Drops of joy!

There's not so much of activity to see or hear around in Brisbane - no maid who comes daily and tells the juicy tales of your neighborhood, no wailing infants being chastised by their mothers in the balconies, no kids running around in the common stairs pressing the door bells just for the funny sound of it. Sounds hear consist of the wildlife(mainly birds) around the apartments and that of the dishwasher/washing machine/dryer/vacuum cleaner and the list continues inside the apartment. I can now identify the different sound waves from the different cleaning machines around me :-)...Yes, it good to be neat and tidy - that's one of the first lessons I think I learned at school.
For instance, the other day when we were generally ambling around in a park, we saw a man cleaning a flight of stairs, I think around 20 of them. It was not an easy job after all, the huge cleaning machine adding to the decibels, eating up all the dry leaves. This took around 10 minutes followed by a thorough cleansing job with water sprayed and sprinkled and forced on the stairs, each and every nook taken care of. I just thought this amount of water could wash 5 households in B'lore or more so fulfill the water needs of a BPL(this is controversial though with the Planning Commission coming up with strange criteria!) family for atleast a week!! Anyway, the task meticulously done was surely appreciable - 45 minutes of loud work by the machine. The stairs looked as good as new and I suddenly felt ashamed of not vacuuming my house for the past 1 week! I promised myself that it would be the first thing I did after reaching home, but to my dismay the grey clouds decided to release their waters at that time and I was stuck there for more time. Down came the rain forcing the cleaning man to rush for shelter leaving the machine near the stairs...The water poured on the stairs with full force for around an hour...I just wondered so much of water for those 20 steps...Just couldn't help remembering a few of the steps that were published back in my apartment in B'lore for conserving water : 1) Don't wash your cars 2) Don't wash your balconies 3) Don't use shower to bathe.....only thing left to say was - don't use water to brush your teeth..etc etc...:-)
A lot of questions and thought then crowded my small brain with full force - wondered if the pressure of population is so much in B'lore that it has reduced the water pressure in our taps? Or is it the pressure of a few selected people governing the country or state or constituency...whatever it is...it will soon be robbing our future generation of the basic human right - to be clean - to wash your hands..your surroundings etc...they will be either left with the industrial waste inflicted or the expensive bottled or tanker water...making it as precious as the yellow metal!! A nuclear power stumbling under water woes!

How much can the two neighbors talk?

Talking about the master of all talks --- India and Pakistan talks...We have been talking for quite long now. Lately External affairs minister SM Krishna calls his counterpart of have talks after the Varanasi blasts -- while some other Level-2 talks are already going on! Infact we had Musharraf himself coming down a few years back for talks when we had the famous Agra summit...a few years after AB Vajpayee had visited Pakistan again for talks. So both the sides talked and have been talking for quite long now which everytime turns out to be non-conclusive -- at least for the common man! May be it had some significance politically but till now none of these talks have brought any peace to the supposedly 'heaven on earth' and also the rest of India.
So, what are we doing here now, why have just political dimension to the whole thing. Why cant we just have an economic boycott...no terrorist country can have any kind of economic relation with any other country -- no trade and of course no cricket!!  Can a thief survive if he cant steal? No...Let the people there feel that they are residing in a country which aids anti-social and anti-human activities in some parts of the world...Let there be unrest, so the rulers there can think more rationally...May be its time that there should be some kind of "non-cooperation" movement...lest these talks just increase the history burden of our text-books!!

The Smoking License!!!

It's been 9 yrs since Nishant and I got married - though it seems like we still don't know each other :-) ... may be because in this constant 'upgrade' age ..we also keep on changing/upgrading :)....Anyways, this analysis can be a separate series of blogs....So, we completed 9 yrs of our marriage on the 27th Nov...and we decided to celebrate. Nothing much was on the cards, but we just wanted to relax and have food. Though we do this every weekend but it never seems enough :-)

Bangalore weather was at its best that day and it being a Saturday, we could plan to have a lunch together from our otherwise daily routine of having it in the office. Finally after a little discussion (we wanted to avoid any discussions on that day at the very least!), we decided that a resort nearby was a good option. We could sit outside and it has some interesting ambiance, which Myra would also enjoy. 

