Vasu Ramanujam's Blog

So, I have my folks who are visiting us from Hyderabad. They are here on a purpose. As a devout Iyengar, Maama, as I call him, is a prolific authority on all things Ramayana. He had told me that he wanted to do a “Sundara Kanda Parayanam” at our place and we gladly agreed. I consider myself an agnostic , however have been ‘habituated and conditioned ‘ from childhood days to enjoy the traditional festivals and poojas.

I have heard Ramayana, like any other kid of my age, from my grand parents. Circa 1980′s, television had not taken the center place as much as it has now in a middle class home. Those days ( gosh, i feel old already!), there was only Doordarshan with its own “Krushi darshan” ( or Vayalum Vaazhvum – Kadalai saagupadi saivadhu eppadi ) programs and this was clearly not on the high priority for  kids @ home. We all felt we were better off listening to our Grandmas’ – Yes, there were  minimum two or three in a joint family, so we had to call them based on their seniority – (Patti amma, Chinna Paatti, Rukkamma Paatti). So, we all used to sit on the verandah and slowly, the paatti ammas will begin narrating the accomplishments of  Rama in small, digestable and infinetely enjoyable story lines. They knew all the tricks of a good story teller, pausing at appropriate juncture just to gauge our attention span, repeating certain nice characteristics that they would want us to follow in our daily lives and had the right answers to all the irreverent questions from their young audience…

Sundarakanda Parayanam @ Vasu's place

Cut Flashback….Present time…..These days, we are experiencing horrible power cuts in Bangalore. Every night, prime time television has gone for a toss, as parts of the city is engulfed in darkness and people suddenly are finding themselves clueless…. My Maama is also part of the same junta who are addicted to mindless, numb and dumb mega serials ( his latest favorite is towards the COLORS channel – Note to advertisers –> target this age group or the kids, you are bound to see good ROI).

Sriramajayam@Vasu's place

Anyways, coming back to the present. So, no power, no TV. what to do? Well….What began as a simple question from my wife to Maama -”Why don’t you start narrating Ramayana”, has now grown into a full fledged hour long katha kalakshepa, a moment of discovery for both us and Maama. Every night, Maama engages in an hour long story telling session, in his own inimitable style ( We offered to record these conversations, but he was kinda reluctant and so we gave in). Maama, as I said earlier, has this complete conviction and unassialable faith in Lord Rama and it shows in the way he narrates the story. He also makes it easy on the listener as this is no more a Bhaashan, but something that everyone, especially, folks from this generation can relate to. So, his description of  Rama/ Lakshmana’s meeting with Sugreeva ( Kishkintha Kandam) to help them find Sita is peppered with the protocols between “heads of state and presidents”… what’s the connection you ask, well, you had to listen to the story then .

And that, is an entirely different story…. I am signing off now, as we are eager to hear Sundara Kandam today…

Last weekend, I had been to a place called Vidyarthi Bhavan, located in the bustling Gandhi bazaar marketplace in Bangalore. After completing our regular shopping ( “regular” would mean anything and everything to do with wifey dear, who is great on impulse buying ), wifey dear suggested I try out Vidyarthi Bhavan….

A relic from the old times ( one board indicated “estd 1934″ ), this place has been suitably modified to suit the modern times. well…almost.. The ambience is definetely old world, complete with waiters dressed in Veshtis/ Uniformed blue shirts, gigantic idly/dosa batter making devices, etc.

Like the Inspector guy from Ratatouille, it was compelling to order everything that was there was there on the menu, only catch being there was NO menu. The menu was whatever the waiter told you… and it was pretty much the standard fare…you had the following choices:

1. Masala dosa
2. Vada
3. Khara bath
4. Kesari bath

Delicious fare- Unbelievable prices

I ordered the first three… and then the fun started.The sheer experience of watching these folks “optimize” the way they serve the customers, the way they tossed the plates (and sometimes the customers) around, the spontanaitey of it all…. left me mesmerized….

