Sa-ft-ware Engineer's Journey Thru HELL

"yel kelsa madthiya ? "
" Infosys Uncle."
"Ohhh.....very good very good....sa-ft-ware hangadre...no problem, life channagi njoy mad bahudu "
" office yelli ide ?"
" Electronic City nalli uncle ".
" Ohhh very good....nice place i say ".

True...very true :) but my dear uncle, do u know that everyday a little bit of my life is being drained out ?
I wake up in the morning and my heart sinks when i realize that i have 2 whole hours of traffic b4 me. I am still coughing because all the carbon monoxide from yesterday's journey is still stuck in my lungs. No point ....I have no choice....so i get ready and reach the bus - stop to see the biiiiiiiig bus approaching......the passenger hungry bus...i can almost visualize the 2 horns of the bus devil smirking as it picks up weary "Saft-ware Engineers ".

" Adenu dodda samasye ? Actually nevella lucky kanro.....nidde maada bahudu".
Yeah right....with the pot-hole free roads, the dust free environment if u open ur window and the oxygen full environment if u keep it closed and with Lisa Sarah John giving diet tips in a Mallu accent along with Vasanthi on Radio Shitty ( yeah i stole this nice name for radio city from my friends blog) .....its all so very conducive for a nice nap huh.
Ok...i can somehow over come all this but u know humans can never sleep with a straight head. As i drift deeper into my nap, the neck refuses to hold my head straight and before i know it, there is a mini leaning tower of Pisa in the bus, the worst part being the head leans not on the window side but on the pretty girl sitting next to me.Hmmm.....u know whats next..... " Excuse me , Can you please sit straight :-)) ". Well....as if that was not embarassing enough, i even have to get out my hankey to wipe the drool that secretly escaped when my mouth opened without my permission during that short yet blissful 5 minutes of so-called-sleep.

With all this, when am in the doldrums, my friend whose office is within the city calls me up....." Hi dude, I was stuck in such a horrible traffic jam today.It took me 40 minutes to reach office man....Bangalore sucks. So wassup with you"
You jackass, it takes you just 40 minutes on a bad day? It takes me 90 minutes on a good day.

Hmmm....so i try not to crib about my plight, I tell myself good things " there are so many people without a job, at least I have one even if it means travelling so much everyday "....just when i begin to feel slightly better, we reach SILK BOARD JUNCTION and all the optimism in me gets crushed like an elephant stamping a poor lil ant...."THUD"........the sight is far from just depressing, infact depressing is like giving a compliment to the situation......its like u first bring big trucks, buses, lorries and tempos and fill up the road, then u bring in the cars and auto-rickshaws and any space that u now find, u fill them up with scooters, bikes, mopeds...hey dont forget cyclists, vendors, and pedestrians such that u cannot see even an inch of the road, u should begin to wonder if ur actually on the road or in mid-air.... and to this, you have to add the scorching sun and the
irritating sound of horns......Sigh....I close my eyes and wish for just one thing
" A Flying Carpet!".

3-Wheeled Monsters

The Indian sub continent has been home to the 3-wheeled mosnters called auto-rickshaws for quite some time now. These monsters are manned by a special species of humans who have to under-go rigorous qualification examinations ...yeah just when u thought CAT was difficult.
To begin with , you need to know slang , yes any kind of slang , at least 100 bad words and should have watched Rajnikanth's "Basha" at least 10 times so as to learn his style only and nothig else absolutely.
An added advantage is if you are a descendent of either Chengiz Khan or James Bond along with being brain dead. A cross-breed of both is even better because it means you were born to be an auto driver even if u did not intend to and can conviniently skip trainings related to the Chengiz Khan and Bond Rules of Auto-Driving.

The funda is that you need the mental attitude of Chengiz Khan to drive on Bangalore roads while at the same time swearing at anyone who comes in your way and you need the skill of James Bond to twist and turn your 3-Wheeled monster in a zig zag - jigsaw puzzle kind of manner to reach your destination....well...simply because you are not allowed to drive straight.....cmon dont sigh...these are the rules ...be a sport....its not really difficult. Another important aspect is that you have to try your best to occupy the middle of the road leaving very little space both on your left and your right so as to not allow any other vehicle except ofcourse fellow-autos to pass ahead of you. No amount of honking should deter your resolve to own the centre of the road. Fellow drivers have now given up on honking and swearing cuz the auto-community is invincible , believe me, they really are ..especially after the government passed a bill in some legislative assembly that if you are an auto-driver , you automatically become the owner of the road on which you drive.
The auto-drivers who succeed in the above endeavour are given a special kind of horn - the one that sounds like a monster baby crying out loud as an appreciation token which they can then use to scare vehicles who are ahead of them.

The next rule is that you are not supposed to use any kind of signals ,automatic or manual while taking turns. For instance, first of all , you assess in your mind which turn u wanna take. If its a right turn, then u ensure that u travel on the left side and when its time to take the right turn, you just use your james bond instinct , close your eyes and turn the handle to the right. Beware...no signals absolutely. You are promoted to a higher level if you do the above when the signal is Amber and about to turn Red, where-in u incur the wrath of the vehicles who have already started approaching from the opposite direction.

