All is for Good

I was dressing up this morning and I wore my pants and tucked my shirt in. But while adjusting my shirt after that SPLING! The button shot out of the pants. Oh Well. I'd expected this to happen sooner or later. One of the two buttons had already come out long back anyway.

I changed my pants. But this pair had the back pocket button loose. Out of frustration I pulled it out myself. What the heck.

And then later I was riding along, with no worries. Like a zombie. When SPLOOSH! Bird poo in front of me yippee! Funnily, I didn't KNOW it was bird shit. Because at first I noticed only a big clear drop of liquid. Like water from the tree. Then I noticed a teeny bit of bird crap just below that.

I thought what a bad start to the day. But then I realized, I was actually being lucky. The pant button could've come off at work. The bird could've aimed right for me, but it defecated on the fuel tank.

And then after a bit, what's this? Oh ho! There is MORE bird doo-doo on the odometer (how the fuck), mirror stand and bike handle. Phew. How did nothing fall on my hands and all.

So I came and parked my bike, a good twenty minutes late to work. And then I noticed some MORE bird poo on the BACK of my bike on the helmet lock. Small amount though. Not bad eh? How it pooped all over the vehicle but cleanly missed me.

I hope I'm not confidently sitting here with some bird shit on me somewhere I cannot see.

All is for good.

Hosur Sweet Home

Hello. This is an attempt to describe the daily adventurous activity I partake in. Note, however, that while I love adventure, I do not love this particular task. I'm talking about the evening journey from Hosur Road back home. I picked the return route to describe because I was inspired to do so some days back while, guess what, returning home! I may describe the morning 18km saga another day.

(Note: The distance to my house given in kilometres is accurate to the nearest 10,000 km. Just in case you're the kind that would point out flaws in such things.)

14 km

Right. Here we go. After a long day's work (hah) I finally get to go home! Off I trot to the parking lot to get my bike. Engine on. Vroooom awaaaayyyy for about 75 m till the gate. Because just outside the friggin' gate is a jolly old traffic jam waiting to tell me, "Not so fast, buster!" This is no ordinary jam. The traffic here is fucked up on a daily basis. Hosur Road fills up first. The main road. Then the service roads. Then two wheelers, cyclists and pedestrians move over to the muddy area next to the service roads. But hey, that's slow, man! You gotta leaarrrn how to make your way through. So I head over to the gunk-filled ditches and egg bhurji shops. Climb over anyone who's in the way. Only to find that the 'muddy' part ends there and the "there's-no-friggin'-WAY-you're-driving-through-THIS" part begins.

And much to my dismay, I see that all the snaking around was in vain because the two huge buses next to me are moving at the same pace. So then I make the unwise decision of joining in the jam. On the service road itself, of course. Because it is pretty much impossible to get to the main road across the 4 - 5 m wide service road within the next 10 min. The traffic jam is so motionless that if you replaced all the vehicles with houses and skyscrapers and other buildings, THEY would move faster.

(Click on image for better quality)

12 km

After finally getting past the epitome of all chaos, that bombaaT Bommanhalli Junction, it's now time to snake through some more buses. But this time, it's faster. Then why complain? Because I have two choices: (a) Ride with my visor down and risk falling into a pothole. (b) Ride with my visor up and create potholes in my sclerotic coats and corneae from the mind-boggling amounts of dust that looms over.. Well most of Bangalore actually.

11 km

Silk Board Junction. Yin and yang salmagundi in my head. On one hand I zoom at alarming (for Bangalore) speeds up the 'flyover' or 'bridge' or whatever English term you want to insult by calling the Silk Board Junction that. On the other hand I zoom at alarming (for Bangalore) speeds down that same bridge towards the Madivala Bus Stand, all the while having an almost bird's eye view of the horror that is to come.

The Madivala Bus Stand. If Bommanhalli Junction is the mother of all fuck-ups, Madivala is the grand daddy of it all. As I would like to majestically describe it- FUBAR.

10.2 km

Heading out of the hell hole that is Madivala! Heading towards The Forum! Oh my god. 20... 40... 50... 60... 75... 80... 95... 120... 160... 180...

