Back To Bangalore

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Come hither, come hither
Here shall he see no enemy
But traffic jams and rough weather.

Here, a software engineer's typical no-bus-miss day begins at 5:30AM. No, any later than that can as well end up being a half day! So, I get up at 5:30, get ready by 6:15 and go to the HPG (it's new... Highly Paying Guest) apartment and make them aware of my timeliness by constantly looking at my watch. Finally roughly after 10 mins, I will be rewarded the breakfast when I truly thank God for my food at right time.

Now I will have to walk for about a kilometer (it's more than half a mile - in case you forgot) to reach the bus stop. You do not want to hurry up though. You don’t want to be late, but you don’t want to be early either. That is because you cannot stand in the bus stop surrounded by beggars (I guess there is no softer word for that). You do not want even to be seen near them, let alone interacting with them either positively or negatively. You justify yourself telling, I'm not going to encourage beggary in my country.

By the time you are thinking all these things, strange things start happening. You will see an auto wala come and park right in front of you as if he is expecting you to get in. A local city bus also comes and parks next to the auto rickshaw and blocks the visibility of the road totally. Beware friends, you are being framed, Infy bus is right behind. A little bit of negligence will waste your 1 hour sleep sacrifice.

As they say, first step is half success. Once you get into the bus, you have achieved your intended goal. Now you need not do anything, just sit in the bus till...

This is where it gets exciting. You thought you almost missed the bus, but now, the bus is not moving. The driver is honking the 120 dB horn just to blow your eardrums off. Bus stops at every signal without fail and just after every signal too to pick up a few more of our Infoscions. Somebody please tell them it would be a lot easier if they stood near the signal where the bus would anyway stop! Oh, I forgot, even I did the same thing. But mine is different. I have already walked half a mile up the hill (wonder why it is always up the hill in the morning) to reach the bus stop. Anyway, nobody complains, neither I do.

Then we enter the legendary Hosur road. If, if only... there were absolutely no other vehicle except our bus, our driver is competent enough to make it to Infy in 20 mins. Oh well. I bet you could repeat WTH a thousand times by the time you reach here.

There is always a flyover being built. This is a phenomenal proof of the law of thermodynamics which says the entropy of the universe keeps on increasing with time. In other words, no matter how much you try to improve these roads, you will end up screwing it up one degree higher than it was before. Two and a half years back there were flyovers being built. Yes, the good news is they are done! But other new ones have been started, effectively forcing you to stare at the same old 'So fa So good' and 'Oye Pape' ads on the road side each for 10-15 mins.

By the time you reach the office, you would have experienced exposure to a constant multiple of 100 dB no rhythm horns, all kinds of dust and different kinds of stinks, seen smoke coming out of a lorry and so on. You wonder if you are going to the office or going back home. This begins (ends?) our typical weekday.

Roughly it takes 2 weeks of constant travel in this way to finally STOP comparing US traffic to India and try to stop thinking of ways turning Indian roads to the US roads and sit back and close the eyes and say 'Oh darling! Ye hai India'.

Jai Hind!