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Thursday, August 04, 2005

Pensioner's Paradise?

Have you ever got stuck in Marathahalli bridge for 45 minutes wondering why the hell the vehicle in front of you doesn't move at all?Have you inched thro' traffic in hosur road? Have you slightly brushed against the car next to you in airport road? Have you waded thro' potholes in Bannerghatta Road? Have you heard all those unparlimentary exchanges between drivers in BTM? Have you noticed the half-finished fly-over near domlur with the iron-rods staring ominously at you? If you've had any of these 'blissfull' experiences ,you'll know what am talking about!!Care to venture a ride in my office bus one evening and you'll think EVIL DEAD was a soft comedy movie.You'll be more than thankfull when the bus drops you off and you land on your own two feet!! Does he know he should'nt overtake from the left? we have a deaf ear 'cos he cant take his hand off the horn. Seriously, the sound resonates long after i get off the bus!!He's playing god for those minutes who can make or break, who can let me live a few more days!!
Here's more.. If you've ever seen the layout of BRIGADE METROPOLIS or PRESTIGE SHANTINIKETAN and heaved a loud sigh..WELCOME ABOARD! Real estate rates in bangalore are skyrocketing! You can see every square feet of land turning into a skyscraper overnight.You've dreamt of a nice house with a beautiful garden and a picketed fence? well, i hate to burst your bubble but thats all what you can do. DREAM. If you ever get further, you'll be paying back till the end of your life. You just have to claw into one of those matchboxes with the rest before that is take too..We aren't MILLION DOLLAR BABIES are we? With the income i have in a few days, all i can buy is a place to lay a tent!!!
From where i come, a movie on a weekend costs an economical 50 bucks.But here in SILICON VALLEY a movie in a hall with velvet curtains on the sides and seats, air-conditioners that don't hum when the movie plays and a jumbo bag that costs more than my day's wages.Its PVR and you better pay for it.Like it makes the movie or your experience any better?! Now we have INOX too buring a hole in our pockets! Why would i pay half a thousand to watch a one and a half hour movie or salman show his biceps?Care to think, my friend?Is there no end to this madness!!
Gone are the days when bangalore was a pensioner's Paradise!Now its a concrete jungle, a city which drives you mad with its jams and a way too expensive standard of living. You might still have vasanthi and darius from RADIO CITY to brighten your mornings and evenings , bryan adams and elton john do drop in once in a while,garden city still clings on to a few of its parks, water does come from the tap in our homes and it is blessed with rains. But the infrastructure stinks so much am beginning to think am better off in the heat and the sun! SILICON VALLEY is fast becoming a mad city, what are you doing to save it? Or are you just adding to the stink in your own sweet way?
PENSIONER's PARADISE? wake up..the show's over honey!!!

Monday, August 01, 2005

Are u from chennai? Me too!!!!

For the past few days these are best words i've ever heard!!!
I'm actually longing for people who speak the same language as me.. who are from chennai and it feels so much at home to speak to somebody like that!!!

Today a girl called me about a house she wanted to rent.. when she asked me "Are u from south india?" i felt the familiar tug.. and then came .."Which part?" "Chennai".."Oh really Me too"!!! and the conversation swtiched to tamil.."Chennaila enga??"

I din't know i was attached to a place or a language.. i've lived in pilani for four years..even civilisation existed in the barest.. but we had a familiar crowd.. i've been in bangalore for 6 months for internship but again with familiar crowd..

This time am here for i dont know how long.. but it does feel like years since i spoke to people without wondering if am making grammatical errors.. if am making sense.. sometimes it irritates me how people start talking in hindi jus assuming the rest of us are as fluent as they are.. din't they say english is the universal language.. and it doesn't hurt to know if the other person knows as much hindi as u..

Although i dont have a problem with understanding hindi,i have a problem speaking it! I speak quite fluently for a person who hasn't studied it, but jus learnt it on the fly, still the attitude irks me and beleive me there are some people who wouldn't stop talking in hindi even if they know the other person din't understand much...Talk about manners!! SIGH!!!

Anyways this is not about my anger against hindi-speaking wallahs, this is about how much u long for familiar things when ur in unfamiliar territory. How much i long for my mom's potato curry, her sambhar, rasam,even curd..although it tastes the same here!!!

Its about coming home and watching sun TV for a while.. talking in tamil..watching tamil movies.. having colleagues who know what its like to watch a rajni movie in udhayam with people throwing confetti and whistling so hard u cant hear any of the dialogues.. Darn!!!!

I do most of these things even now.. watching tamil movies, watching sun TV after goin home..making rasam.. but i miss something.. its the feeling of belonging to a place.. and bangalore still feels foreign even if i've been here for a while.. chennai might not have enough water..its prob sweaty and f***ing hot in may... u prob dont have so many pubs and eat-outs.. but still its heaven for me.. i guess thats what its for everybody ..the connection you have to some places are not expressable.. cannot be penned.. but only felt and long for!!!

mebbe someday i would go back.. jus to feel like being at home amidst the noise and the madness!!!!