While keeping in mind all driving related rules, the next important thing to remember is : " Take your passenger where you want to go and not where the passenger wants to go " and if at all the destination of the passenger does not match with yours, then you need to give the "most dis-interested" look combined with the " dont waste my time you morron " look if its a man or a woman in a boring sari or salwar , and the " this is my silliest smile ,baby " look if its a young college girl in jeans.

Certain hospitals in the city that do not get enough patients for their back-bone and head related departments went on strike for almost a month and the outcome was a secret pact signed between the Government, the Auto Community and these hospitals.So according to this pact, auto drivers dont slow down when they come across humps on the road, in fact they accelerate so as to ensure that the passenger either breaks his back or hits his head against the roof of the auto in the process and ends up going to one of these hospitals for treatment.

The above is one among the minimum 10 methods that every auto driver must learn to con his passengers, the most famous technique being buying faulty meters.Others in the list include distracting passengers when they get in there-by taking away their attention from the fact that you did not re-set your faulty meter , acting like u dont know the route to the destination in order to test whether the passenger knows the route, when actually u know at least 3 longer routes to the very same destination and becoming self-proclaimed owners of goods left behind.Well, if your passenger happens to be a Non Indian , then God Bless.

Although rules known to the general public say that a passenger is to be charged one and half of the faulty meters between 10 PM and 6 AM, you must and should intepret the rule as " Charge your passenger one and half any time you want and especially when it rains, or in a crisis situation where you know the passenger is as helpless as a tied -up goat about to be butchered ".

Last but not the least, njoy your drive by playing "Huttidhare Kannad Nadnal Huttabeku " as loud as possible all along the way.

Hmmm........well what more can i say except that all members of the auto-community have been performing exceptionally well and have been following rules to the dot without even the slightest deviation whatsoever.......Sigh !!!!!!.

Eye En Dee You

Ok...to begin with only a few can understand the title of this blog...so this is meant only for them :-).

Hmmm...How do i introduce the character of this blog to my audience...well I think I'll introduce her as the owner of an 8-roomed house each room having audio/video wiring ( central wiring in place but equipment not yet installed in all 8 rooms) AND...whose punch line would read "I Should Have...".....hold on u guys...u will understand this as u read along.

An absolute kiss ass (courtesy - her secret non-admirer) and boot licker (courtesy - me), she is the personification of the phrase " Outside Rama, Inside Ravana "....well i was looking for a more sophisticated phrase but this one fit her so well :-).

Her every sentence during every conversation will begin with .." Oh I should have"...as in while we are all discussing dresses, she has to chip in with.."Oh Ju, I should have got u a few tops from Indi"....or like when we are discussing dinner..." Oh I should have got the Red Wine Bottle ...".....Look here Missy...we all know u r "All Fart and No Shit".

She barges into the nearest relatives' home ( most of the time it happens to be her secret non-admirer) for every vacation...along with her son (he is the greatest singer of all times) and daughter ( who is in 10th standard but looks old enuf to get married...and oh yeah i have to mention that her hair falls down on both sides of her face like the Niagra Falls - sorry Niagra for the bad comparison, so u can see only the centre of the face namely half of the left eye ,the nose area -which is quite big,half of the right eye and the lips with the left and right edges cut off).

Hmmm....can write more but i just realized that what kinda loser will wanna write more about this character...hey not me....so to sum it all up.... With her cheap red jacket, her starched hair, her plastic smile, her "IShould Have" sentences and her irritatingly bitchy conversations, Eye En Dee You seems like she has come straight out of a comic book....no wait....straight out of Kyun Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.

Traffic Signals

Was on my way back home the other day on my clean, black, favourite Kinetic Honda Dx :). Was approaching the signal near Windor Manor Bridge when the signal turned Amber. Like an ideal and rare citizen following rules , I stretched out my right hand to show the slow-down signal and then the stop signal while also looking at a not-so-rare sight of another citizen in a maruti-800 racing past as the signal turned red. I turned off the engine (yes i am consious of reducing air-pollution too apart from following traffic rules).

Just then another middle-aged man, who had stopped right next to me said....
" Madam you could have gone no ...because of you , I also stopped "

WHAT THE ....who was this uncle and what was he telling me ? I realized in a few seconds that he meant that i too could have raced past the signal like the guy in the maruti-800 did.

" Uncle...dont u know...Amber means slow down and stop "

" Yes Yes, I completely agree with you, but that 800-vala went no "

" So ? "

" You could have also gone......because of you I also stopped....actually my daughter's tuition is over ....I am in hurriedly situation u see ".

WHAT THE....
" Rules are meant to be followed Uncle , your daughter can wait for 60 seconds more, the world is not going to end before that "

" Yes Yes, you are 100 % correct madam, if we all follow rules , then there will be no accidents "

Yeah Right ....
He finally made some remote sense of what is was speaking...so i thought i should leave it at that.

Hmmmm

A Brand new day....the first day of the rest of my Life....I can achieve more than I think I can.