Its a short drive, so no traffic stress -- we were are charged up with a growling stomach. 

Now started the series of disappointments -- first of all there was no valet parking and no parking within the hotel(nobody ever plans parking!!). Anyway, this is a common issue, we parked in a rented parking lot behind and walked the 300 mts to the restaurant. 

There is a kind of beach shack at the very center of the resort where the food is served. We decided not to go for the buffet -- as we wanted to eat our choice of food. Started with ordering the soup and the waiter told 2-3 names which were not there in the menu. I think he just wanted us to have what was available in the buffet!! Anyway, we specifically asked for minestrone soup which he finally agreed. We asked him for starter suggestions and help  and he just gave a blank disinterested look...I thought -- "may be no tip for this one today!" Anyway , Nishant was more generous and wanted to give him a second chance as we had just started ordering and our appetites generally are hearty :-) 

I forgot the rude waiter with Myra's chatter till a whiff of smoke disturbed me...The table next to ours had somebody smoking. The solution was simple...just ask for a change of place. So, thats what we did and moved a bit away..Within a second, there was a fresh whiff again of the same family of smoke! I asked one of the hotel staff (he had a coat on instead of an apron, so we thought may be he was a senior or something.) that if this was a smoking zone? He said "Yes mam"...I couldn't agree less...and hence asked if it was a legal to smoke in public places...He said quite stubbornly that they had a permit!! Permit to break the law I thought. He directed us to sit inside(which is a very small area), but then we hadn't come to sit inside..we wanted to sit out in the open. I requested him to cancel the order and said that we would leave..to which he rather rudely declined that the order was already placed...Strange, so we were stuck to have food either in the smoky outside or stuffy inside! By this time, Nishant jumped in saying that as they had license for smoking, he would talk to Bangalore Mirror that in fact there is a license to smoke in public places(just to add-- this is not a 5-star hotel). So that was it, within a minute we were given a good table outside , a bit away from the beach shack (which earlier they were claiming was reserved) and then a good service by a smiling steward...Had a good food and good time finally...Was it the mention of the newspaper or sudden realization by the hotel staff to be courteous ...but yes we finally got a no-smoking area to sit within the "so-claimed" smoking zone....

Sometimes I wonder -- am I misinformed or is it that law breaking is not very difficult these days!!!

Save our tigers - Really?

I had been reading lately and I am sure all of us our aware now that only 1411 tigers are left and we need to surely save them - after all its our national animal. We need to act and spread the awareness - thats ofcourse the first step. But, is that all? I see this message everywhere - internet, hoardings, television!
"Internet" is still a sophisticated thing in India and is used by the educated ones - do you think it would be used by the poachers or the villagers who knowingly or unknowingly harm this animal or even other animals? So, while blogging, facebook, twitter may like really spreading the word around but will it reach the right ears?
Are the poachers and hunters listening to these messages - and if in case they are will they become over cautious in committing this crime or identify it as a crime? May be the former - after all why would anybody be willing to give up money just for the sake of saving some wild animals!
May be we need to wake up the law makers, the forest securers, the illiterates who dont know what extinct means and most important the poachers - who earn bucks out of this cruel means. Not only this - the luxury resorts which have come up around these sanctuary need to be checked before it gets too late. Are we willing to take up this daunting task - fuel a change in the law or the enforcement of it or meet the villagers, educate them or form groups to get the culprits - something that really counts.
We really need to save the tigers - but this task surely needs more than a few words written here and there - it needs a more sincere effort for a more effective result.