Masala Inside- Vidyarthi Bhavan's trademark dosa

Then the dosa arrived. Just the dosa. No accompaniments. No sambar, no chutney…atleast not yet. The waiter was handling twenty plates of dosas and tossing them around the table… And then there was another guy who would follow him with a huge “chutney jug” and pour the semi liquidy chutney on top of the buttery dosa which is filled with the delicious masala inside. The dosas here are thrice the thickness or regular dosass we get in Chennai/ elsewhere.

Vidyarthi bhavan- retaining Old world charm in a modern world

Filter Coffee was a tad watery and quite disappointing.. I like my coffee to be of  just the right proportions – frothy, aromatic, not too sugary, and a swirl of white milk with browny edges and ofcourse served piping hot.

All in all, a great experience.

Well…If you thought the Gov’t would act as role models by following road rules, think again… Here’s one Karnataka gov’t vehicle driver who was on a mission — mission to kill anyone who came across his way. While it is not evident here as to the rampant behaviour of this driver, he was confusing the heck out of the other vehicles as he kept changing lanes haphazardly.

And so he deserves my “Moron Award of the day”

More to come….

Here we go, my first of what could become a “vigilante”/ “Active citizen” initiative about bringing into focus, all that’s wrong ( and I hope i also find interesting positive nuggets that I can share with you) with the Bangalore Traffic.

The camry driver is oblivious of the fact that  a) he has gone beyond the “zebra crossing” line which makes it difficult for pedestrains to cross to the other side b) You can clearly note that the signal is “red” c) there is no way he could merge with the already clogged traffic lanes with two buses one behind the other d) He is driving a Camry, which ain’t your “Let’s go, Alto” kind of small vehicle in the Indian roads and is not going to be easy to ‘squeeze’ it between an Auto and the Bus…

Clearly, this guy deserves my “Moron Award of the day”.

More to come….

So, here I am again, having an arguement with my wife, after the bangalore moron motorbiker on a footpath incident( read the post below) … My wife’s arguement is somewhat like this:

1. This guy ( bangalore moron motorbiker) knew what he was doing was wrong

2. However, he still chose to ride on the footpath as the traffic was/is jam packed

3. He was probably tired ( like the rest of the hajar commuters trying to get home from work) and he thought he figured out a short cut

In essence, blame it on the Infrastructure… Not on the people using the infrastructure. So, that’s what it has come to. We are pretty good at assigning blame…. and carrying on with our lives, i guess.  We, as a general populace, is getting pretty good at finding superficial ‘adjustments’ and not address the root cause of issues that are causing it. I truly believe we owe it to our future generations, just as we are reaping some of the benefits from our previous generations.

So, as any  ’normal’ Business Analyst would do, I started googling around to find if any good samaritan had figured out any solution for the traffic problems. Google gave me this site ( with a warning that visiting the site might harm my computer) which is an initiative by some company called Aapta Solutions. Not much in this site, atleast not in terms of solving Bangalore’s traffic ( I braved the Google warning)

So, next, I look at this presentation from Slideshare,

which exhorts the Bangaloreans to take up Public transport. Well, that’s a start, but i am not sure this is practical.

I will keep updating this post, as and when I find some interesting nuggets/ research papers. I am now fully intrigued and the least I can do is to collect some interesting pieces from the Net and hopefully be a one stop place for finding out everything you needed to know about solving our own Bengalooru’s notorious traffic. My thanks to the Bengalooru Moron for triggering me to take up this noble pursuit…. I salute thee, O you Bengalooru Moron on a Motorbike… wherever you are, God Bless…

