KSRTC & me

I shifted my home out of Bangalore 2 years ago, where I was born & brought up. My new place is 65 kilometres away from Bangalore. My work is still in Bangalore itself. (Where else will I get the same pay). My daily commuting is thru the State run Inter city Buses or KSRTC in short.

The time for commuting is 4 hours daily. The frequency of buses is very good. My last bus is at 2:00 in the morning & first bus starts from 5:00 in the morning. I have a bus pass ( i.e monthly payment) , so I need not have to carry the change or hard cash when I travel between these towns. So it is safe for me.

All North & Central Karnataka buses out of Bangalore move thru my path & so I get to spend 2 hours either way with those people. The interactions with those people have given me insights into the life led by a common man who is disturbed by the swift growth of Bangalore & the cost of living in Bangalore.

Initially when I started commuting I used to spend time on my own reading something or just napping. But later as the commuting time increased due to traffic congestion, I began to get restless in the bus. My bum used to ache because of sitting for 2 continous hours. So I started this habit of initiating a dialogue with a co-passenger, & if his reaction is positive then continuing speaking with him till my stop came.

Most of the information I got were really good (both for my personal life as well as for professional life).

Some days I meet villagers who had come to Bangalore all the way from their villages to sell their products. They come here hoping they will get a much better price if they sell in Bangalore.
They would have loaded all their grains or vegetables or fruits or flowers in lorries & came along with it. When they try to sell it in Bangalore, the real profit on their product would have gone considerably down .(due to reasons like Lorry charges, their boarding & Lodging charges, return ticket charges etc.).

So while going back they would be unhappy & sad about their existance. To add more pain to their insult, they would have seen how this IT & BT is creating so many wealthy people. Can you imagine a family of 5 in a village having a land of 2 acres has a annual income of 20K. This is much less than many induvidual monthly salaries in Bangalore. The cost of everything in cities is so high, these people get lost in thought. Even drinking water which is given freely and with good warm heart in villages to any passerby is a commodity in city.

The sadness, frustration on their faces while returning back is quite evident on their faces. Even Conductors on the bus feel for them even though this is a daily sight for them. Just think if you were in his position. What would you be doing ?

Foreigners & Me

I am perplexed by all Foreigners (From now on I shall call them Mr.F[no pun intended]).

I always feel like hitting an Englishman. Or calling a American as Homer. Or calling a German as Hitler. Or calling the Thai, Malay or Vietnamese as Cockroach (or anything that moves around) eaters. Or a Newzealander as "precious" (in the same tone as gollum). Or showing the middle finger to a French guy.

I have always interacted with Mr.F. Some of them were my father's or mother's friends who had overstayed in India even after independence. They were very nice to me. They used to get this F chocolates which were very tasty & some strong chocolates which all of you must have tasted.

As I grew up, While doing apprenticeship there were 3 Germans from the home company who had come here to work on cultural exchange basis. They seemed really nice people. I used to take them to many places in the weekends. They were pretty much mischievous like me & so we used to enjoy nicely. We had been to Goa, Agra, Mysore & nearby places in that 6 months. They used to never pay for anything & I used to never ask them also. Transportation charges were borne by our company & only for extra curricular activities I had to pay.

Then in my next company, For the new project for which I was involved there always used to be interactions with Mr.F. Movement of people from either side was more & so I too had to go to plants in the Foreign World.

When I went there for the first time, I was silent & blocked myself to the work in hand. Weekends were just making sure I got perfectly ready for the Monday meetings. All these people with whom I had interacted in office remained just that - Office Colleagues.

The next time round, when I went to France, I was there as a backup to one of the guys & so
had lots of time in my hands. I tried calling these German friends over phone. I had their number because we used to exchange e-mails. They told me that they were busy for them to come to France, but if I went to their place they would join me.

So that Friday afternoon, I took a TGV in the SNCF station that was near my place & went to their place. Visa is not a problem because the present Schengen visa is for 15 countries. I called them from the train station. Their response was that I should catch a cab to their town & it will take less than 20 minutes. I went there. One among the two came, chatted with me & then said that as he was busy he needed to move.

Now for the next 2 days, I was left with no work or no friend to accompany me in that part of Germany. My return ticket was for Sunday evening. This hurt my heart badly.

Finally our US fellows come into picture. As I had learnt the hard way how these people behave with us, when our US colleagues came to India, I interacted with them but never asked them their plans for Weekends. I discussed with them only about work & no personal or special chatting.

As they had heard from some of their fellows who had come here earlier that I was a good guide for all activities they asked me about where I would be joining them. I gave a lame excuse that I had some personal work in my home & I feel bad for not for the inconvenience caused.

Later the next month I had to go to US for the same project, I stuck to myself because of my experience in Germany. But these guys called me to their homes for Halloween Party, one day for Barbecue party in the cold. I had been to with them to their pubs, shopping malls. The warmth they showered was really great.

Now the inference from this adventure is :

1.> Mr. F is just like us. Some are good & some are bad.
2.> Never judge an entire country by one or two of them.
3.> Be optimistic in whatever you do & how much you get hurt on the way.

Mobiles and me

What is the problem with me? I cannot maintain a single mobile number for more than 6 months?

Is it just spam that makes me change numbers? Or am I afraid that my past will haunt me? Or only people from whom I want to stay away keep calling me?

My Mobile History starts in 1999. Yes the year when Bharti started its service near my home. My first set was a Siemens C35. Nokia had not made such noise then. Other than this brand, what were on offer were a Vodafone (which was known as a UK brand but no history in India) & Motorola (The set was just like police walkie talkie). I went along with my friend to his friend’s home who sold the set to me.

