enough (which btw never goes above 40) that there is no need of speed breakers on road. In mind speed breakers have only one role "improve roller coaster ride experience of driving"
Ooops, I should not forget to talk about biggest dwellers of the B’lore roads auto rickshaws that outnumber any other species dwelling on the road by huge margin. Ideally one blog would not be sufficient for telling their weird demands but still in reader’s interest, I would write just one page. In-case if you are an autowala then I offer deep apology from deep down my heart. In fact I think that autowalas are weird enough to contribute to Ripley’s collection. To start with their personality, all autowalas believe that they are doing a favor to the people so they always ask more money for going anywhere. Depending upon the destination they might charge double and sometimes blindly ask for some percentage of your pay package or for round trip. If you are going to some remote place they would ask money for way back because of remote possibility of not getting any customer in the remote place. They never thanked me for taking me out to serene place out of tumultuous B’lore. And if you are going to some popular place (that autowalas prefer to call crowded & polluted place) then they will ask extra money for tolerating some obscene pollution caused by the errand people blocking their auto’s way.
Btw, I still thank them for letting me in auto; mostly because there are other kinds of autowalas that will not even let you in their auto. I remember my days when I used to live in Bannergatta road and I used to ask them to take me to someplace and they used to always look at my face and drive away. Initially I used to think that it’s problem with my ugly face or maybe I look like a terrorist or something but then I got used to it. And I started asking them about where are they planning to go and can they give me a lift (for good bribe) to that destination. Btw, getting free lift from common people was easier compared to getting costly lift from autowalas.
At last I would still like to thank all autowalas for entertaining me and obviously for giving me lift for some place in their preplanned itinerary. Here is the funny explanation for my entertainment thanks to them. I used to get frustrated by them in initial months of b’lore but later I realized that it’s always the case. So then I started to take auto trips as fun and adventure trips. It also improved my penny level money negotiation skills. I also thank them for adding suspense in my life (otherwise life of software engineers becomes very monotonous). Usually common suspense used to come from them asking me for my salary share for dropping me to some place in their itinerary. And uncommon suspense from some autowalas easily agreeing for normal fare but last type of suspense was historical (or some people call it rare).
