Bangalore. To put it all in a nutshell, All I'll manage is to say it is crazy. The traffic is eating on your insides. I always tried coaxing myself to believe that Bangalore will make me a more patient person. Patience isn't something that comes easy to me. I always feel weird when I see those 'Welcome to BMTC' signboards on the bus. What kind of a welcome are we talking here :P. It takes an hour and a half to traverse 10 km. All this in the comfort of a BMTC bus, albeit masked by 'Standing' on it.
I meet all kinds of people/characters on the bus. Some still believe in the seat reservation through handkerchiefs. It just doesn't work.
Waiting for the 171 in majestic is kind of an adventure, cause you never know whether the bus will be empty and you actually get to sit. Nevertheless, the characters one meets on the bus negates the horrible standing in one place on the bus thingy.
There was this one college boy whose English wasn't up to the mark. He was speaking to his friend beside him, narrating him a story. Some of the snippets I heard were- 'My brother rided the bike, then rain camed heavy.' And then he went on to share his expertise on bikes. 'Something they will loose, if they tight also It works da'. Lingo in between. Mighty fun.
There was one guy who apparently got drunk the night before. He didn't know where his bike was and he was setting about tracking it down.
One evening, while returning from work, I was sitting beside a blind guy. This guy worked 10 hour shifts somewhere, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't being paid well. Felt very bad for him, but more importantly, I just felt lucky that I lead a better life.
One sometimes wonders why he works 9 hour days, travels 3 hours on all weekdays to the same monotonous schedule. A life that is centered about work. The only 'social' time I get is during the weekends. But putting all things into perspective, I've just come to accept the fact that such is life.
After work, I sometimes take a walk around Mantri mall. I can't help but walk into KFC every single time. I sometimes just wanna have fries, but seeing someone else order a zinger burger makes the stomach feel bad, so I pretty much order the same. After that, I walk down Sampige road (Why isn't it called Mallige road?:) ) down to 6th cross where i have some Butter Gulchand:) It's just a bundle of goodness.
On Friday night, I get that feeling of just hopping onto that Volvo bus and rushing to Mysore to sleep on one hell of a bed:)
2 comments:
:-) Welcome to Bangalore..thats namma Bengaluru for you.
Its called Sampige Road as Sampige trees line both the sides. Now I think they have cut them off.
Mantri mall is a sick place with poor traffic management and the crowd is not good either.
Stop cribbing, Bangalore has gone to the dogs, have to live with it :-)
These are some of the interesting experiences that you can notice in a city when you are new to it....Over a period of time, we tend to ignore or live with it. Your post made me recollect some of my first veiws of Bangalore, and my interactions with fellow passengers in bus.
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