Losing Bangalore's Shade

It’s been really long, in fact more than a few years since I have been planning to visit LalBagh, the central park of Bangalore. I have been somehow postponing it because of one or the other chore that kept cropping up unexpectedly or not so unexpectedly. The Lalbagh visit always used to take a back seat because of two reasons. Firstly I am not located close to Lalbagh and have to beat the notorious B’lore traffic to get there. Secondly but more importantly, Lalbagh wasn’t going anywhere, so I could have made my plans any day. But to my horror, I realized that even Lalbagh was not supposed to remain the same!!

I am a lazy citizen so all I do is follow news and sometimes if time and energy permit, pen my views. I have been following news articles here and there – the petitions and protests – the misquoted number of trees to be felled. To me it really paints an insensitive picture of our sensitivity towards our heritage.

There are many ‘fors’ for the trees to be cut, be at Lalbagh, KR Road, Nanda Road or any other place, now that Bangalore needs infrastructure(years after the IT and real estate boom!) .After all the trees have to pave the way for human development. We need wider roads, flyovers and we need metros and monorails…but probably we don't need clean air, water, rains! Why is it that as the number of roads in Blore has been increasing so has been the number of pot-holes and bad, broken roads? Why is there a mindset that only flyovers everywhere will result in smooth traffic? Yes flyovers may be necessary probably at some places, but what about all the other places that one has to travel through to reach one’s destination. Is the government planning to cut all the trees lined up on the road side? – After all the whole city is congested.

Just stating the obvious - the government has let the city grow in a highly unplanned way. Bangalore, the land of opportunities, has been growing disproportionately for years now – but it still continues to do so - that’s the sad part - of course not the ‘growth’, but the ‘proportion being wrong’! It’s all haywire. I go to a residential block and all I find is a few houses in the midst of software companies and shops and not to forget cafes and eating joints. Vehicles parked everywhere, autos blocking most part of the roads and as if that was not enough, buses blocking the rest. And then there is huge line of daily commuters honking profusely to go from one part of the city to the other.

There’s no doubt that we need a concept of self-contained and self-sufficient satellite townships to beat the activity buzz at one central place. And then connect all these satellite towns using the much hyped metro. I think the structure and the culture of our city don’t ask for a metro cutting through the MG road, Ulsoor, CMH road. These places are already connected well – short distances well suited to travel by auto/ bus and for the more enthusiastic, on bicycles. Moreover, these are not just ‘places’ such as AIIMS/Lajpat nagar/Sarojini Nagar that Delhi (which now boast of the word class metro) has. These places for Bangalore are its culture, its identity, its way of giving that warm welcome to people under its shaded pathways. These places make the city alive - those leisured walks at the MG road arcade, the buzz of the city at CMH road and the dust-free Indiranagar… all compromised for the time being and also long times to come(we all know how the government works). What we could have done was let the heart of the city remain the same and cut those commuters who travel across the city. Connect the far flung areas through the metro. Such fast public transport should be like a ring supported by the short-distance public carriers. Of course I am not qualified enough to give an expert’s comment…but I need to voice the thought process which keeps on getting triggered seeing the plight of our flora.
Marring nature or disturbing the ecological balance has long lasting and quick effects. We Bangaloreans know that and we cant deny that as we are already experiencing the effects. After all trees that are mute can be felled but the effects will be way too loud for us!

Electing a change!

It’s that time of the year which comes after every five years – sometimes earlier though – its election time. We are getting bombarded from all directions for one thing that is good – to exercise the right to vote and the other that is not so good - hearing our politicians roaring all over, going ga-ga over their not-so-visible achievements. May it be television, newspapers or road-side hoardings – they are there everywhere like weeds in an abandoned garden.
So how do we contribute to elections – the obvious answer is by voting! I still remember the carefree days of childhood when elections meant a lot of movies along with the election bulletins – just covering the counting of votes and announcing of results.

