Stinking Rich ..... Stinking Poor

What a city Bangalore has become! 


As a kid i was taught Bangalore is the Garden City of India. As i stepped into High School, my teachers would tell that, Bangalore is becoming a Garbage City. And they were so true.... It finally has turned into a Garbage City

Its such a shame, that one of the most cosmopolitan cities of India, where most of the people work in IT or IT related Cos, are educated, but completely lack civic sense.
With the population of  city bursting out of its capacity , the city is grappling to come back to normal.

We can see garbage trashed everywhere....on the empty spaces, on the roads, on footpath....
Also a new rule now to segregate the waste.

Well in my company they already started keeping 2 bins ( Dry / Wet waste ). But how many follow?

Actually speaking, for residences the waste has to be divided to some 4 categories. And the dump will not be collected from Flats/ Gated colonies. What the hell? We pay the same taxes, then why a differential treatment for individual houses and flats?

Also why should we be segregating the waste, when as a tax payer, you pay goverment the taxes to do exactly the same. Above that , while constructing a house, they collect a garbage cess. What for?

One thing i notice now is, irrespective of whether you are Rich or Poor....you do stink...

To Quote the exact lines from an article in the New York Times ( yeah...bangalore was highlighted as a garbage city )

"households in Bangalore must separate their trash into wet food waste, dry recyclables like plastics and paper, and medical waste. Ms. Kar now spends much of her time trying to persuade Bangalorians to do just that. On a recent day, she stopped just outside her door and pointed to a servant leaving an expensive home nearby.




The servant carried two buckets of trash across the street and dumped them in an empty lot. Stray dogs and a feral pig soon came to feed but left behind the plastic and other garbage.



“What are you doing?” Ms. Kar yelled at the servant.



He shrugged and pointed at his employer’s house. Ms. Kar had tried many times to dissuade the servant from dumping the house’s garbage in the increasingly disgusting lot, she said, but his employer had dismissed her concerns. “People in India think that if their own house is clean, the problem just goes away,” she said. She is nonetheless optimistic that Bangalore will be able to recycle nearly all of its waste, which would be a remarkable accomplishment for a city of eight million. “The city is at its knees,” she said with a shrug. “We don’t have a choice.”

So the rich just dump the trash at any empty space, displaying they just stink in their thinking and the Poor, well they stink any ways...

Trauma of Travelling or Traffic?

As a part of my individual growth plan, I am to attend at least one training in a quarter. So, this training was arranged in the corporate office (as always) which is a whopping 30 kms approx. from my residence. By all means this is long for me, being used to travel less than half this distance every day.
The first thing I had to do was to change my sleep routine – Change the alarm in my cell phone. Not for one day, but for 2 days. Since my colleague had earlier suggested its easy to travel using the office shuttle, I booked my travel in the same, from the nearest possible boarding point ( which was a kilometer away). This shuttle starts at 7 AM, and to reach this boarding point, I had to leave my house at 6.45 AM. For 2 days , I have actually skipped breakfast , plainly coz I cannot eat anything so early!
The travel early mornings are pretty much easier. I was able to reach the campus by 8.15 AM. The training sessions itself is grueling, though fun at times. For a person who has the independence to work with regular walks, interactions with the teams, its very difficult to sit in one place…its as if some one has tied my hands and made me sit in a classroom!

I am writing this to actually tell about the pain of travelling and not training. So, once the training is over, you really need to run to catch the shuttle…its parked a good 10 mins walk. The first day, by the time the training session finished, and I came to the parking lot , the buses were already leaving………..thankfully shuttles leave in ascending order and my bus no is 11 and not 1.
The moment the bus starts leaving, we are stuck on the main road outside the campus. The entire stretch atleast for me is so full of narrow roads, added the insensitivity of the drivers coming from the other side. There are innumerable road blocks.. As soon as you enter the Sarjapur road, the traffic pile up is huge. Moreover, mine is a bus, cannot even squeeze in anywhere.
The entire stretch will take 45 mins to complete, and then, the Koramangala trouble begins. The entire Koramanagala is plagued with traffic…and not 2 wheelers, mind it. Everyone has a 4 wheeler… either 1 person is in the car or it’s a chauffeur driven car with 1 owner behind. I wonder how they can actually travel like that..coz for me, travelling on 2 days itself was a nightmare!
With much difficulty I reach the St Johns hospital junction, and here again its utter chaos… My bus takes the Marigowda Road, which is again choc a block with traffic. Nimhans junction is one more pain, I see the time and its close to 7.15PM, 1 hour since I left office. In my regular office routine, I would have walked to the bus stop by this time , leaving at 6.45PM.

I am surprised, how much of time we spend commuting. As a diversion , I put on my ear phones and tuned to a radio channel. The RJs do a fantastic job of keeping the audience glued to their station. Regularly they update situation on traffic pile ups as well, which is good. But I wonder about the diversions they suggest..not that its not take-able , but coz its not commutable by the bus! So after an ordeal of almost 30 mins we reach the city center, chamarajpet area. The driver took the Mysore Road, and then deviated to magadi road.In my mind I was thinking, not bad, I may reach in the next 30 mins, which is pretty OK. But that was not to be….i was missing one crucial element here…..any guesses? Yeah, I was forgetting the drop points! So since I got in the starting point, my end point is the last drop…FILO : First In Last Out concept. Maneuvering the bus on the main road, my bus driver speeds along the main roads which is not with that much of traffic, stopping occasionally for dropping of employees. Finally, my bus driver stops one stop before , where I boarded, excusing by saying it would cause a traffic jam if he take a road further! Obviously, this is the routine, and he cannot make any changes for one temporary commuter. I checked my watch it was exactly 8.45 PM. I would take another 20 mins to scout for an auto and reach home. The time I reached, 9.10 PM. Exactly 3 hrs after I left office. So many things that I could’ve done in these 3 hrs, but I was slouched in a bus. This was on a Thursday.
The next day also the same torment continued, but it was all the more worse. Coz the normal route of Magadi road was closed, towards Vijaynagar, and my bus had to take a detour. The bus driver unwittingly took the goodshed road , which was a trauma… since all the vehicles had to now ply on this road, there was not an inch to move. The traffic was literally moving at snails pace. And the day being a Friday, Majestic and the Railway station had to be crowded. It was an hour to just cross Okalipuram. Again the FILO concept, and I reached my stop only by 9PM, and I was dead exhausted. To catch an auto is another pain, I reached home only by 9.30 PM. No time for anything, I was so famished, I just gobbled up my dinner and hit the bed.

Thankfully, I don’t have to endure this trauma anymore, as from next week, I’ll be operating from my base location.
Sometime last week, my boss asked if I can go to SJP office again to attend the Quarterly meet , and my reaction, was worth more than a cab ride back.. :)