The rains have decided to pay surprise visits to Bangalore again... Its been 2-3 days now. I've been regularly getting drenched, and it isn't helping the cold I caught just before leaving Trivandrum abt 5 days ago. (It seems I have a Tvm-cold&fever-jinx : I almost
always get it, even if I go there for like 2 days!!)
Anyways..thats not what I wanted to write about. I have to vent out my frustration against the madness that seems to spawn itself when it starts raining in Bangalore. I'm speakin about the Traffic. The Roads. The People.
Aaaarrgghhh!!!!For example, yesterday evening, all I wanted to do was reach home quickly from MG-Road at about 7:30pm, after attending the AMD DevCon at the Taj. (my next post, very shortly) Anyways, it was raining, pretty heavily too, and my projectmate and I couldn't find even one autodriver who was willing to take us till Banashankari. (They never seem to agree when you badly need one, right? and they even give you a sarcastic apologetic smile if its raining!) So we started joggin in the rain along the footpath, checking if any BMTC bus stuck in the slow-moving traffic was going our way. After about 8 minutes of running, jumping over rain puddles, getting mud-splashed by vehicles, bumping into people, and 15 buses, we finally got one that was going straight to Banashankari bus-stand.
Ahhh...that was a temporary relief, though standing with dripping clothes in a crowded bus was not gonna help us make any quick friends.
Well, after snailing its way through the populated roads, the bus stopped near Jayanagar 8th block, and they told all of us to get out. I guess the driver was bored with his career and suddenly decided enough was enough. So, we step out, and not surprisingly, the rain was heavier now. After our almost-dried clothes had got drenched again, we got an even-more crowded bus to Banashankari.
Well, 20 minutes and 200 dirty glances later, we reached Banashankari finally. I just had to travel 3 more kms to reach my flat, and my friend a couple more, so we decided to catch an auto. After getting drenched in the rain for the 3rd time, we got one and even settled for a '1 n half' metre charge. Ahh, I couldn't bear to argue with the autodriver, I just wanted to get home fast. Well, after moving forward for like 500m, the driver suddenly stops. What now?!
"Saaar, too much traffic sir, it'll take 1 hour to get through"...Traffic? in Banashankari? I looked ahead and saw a couple of vehicles, and there was traffic ahead alright, but not a jam, it was moving-traffic for Godsakes! It couldn't even be called "traffic" by B'lore standards, it was as good as it got!
"No saaar, it's too much saaar. I won't go further!" Daaamn..ok fine...stepping out into the pouring rain (4th time), we ask him how much -
"18Rs saar" (Easy math- min. charge of 12Rs + another 6. Brilliant!) Whadaaaahell? But the guy was too stubborn and we didn't wanna have a fight in the rain, Hindi-filmy style. So after paying 18Rs. (for travelling a distance that maybe required like 18 strides), we started running to the next bus-stop.
Reached the stop. Kadirenahalli Cross. Ahh..there was one bus that was actually going to my place, and it was relatively empty too! Had my luck changed? Apparently not. Cos as soon as I seated myself, I saw the driver tell something to the conductor. The conductor immdiately stepped out and ran off to the nearest shop. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity to me, actually 10min, he came running back and handed over to the driver a packet filled with vegetables.
What the..! Apparently the driver thought he would take advantage of the sparsely populated bus to do some timely grocery shopping for his wife!
Well, without much further incident, the bus reached my place. Except ofcourse, in between, when we almost rammed into 4 or 5 cars on the Outer-Ring-Road intersection. Huh? I was surprised that happened, cos usually there's a traffic-policeman regulating traffic there. I looked out of the window, and lo!..to my surprise, I saw the policeman (fully geared with hemet and raincoat) doing his job, but under the protection of a shop's asbestos sheet, some 30m away from the actual intersection! LoL! Inspite of my pitiful situ, I had to laugh.
How much crazier could this place get?Well..that's that.
I reached home after approx. 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Drenched to the core. Starved. Tired.
A Wet Bangalore -
sakkath crazzy magaa!!!