Yes we need to vote undoubtedly – after all we are a part of educated India – so we need to at the very least vote-for if not get voted-by! How we have to be reminded to exercise our duties (infact it's a right!) while the onus on us is far more than that. But we are too lazy or say just ignorant of the change we should be bringing. Or are we Indians averse of taking risks? I don't think it falls in the class of being lazy – it’s being cautious probably. Cautious of what we might land into if try to bring about a change – if we try making people hear us – because we are not sure of the people who will be listening to us.
So, the question is do we know if we as people are listening to the right people? Do we have the correct choice to choose from? Or is it that ‘if not this one then that one’. Of course, we can always complain that we don't have good leadership we can rely on. But what did we do the past five years – we were so busy either earning money or paying taxes or going through the daily grind of traffic/road congestions/rising prices/loan interests/sky-rocketing school fees/melting economy to top it all. So the past five years just flew by and we never gave even a slightest thought if we can bring about a change! And because the five years just went by – we are not sure of the upcoming five years. Voting is no doubt the thing to do – but does it end here? Just by voting we may not ‘ensure’ a difference – as we are the elite educated India – and obviously elite means less in number.

Time to Rise India!

India is a land of the rising…with the maximum number of youths anywhere else in the world. Call it the lack of family planning of our previous generations – but the result is loud and clear ..”India is young”….with lots of dreams and ambitions it has set on the journey to make a mark.

We are the lucky ones to be born in these times. We have transitioned from small town education to large city high paying jobs – or we are the ones to simply have the courage to leave our high paying jobs and be an entrepreneur or just work for the good of the society. Thanks to the stage India is in today.

India is at its thoughtful best – exploring the situations to its benefit – may it be our stand in IAEA or our diplomatic policies or the amount we can today boast of spending on defence.

India is at its economic best till now – with the business coming home from the power-giants to this humble nation as the “rest of the world” economy tumbling down. We are surely better off – a long travel from the times of “license raj” to having a term called “bangalored” in the Oxford Dictionary! We have seen our parents working limited hours in government offices stagnation written all around, to ‘us’ having the ability and opportunity to just open our wings, with jobs in all directions. We have seen the upcoming and the uprising!

India has surely arrived – it is recognized not just for Gandhi or Nehru or the innumerable mythological Gods or its history for which it was earlier, but for its able youth as a land of opportunities!

This is the time to move forward, to make the giant leap like an athlete at the end of its race. If we stop now – we will be left far behind. If we become satiated – we will have to write the story all over again! Let us exploit this situation to our advantage and work hard towards the aim of uplifting the rest of us to be at par with the developed nations. Let us not just be happy reaping the fruits of our previous struggles – but sow the seeds for the years to come.

The canvas is wide and only half filled, Independence is not just having a government of its own – still 30% are struggling to make their ends meet – still 33% don’t know how to read and write – we still have the highest female infanticide in the world, we still need a better infrastructure to move any further, still there is no or minimal social security for the old – to cite just a few.

India cant just sit to take a breath at this stage – the list is long and we have miles to go before we actually celebrate being independent!!

In search of paths for the feet in Bangalore

It was just another day at work with a slight difference that I had to step out to buy a few medicines at a local medicine shop just down the road – Wind Tunnel Road to be exact. This road cuts through a prime locality and is perpendicular to the old Airport Road and boasts of high real estate prices. The location is great as its near many Tech parks and great shopping malls, hospitals and hotels.
I took a 10 min break from work in the otherwise sleepy hours of mid afternoon and set off to finish the task.
The medicine shop was just 500 meters and it was the typical Bangalore weather of these days - with the monsoon clouds dancing in the sky without shedding any precious water. It had been quite long since I had ambled along that road and today, I could really notice its alarming condition. There was no footpath – the road was used as everything – footpath, parking zone, hawker’s stop and of course road! I jumped above the potholes to find firm land beneath my shoes – to realize that the car behind me was honking incessantly asking me to get off from his way – but to where?.
To say it was a two laned road would be injustice – it had one usable lane (with vehicles parked/open potholes/dug land on either side) which disappeared whenever a bus stopped for a pickup or a drop or when the huge tempos backed out on the road from their respective standing areas inside godowns (or whatever) that dot both sides of the road. As if this was not enough, there was a huge pile of all kinds of garbage forcing me to block my nostrils to reduce the stench hitting my system. Every now and then an autowallah would manage to stop and ask if the pedestrians needed a ride much to the disdain of the traffic behind.