Yes, you read that right. I am soo angry and agitated right now that I could’nt think of anything better…Well…What should have been a perfectly wonderful dinner outing with my wife and brother in law, went totally awry, all because of a moron….Not any ordinary moron…A probably well educated, employed in one of the better IT firms, who thought he could get beat the traffic by driving ON THE FOOTPATH, WHILE THE PEDESTRAINS WERE WALKING ON IT.. As it is, there is not much of a footpath left in Bangalore……Well…this did not make me angry…What ensued afterwards got me wild… On being asked to drive on the road, instead of on the footpath, this moron of a guy shouted at the top of his voice ( it had to get thru his helmet, you see)  thus “ What is your problem…why don’t you give me way?”…… And at this point, just as I was about to explain in no uncertain terms exactly what my problem as a pedestrian could be which this idiot could’nt figure out, my wife probably thought it wise to move away from the situation…instead of confronting it heads on… Her logic was-> let’s give him some way, we do have some space, right? and why do we need to ‘create’ issues while all others are looking the ‘other way’… yes, why indeed?

It is this apathy that has made the city what it is…. Everyone is just content looking ‘ the other way’ …If seemingly educated folks who own bikes and cars do not care about the rights of pedestrians, what can we expect of the autowallas, taxi cab guys and others who already claim ownership of Bangalore roads…?

Does it really take someone to get hurt or some major mishap to occur ( like the one that happened in Indiranagar not too long ago, when some drunk guy mowed past few elderly folks on a early Sunday morning) to drive home the point .

Isnt there no deceny left? I sure wish this guy realized his mistake or atleast said “sorry boss” and moved along… I would have forgotten it too… Instead, all I can do,  is to vent out my frustrations on this blog.. And it gives me an idea…

The next time around, I promise ( this to my wifey dear), that I will maintain my cool ( and attain Buddhahood/zen like trance), and will snap a photo of the offender and I shall honor him in my blog as my “Bengalooru Moron of the day”. Ofcourse, if you happen to find one, send it across and be sure to catch the number plate.

Take a look at this video…

Thanks, Sathya ( http://www.cssathya.com) for sharing this link via del.ic.ous….

As I was watching this excellent visualization of events that unravelled into the current global economic crisis, I could’nt help thinking:

1. Greed begets greed

2. Pass the buck around – total apathy and disregard to common sense

3. Panic 

Could it happen in India? Are our investment bankers/ investors/ common man-on-the-street so ‘sophisticated’  enough to understand the debt instruments ?Thankfully,  I don’t think so. we ain’t that complicated.

But I am sure our investors have found other means to realize higher ROI….either through direct or benami real estate investments or obscene amount of money stashed in Swiss banks or better still, they float a party and enter politics – the last refuge of any ‘self respecting‘ scoundrel . 

The current real estate prices in Bangalore are falling southward, so there is still some hope left for genuine /wanna be home owners like myself. For the past few months, I have been looking around, but even the current market prices fall into the “unaffordable” category for now.  I hope the market prices ‘stabilize’/ cool off  further,enabling aspirants like me to take the next step.

What I find is the  current real estate market  is highly unregulated and it is very difficult to sift the ‘genuine’ from the rest. But the ingredients that i mentioned at the beginning of the post – Greed, Apathy, Panic – are all there, much more visible in a sprawling metropolis like Bangalore.

The property owners and their agents are still in a make believe world, even as the world around them is slowly crumbling… Yet, they do not want to readjust their frame of reference ( and the price points) which would make housing affordable to the millions who need them.

The various weekly newspaper supplements  espouse great houses at bargain prices. But I wonder how many, in the existing market scenario, are able to afford such houses from the so called reputed builders – Sobha, Purvankara, Mantri, DLF et al. All I see is some marketing gimmicks….”Buy one house, get one plot free /get a Mercedes Benz free ”et al ( Orange Properties, a joke of the the town!) 

Sure, owning a house is a still a dream for many Indians, especially, the Great Indian Middle Class. We are still immune to the concept of sub prime mortgages, CDO’s and greedy Wall Street manipulators. However, if the current trend continues where the property owners dictate arbitrary rates/land valuation at incredible prices, it will only be a matter of time, when the house prices come crashing down, just as is depicted in the Crisis of credit – visualized video….