10 km

...200 m!! Two hundred fucking metres of the breakneck speed of 50 km/h! What's that? You thought those numbers were in km/h? Hahahahahahahahaha! aaaahahahahahahahahahaha! haha! hah.. Phew. I needed that laugh. Anyway, here I am now. At The Forum. The left part of the road which I have to be on, to continue straight towards home (lucky me!), is what some people would refer to as what-the-fuck-ness. Seriously, The Grand Canyon would piss in its pants if it came across this monster of a gorge that actually becomes the world's deepest river when it rains. Oh but I'm not The Grand Canyon. Come on, after Bommanhalli and Madivala, this is juuujuubi. On to Adugudi. Bring it on, I say!

7.8 km

Adugudi. The egg-items shop on the road side at this signal. The heavenly aroma of eggs cooking. I am always tempted to ditch my motorcycle and try something from that stall. But I am rudely awoken from my eggy reverie by the blaring honk of the nutjob's vehicle behind me. Alright, alright! I am sorry I didn't notice the little crack in the pavement in which at least ten of us two-wheeler riders can sneak through and make it to the front of the stationary traffic. Bah! People just don't appreciate eggs enough.

Oh ho! What is this? One Mr. Traffic Cop is frantically waving to the left? No way. I'm not going into some Adugudi and all. I want to go home. I'm just heading straight. Vroom vroom... Vrooo-chak chak. Oh mother*%$&#$. No wonder. I find vehicles standing still in all sorts of orientations. I'm pretty sure the cop is looking at me and guffawing away. Right you are, Mr. Traffic Chief. I head back and turn into Adugudi. I've always wanted to see this place anyway. Hah. Right. Wait.. I didn't mean THIS slowly though. I meant I wanted to cruise through while glancing at the odd building here and there. Oh well. After a nice first-time trip through Adugudi, the 1,042,013 marble and granite dealing joints, and Wilson Garden or Gardens, I join the celestial road that is Hosur Road again. (Yes, even though it’s past Koramangala and Adugudi and all that, the entire stretch till Residency Road is called Hosur Road, thus damning all riders on that road to weeks of nightmares. The sheer name HOSUR… Husssshhhhaaarrrr.)

6.67 km

Wooooo! Hatrick Sports. That's how I refer to this area. I don't know what it's called. But I DO know that at this signal, one can witness a true marvel of the Indian road system. Behold! The direction-defying BMTC bus. There we are, waiting at the signal, looking right ahead. The only other road there, is a perpendicular one-way road that joins our road from the left. So that would mean the entire road is occupied with stationary traffic facing our road from the left. “So What?” says the bus driver standing along with us and, when the light turns green, proceeds to calmly turn left and park himself right ON the faces of the pant-shitting riders and drivers. Some of the brave chaps manage to squeeze their way out from underneath the scary grimace of the BMTC bus whereby the bus driver proceeds to the next batch of pant-shitting commuters. This has happened TOO many times for it not to be included in a generalized description of my return journey.

6.2 km

On and on I go. This stretch is particularly kind (when there’s no traffic) but wait! Since it is against the principle of road designers in Bangalore to make it possible for any driver to drive without worries for more than 200 m, this road too has been.. well.. fucked with. What better way to hassle drivers than to fuck with the road, right? Yeah. Rumour has it that the BBMP actually comes and digs up the road every night. When drunken employees protest and try to repair the roads, they are given severe punishments such as riding on the road between 7 – 7:30 PM. And you wonder why roads are never repaired!

Oh the potholes are not the biggest feature of this road though. What is remarkable about it is how they managed to design it so that it narrows down from a 4-lane road to a 1.8-lane road *snap* like that.

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Of course, this spectacular transition isn’t complete all by itself now, is it? What it needs is another deep ravine right across the beginning of the narrow part for the finishing touch. Bingo! That’s exactly what we have.

5 km

Yaaaaawwwnn. I can basically nap the rest of my way home. After hazarding my vehicle and myself through all those 9 or 10 km, what is a little curve here, a bump there going to do? Heh. As harmless as the auto rickshaw who pops out of nowhere oops! Hehe, carry on ol’ chum, you needn’t worry about going in the wrong direction. All I did was skid while braking suddenly. Have a good evening!

0.035 km

Ah. Home at last. Oh there are my jolly old tail-wagging tongue-dangling buddies, waiting to welcome me back! What’s that? You want to chase me? Hehe.. OOps! Almost looked like you REALLY wanted to bite right through my bones there, for a minute. You little rascals. Sometimes I feel like you are actually chasing me like I’m a little rabbit. I love you all too, but I’m just going to accelerate and run along now. You have a good evening too!