Having picked up the medicines, I started my walk back to be greeted by strong-gusty winds making the air mobile with dust all around and now my eyes bore the brunt. People had started rushing to shelters (under the tree branches, thanks nature for providing us with that and thanks to mankind for sparing at least a few till now!) to avoid the impending rain. The journey back was swift as I raced to my office noticing how difficult it was to find just 100 meters of leveled land on this supposedly metalled road.
This ten minute sojourn was an eye-opener for me about the difficulties faced by pedestrians in Bangalore while we move around in our four wheelers on the non-existing Bangalore roads, footpaths surely look like a far-fetched possibility!!!

Shall we wake up now? - Bangalore disturbed!

It was a series of “low in-intensity but high in alarm” bomb blasts that woke up the otherwise sleepy and silent Bangalore. Though the more important question haunts loud and clear: "Have we really woken up?"
Life is back to normal, yes at the look of it, but not in our minds. We still are waiting for the clock to tick when Bangalore too becomes the “karm-bhoomi” of the so called terrorist groups.
“What is the government and the police doing?” almost everyone has this question on their lips (or atleast in their minds) – specially the middle class (with the wide exposure to the innumerable satellite TV news channels over the net and in our idiot boxes– we are extremely educated now).

The constant crib is “We don’t see the police on the roads or even at the major intersections”!! But sometimes we conveniently forget the other responsibilities the police has with the rising crime rate in the city. Do we expect them to be everywhere, just because there were a few “minor” blasts in this Indian city? Neither can Bangalore generate a swarm of policemen overnight nor can the government suddenly become aggressive and proactive from its so reactive and passive mode. It has just been elected and needs time (or years?) to settle down before it can break into action. We can’t expect Bangalore’s face and its governance to be like some scene out of a Hollywood movie where everything happens even before it is thought of and America is saved!
It’s easy to pass judgment about something we can’t control or for which we don’t have to take the onus! But what are WE doing? – sitting in our high-rises or in the ‘latest fad - villa style houses’ –watching television coverage or just slogging it out in our offices making money (with a constant watch on the latest news and the falling stocks). Isn’t it our responsibility to make our home safer – that’s if we consider Bangalore as our home. Over the past few years – I have seen this as a major issue here – Bangalore has an identity crisis – is it made of the millions of people who have come from every nook and corner of the world and made it as their residence or the is it made up of the original Bangaloreans who have resided here since ages. Each group has consistently blamed the other for spoiling this city. Isn’t it time to stop passing the buck at the expense of precious human life!

Let’s ask this ‘much avoided’ question to ourselves – do we own the responsibility? Do we care about our neighborhood? Do we know who all are around us? Is there a tenant on our floor who might be worth our suspicion? Infact, do we even know if all the flats on our floor or in our block or neighborhood are occupied? Or do we just open the backdoor of our houses to put the garbage on the empty plot behind!! Didn’t the news say that most of the bombs were planted in garbage heaps – are we doing anything to clear those around us or just create awareness or if we can’t even do this then at-least to lodge a complaint?
Do we talk to our cleaners or the numerous stream of servants we employ, about their backgrounds and register their identity with the police or are we just satisfied in boasting about their services to our friends and relatives?
Isn’t it simple and yet effective in keeping ourselves engaged with our surroundings – or do we still want to limit our social correspondence to the pub or coffee shop visits. Have we become too callous to just stop while walking on the road and look around to see if we are safe and sound. Ofcourse, we might not be able to avert the worst by this – but won’t we create some deterrent for the anti-socials- just by making them think twice before they perch themselves somewhere near us.

