Perpetually Perplexed

The journey from Sirsi - my hometown to Bangalore is picturesque. Even more so now because of rains all over the state. Green forests with tall trees, paddy fields some of which are swallowed by rain water,  rocky hillocks and concrete jungle.  But one word which describes my journey this time is "sandas". As in toilet, loo, rest room. Yes, I can see your sarcastic grin there. As everyone who is anyone is talking about Sandas, she is doing same. To get more page views. But that is not my reason. My reasons are - my age, a long weekend of happy time at maternal home and my gender. As our journey started in the morning, I needed to relieve myself some where. But we the women, can not relieve ourselves anywhere. We need a proper toilet. Who will build a toilet for us in the middle of jungle when there are very few such toilets even in cities like Bangalore? Hence the search started for some decent restaurant - decent enough to have ladies toilet. And the search was diffi...

I am not doing Ikkeri Basava here. Don't you know Ikkeri Basava? There is a famous statue of a Bull in Ikkeri in Karnataka. The story goes like this. A tourist once put his finger in side the nose of Basava and a scorpion bit his finger. Of course the bite was not serious or fatal. But this man told everyone that you should find out what is inside the nose of Basava because it is a great experience. So many other curious tourists got bit by scorpion and spread the awareness :) No, I am not doing that. I think. Here are few points why driving in our roads is good for you Do you know the cheeks of Hema Malini. Not now, But when she was the dream girl. According a politician - driving in his home state was like driving on the cheeks of Hema Malini. So you don't want to miss that experience! Whether you are monotheist, polytheist, atheist or some other theist (in plain English, whether you believe in one God, many Gods or no God), you will remember your God/s when driv...

There is this very old and stale joke. A priest goes to hell whereas taxi driver goes to heaven after death. Priest asks the reason. God says, when you were preaching people used to fall asleep, but when he was driving people used to pray.    So our dear BBMP officials have read this piece and take it too literally. They also want to go to heaven after death. Who doesn't? So they let the roads be. In the state in which they are. That way we all pray when driving through these roads. (Don't tell me you don't. I have heard you saying Devre Devre Devre Devre in a difficult stretch of road and saying Devre (O God) neene kapadde (You only saved me) after escaping from a terrible , sorry awesome pothole) Dear old Bangalore mahanagarpalike officials are helping us to become pious and devout. Thank them instead of blaming them.

When you are naming government things specifically, public transport vehicles, do not name them like ambari, atal saarige etc. As it is, these vehicles are too slow. If you call them ambari, they feel they have to carry elephants and go in madagajagamana. And we also know that atala is like achala, the one which can not move. So do not do things like "haruva manganige eni hakikoduvadu"

The seven commandments to be followed when driving a 2 wheeler on Indian Roads in general and Bangalore roads in particular  Thou shall respect the big vehicles like trucks because they can crush you to death and they have every intention of doing so.   Thou shall respect the BMTC busses and stay several feet away from them for they turn where they want and when they want without looking left or right.  Thou shall respect three wheelers(autos) because their bark is worse than their bite  Thou shall respect young two wheeler riders because they zoom past you at 200 kmph not bothering whether they hurt you, knock you, kill you or for that matter kill themselves.  Thou shall respect lady drivers like thyself, because they are terrorized by all the above mentioned people and they are confused and they repent being on the road instead of sitting safely behind the spouse and hence slow down suddenly, speed up suddenly and are perfectly unpredictable ...

I have invented a new time pass when travelling. Reading the phrases written on vehicles especially autos. Well it is really entertaining. Amma i.e mother is the most famous word here followed by bull (gooli). The latter is normally pictorial. But some autos even say in words "gowdru gooli". Beware, this auto will stab you with its horns. Yesterday I saw the combination of both. A bull's picture above which Amma was written. Well, not only this person , even his mother will stab you. Many other people write their childrens' names and wives' names. Again some of them will be very weird. Like Sushmitha on one side and Pakshita on other side. Pakshita????I agree my eyesight is quite bad. But what else it could have been. Unable to guess. One auto had the most harsh truth written. Love is sweet and poijun. Don't we all know it is a poijun!!!! Many devout people, I think people on the wrong side of youth like me, will have god's name written. What names!! I ...

Today's TOI Jugular vein has an article about non-existence of roads in Indian cities. I have a consolation here. I have been travelling in this particular road since almost three months. In the busiest magadi road, there is a combination of speed breaker ie road humps and pot holes. Speed breakers we are very painfully aware of. They are meant to kill the speed but they very effectively make you lose control. (On ring road, between Hosakerehalli and Mysore road junction there are some 4 speed breakers. Each one is a series of 4-5 humps. Driving through them is a night mare.) Just now I read, one parent has gone to court against BBMP as his son lost control over a speed breaker and fell and died. Anyway these are speed breakers. And potholes are very very popular. Now in Magadi road, it looks as if somebody designed a road hump but was very economical with tar. So it was a terrible combination. In that busy road, everyone used to go at a speed of -10. And obviously everyone would p...

hondadallaadaru haku, kocheyallaadaru haaku. raaghavendra hengaadru maadi roadanna daatidare maneyalli haayagiruvenu raghavendra