Sporty Saturday

Qualifying, 2009 FORMULA 1 TELEFONICA GRAND PRIX OF EUROPE:

1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes
2	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes
	...
	...
	...
6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
	...
20	Luca Badoer	Ferrari

_____
NICE.
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Barclays Premier League, Wigan Athletic vs. Manchester United:

Wigan 0 - ManU 5
_____
NICE.
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Credits:

Thank you's
Sharon
Tata Sky
KPTCL
Star Sports
ESPN

Fuck you's
Ferrari
My cable guy

Research Links Sudden Sleepiness in Mexico to Indian Presentation

Thursday, 30th Jul '09 - Earlier today at around 11 AM IST, around 50,000 people in the small town of Illi Niddeneyilla, Mexico, had complained about a sudden bout of extreme uncontrollable sleepiness. The town, known for the small number of hours that its residents sleep for, had once topped a 'list of most active cities and towns' after a survey conducted by the Bere Kelsayilla Group. But today, that same town had suddenly come to a standstill as people fell asleep by the hundreds. Vehicles had rammed into buildings and had run over people (asleep of course) as the drivers had suddenly dozed off. Scores of researchers have tried to solve the mystery of this strange phenomenon for more than twenty minutes since. At last a recent study by a team of neurologists seems to have cracked the case. The research team found the cause for the phenomenon to be a presentation conducted in a Bangalore office at 11 AM IST today.

The head of the research team, Mr. Drillandre HingmaaDbeku, was available for comments. "We are extremely happy to have finally solved the mystery of this incident. Our two-minute study has positively given us the reason for the Mexicans falling asleep all of a sudden. It was because of this mind bogglingly boring presentation that happened at iWhileAway in Bangalore. The words of the presenters were so strong that they travelled all the way to Mexico and destroyed the possibility of the people there being awake even for a second in the next 5 days.

Mr. HingmaaDbeku also added, "It is sad that such presentations are allowed to happen. The devil-may-care attitude of the Bangaloreans resulted in the Mexicans being subjected to 400 times the lethal dose of boredom that even the strongest human can take."

The presentation team defended their act by saying...

[Note: We regret to inform you that the report remains incomplete due to our reporter dozing off before he could write down even the first word the presenters had to say.]

Mosquito Admits Fart Was Fire Alarm Trigger

Thursday, 23rd Jul '09, Bangalore: An embarrassed mosquito admitted to having triggered off the fire alarm that caused panic and chaos at the iWhileAway office here on Wednesday. The newly installed fire alarm, which is being tested roughly 5600 times a day, went off at around 11 AM in the first floor office of iWhileAway. Employees were roused from their state of deep torpor as the fire alarm excitedly wailed. The jolted workers looked around fearfully as they picked up their most precious belongings and rushed out of the building. Fire wardens at iWhileAway were left bewildered, as they sought the reason for the alarm going off, until the shamefaced mosquito came forward and admitted to having triggered the alarm.

"I am extremely embarrassed. What can I say? This never happens. But it must've been from all that blood I sucked out of those McDonald's going, burger-eating lazy masses of flesh that I saw at the office," said the mosquito. "Well, you see.. Hehe.. Arthur and I are starting a family. We are planning to lay a lot of eggs," the mosquito added sheepishly, on being questioned about the inconceivable amounts of blood that she sucked at one go.

The new alarm system at iWhileAway was installed last week as per guidelines for the ISO certificate. Chief fire warden Ms. SoLLekooDa BiDalla was in charge of conducting drills and testing the alarm system. "We here at iWhileAway care for our employees. So all these procedures are not for merely acquiring the ISO certificate, but for the safety and wellbeing of our employees as well. We are conducting drills every three seconds during working hours and soon we plan to ramp up our fire safety system by conducting training sessions, presentations, demonstrations and holding back the employees after working hours to conduct another thousand odd drills," said Ms. BiDalla.

"The alarm is a very sensitive one. Last week, it was triggered off by steam from the coffee machine. Day before yesterday, it went off because of dust. But I would say, yes, it was unfortunate that the alarm was triggered today by the mosquito fart. We will take care of this soon, we have many experts who can adjust the sensitivity to the optimum levels. Of course, this means that we will need to add another three thousand drills to our daily drill schedule," added Ms. BiDalla.

The visibly apologetic mosquito vowed never to feast beyond limits on the employees' blood again. "But you know, it would be nice if they actually got up and did some walking around, some movements. It's way too tempting for me when I see these fat scumbags slug around all day and wallow in their drool," she added, before going high pitch and buzzing in our reporter's ear unintelligibly.