Shouldn’t we just wake up from this dream of having a well-connected and highly-comfortable Bangalore – move out of our comfort zones and connect well with each other – I guess this will give us more power than just forwarding or smsing news-clippings after the damage has been done!

Truly a Banglorean driver!

Bangalore has been the city of gardens for a long time now…..to prove this we have signboards around the city (specially at the borders) – that call out to you “Welcome to Garden City”…”Keep the garden city clean”….A few days back, while I was driving past one of these, a thought came to my mind – ‘Do we have any committee which will re-review the “garden city” status..probably we might then find out..it’s the ‘city of smoke’ or the ‘city with the least amount of space between two vehicles on roads’ or the ‘city with the maximum number of “dug out” roads’…there are so many titles it can proudly take!

Talking about roads and traffic…I’m really fond of driving even if it is through a swarm of vehicles in all shapes and sizes and moving in all directions…I never get bogged down by traffic (unless it is jammed!)…as long as my car keeps rolling I'll be humming along with the songs on the numerous FM stations the city boasts of.
To add to the flavor of driving, we have many interesting happenings on the road each day here – and without any guilt I can say I too contribute to the chaos sometimes just by habit or just because that has become a norm having lived in Bangalore for years- for instance sometimes you don’t like an SUV overtaking you because it had the power to – what with my zip-drive and highly maneuverable compact car – it can reach the destination before the giant space-hogging SUV. I just then start behaving like a biker and criss-cross through the traffic – later congratulating myself on my achievements.

One day I was simply mesmerized by the way a BMTC bus could create a total traffic jam on the four-laned road – just because it wanted to take a U-turn. Kudos to the courage of the BMTC driver and the patience of the many vehicles on both the sides waiting for the junction to clear off. By the time, the bus took the U successfully, the signal again turned red and the beggars were back into action. We have a special rule here- buses have to be on the leftmost lane to take the rightmost U-turn – quite poetic indeed…

With the burgeoning IT and BPO offices(I would also like to take the easy path of blaming them!!), the number of cab drivers have multiplied like the Indian population, you cant be disciplined on the roads even if you want to…the incessant honking….we can see some F-1 aspirant taxi drivers. I really pity the Merc or other imported brand owners wishing they would have left their expensive modes of transport in their garages…

Finally its not so intimidating to drive in this city, you just have to learn a few tactics (with all the disclaimers!) –
• Stay as close to the bumper of the vehicle ahead you (please tailgate!) ,
• Never follow a lane- the sooner you master the art of zig-zagging the faster you reach your destination (add “God” also to the list of your destinations!),
• Never drive behind a bus - lest you want to note all the “no-bus stop” zones in Bangalore
• If you have a two-wheeler, don’t hesitate to jump on the footpath – you just need land to drive need not the road!
• Honk at every auto – they take the most un-thought-of turns!
• Special privilege to the two-wheeler driver, don’t waste time in giving indicators, just a nod of your head on the right or left is enough- let the driver following you keep guessing your motives!
• Save time by talking on mobiles while driving – also gives a breather to the traffic behind you, they are forced to slow down!
Last but not the least…wear a seat belt/helmet..you don’t want to get caught by the traffic police after all!!

Happy cruising on Bangalore roads!!!

The IPL Bonanza

It’s the 2nd of June – a Monday – I wake up in the morning and everything looks blue…I try to diagnose the cause like an able doctor and yes it's “Monday blues” – though the symptoms are far more stronger this time - I ponder hard and go through the activities planned for today and realize that something is surely missing in my life today – “I don’t have the cricket mania hitting my idiot box this evening”…Its all over now!!! The great 'Indian Primetime Love' has come to an end after an intoxicating 44 days of cricket.

I think it all started when Lalit Modi’s business mind decided to hit the jackpot by bringing the Indian religion to the household..where all would watch irrespective of the religion they belonged to..everybody cashed on - from movie stars to Big-wigs of the industrial sector. The common Indian man (and few uncommon Indian women) succumbed to the pressure of enjoying non-stop game watching – what started as a skepticism soon became a fever…Everyday, I would look forward to going home and switching on the TV set – weekends had a bonanza of back to back matches and I was no longer scared of Mondays…
The official-coffee gossip echoed enthusiastic voices – even though namma Bangalore started at the bottom…no longer did we have coffee breaks to ward off the ever gripping sleep after lunch hours…we had an agenda to discuss now…

I have never followed much of cricket (except bits and pieces here and there) but my disinterested mind was not ready for the attack of cricket in this fast paced, nerve-gripping form…and I totally surrendered to the adrenaline rush. It was a test of reflexes and how one can perform under pressure of time and limited resources (overs, batsmen and bowlers).., quite common in our daily work routine of IT life. Of course strategy was still important, but it was proven that human mind cannot always strategize well under too much stress – the courageous hearts emerged as winners. Then again, it was not just cricket, the youngsters could now see their 70 mm hero-heroines cheering for their team....not to forget the official “firangi” cheerleaders! So the fringe benefits were enough to pull in those who were not motivated by their love of the game.

The effect has been slow but strong..I remember that after a couple of games it was written off by most as just another bunch of matches with not the same fervor as an an India-Aus or India-Pak series could generate and sustain. But they had all forgotten: it was business plus cricket plus entertainment - everything being offered in the right amounts at the right time – the critics eventually gave up and the game took over. Since then, for Indian cricket addicts, it has been served like several ecstatic shots of their favorite dope with each ‘dum’ being more intoxicating than the last one…Now, even though the last high has been savored, but the taste lingers on – for all – the viewers, the cricketers and the IPL owners. Cheers to IPL for giving new life to cricket and to the Indian television at prime time!!

Who moved my airport? : HAL to BIAL

It has been more than a few years since Bangalore Airport Road has been a mess..with the traffic crawling like tiny insects on a never-ending journey..and moving not just in the direction they want to go but also at right, acute and obtuse angles to that direction.

These days the new international airport has become the talk of the city with all the attention focussing on the missing this and the missing that, (un)approachability of the airport being one of the prominent concerns. People, especially the influential types, who commute in their chauffeur driven imported sedans with airbags, ABS and climate control(inside their sedans ofcourse)have been criticizing the government for deciding to shift the "easy to access(?)" HAL airport to the "outside the city" BIAL- they probably missed or conveniently ignored the common man's point of view: how freqeuntly does the common man or woman visit the airport after all? One would be happier to have a decongested city with quieter skies and "easy to access" hospitals/schools/malls (for some) - unless is planning to get a school or hospital constructed for his/her kid- a la Will Smith.

Life after the shift has seen vehicles happily cruising in front of the (now defunct) Kemp fort..the long waits seem to be long gone..instead I could, to my surprise, drive at record 60 kms/hr from the HAL junction to the Wind Tunnel road junction without even hitting the brakes or anything else even once - oh how I remembered the Bangalore of 6 years ago...no noise no honk..truly a city for the peace loving..If only we had seperate zones for commercial and residential buildings..with the swish Volvos connecting the important points - life would have been simpler for the middle class..who are always in the middle of traffic whether they go out in their small zip-drives or just walk with their kids on the "now here - now nowhere" footpaths. Who needs a mall in the neighbourhood - if one cant even get out of ones apartment gate because of the piled-up traffic?

Probably moving the airport to a distant site is a first step towards decongestion and also another step towards increasing the rail revenues for overnight journeys - a welcome change - atleast now you won't be waiting for 2 hours at the airport to board the aircraft and then 1 hr in the aircraft to takeoff followed by another 1/2 hour to land just to go to Chennai or Hyd. Its just their mental makeup that people have to change..and knowing the people of bangalore - they will surely 'adjust madi', more so as this adjustment is going to be for the better.
Whatever the new airport is finally named- as long I can peacefully drive with my family through the "old" airport road - I would appreciate the new airport , even though I have not yet visited it.