Yes my first set was a second hand set. The cost was Rs.3500. I was getting a stipend of Rs. 2500 then. After buying the set, I needed a SIM Card to start using this set. I bought a Prepaid SIM card of Bharti (It was called Magic then). The number was 9845007541 The out going charges were Rs 6 Per minute & incoming was Rs 4/5 (not sure on that). A currency of 300 rupees used to workout for 15 days.

The connectivity was bad also. Inside the city, you had a favorably good connection. You had to speak loud for the other person to hear you. Hands free were not so clear then & there were no FM phones available. Just 2 kilometers from the National Highway, you would loose all connectivity.

All incoming were just missed calls. All outgoing were thru phone booths or office phones. Very few calls were received & that too calls were received based on where I was. If I was in a group of friends & needed to act important I would be receiving the call or else based on the number of rings the call came I would be able to gauge the message.

In my friends circle, a call from any number other than home number meant
3 rings meant “Come out. We are in the normal meeting place.”
2 rings meant “Call me back.”
Incessant rings meant “Emergency. Call back urgently or receive the phone”

Even in my home, when I went to other states the incoming was based on number of rings from my home number.
2 rings meant “All are OK here. How are you now”
5 rings meant “Come fast. Missing you here”
Continues rings meant “Emergency. Call back urgently or receive the phone”

SMS was not used other than the templates or wishing a friend who is out of state a happy occasion.

Then the worst part was receiving a call when you were out of the mobile circle. For a person calling from here the cost was just 1:20 in a normal phone for 3 minutes, but for me who received the phone it would end up from Rs 20 to Rs 50 based on how far I was.

Even recharging a prepaid connection when out of circle was a headache. You just could not buy recharge cards available there & use it. You had to call somebody from your friends group, plead them to buy a recharge card here, then scratch & tell you the entire 16 digit number which you had to enter there to recharge the phone.
I used that number till Reliance came out with the 500 rupee set. That ended my first usage of the mobile number. In the meantime mobile sets kept changing & frequency became too drastic. Initially I used to change sets every 3 months, later it came down to 15 days. Even before I could complete games in the set, I was changing them. In the duration incoming became free & outgoing came down very drastically. Even STD rates just fell flat.

The reason why I abandoned the mobile connection was because the initial value of having a mobile waned away & the amount of calls which I received because of so many contacts in my Friend / Office / Relative circle really forced me out of the mobile arena.

Once I distanced the phone, I felt much happy & stayed away from Mobile phone.

The next venture into phones was because of my close friend & also of my girlfriend. Until then she had no mobile & so I too did not require it. I used to meet her on her return from college & that was enough for that day. Once she came out of college & began to go to work, the timetable of our meet erased. Meeting her became a headache & her parents started suspecting things.

She called me one day & told me that she has got a Tata Indicom number & that I too had to buy the same to remain connected to her. Moreover the offer provided free calls between Tata to Tata.

So with this pressure, I & my close friend who until then did not have a phone decided to buy the Tata mobile which gave 2 years connectivity with no recharges & calls between Tata & Tata were free & unlimited.

I decided to keep this number very private & so less of calls & only required calls.
Without my knowledge this number got circulated to my old friends (who were plenty & whom I had distanced myself because of lot of reasons. Someday I will write a post on this), new friends & relatives. Again this turned out to be a hell of problem. Always on the phone & lot of wastage of time.

My girlfriend’s family decided to get her married & found a suitable groom for her. She hesitated first but later told me directly that she is going forward with the marriage as she does not want to hurt her family. Hence I should stop calling on her number.

This was the final nail in the coffin for me. I became a total devdas after this for nearly a year. I became very lazy in my approach to any work, too restless to sit in any place for long & too bored to even receive calls which came my way. ( I will discuss this in a other post)

Luckily I did not quit my job. I stayed put to my job & began to focus all my unhappiness into a motivation to do the job much better & being lazy much simpler.
All the accolades that came my way were taken in the same spirit that I took when she told me good bye.

Professional Life began growing in an incredible pace, but my personal state of mind became too stale & stagnant. No victory or sorrow would affect my stale mind. Deceit was what I felt then.

My new company gave its own mobile for me use & the old Tata phone became too heavy for my pocket.

Finally I left the Tata number & threw the SIM in a gutter.

Presently I have no personal mobile number for any of my family to call nor am I giving away my company mobile to anyone. So I only receive calls from my company’s people any time & reply back. Calls end in maximum 2 minutes.

But my final question is - Is this my single case only or are there many people like me ?

Send in your comments.

Whenever I think of de-addicting from Alcohol, my evil inner self tells me to stop boozing from next year. I am 24. Boozing from 11 years now. Lever is OK. Just got it checked last month during annual health check up.

Why Boozing ? How did I learn it ? Was it necessary ? Does all people like me do it at such alarming frequency ? Whats so bad about it ? These are the questions I will like to ponder over today ?

I had my first sip of anything called alcohol in my friends home. It was christmas & he had invited us all to his home. I was 10 then. A small cup of wine ( 14 day brew wine) was given on to taste. Quantity must be 30 ml. This was the first taste. It felt good. It was sweet & the aroma in the mouth was good. color was just sunrise.

There we saw elders having wine but of different color. We asked for it & was promptly denied.
This denial must be the reason what fascinated me. Next week, when we friends were discussing on this point, I thought that I should try this thing called alcohol.At age 10, I had no guts to go to bar & get a drink myself. So the idea just stayed in mind.

After the 7th Standard exams, All our friends had left for the summer vacations to their native places.I was left here because this itself is my & my families native place. I was growing up physically because of hormones & so thought this must be the right time to grow mentally too.

After taking 50 rupees from my savings piggy bank, I went out. I walked for 6 kilometres towards the countryside. My mind was pondering on the positives & negetives of this great (mis) adventure that I was taking up. Finally I found a small wine shop near the edge of a village. There were not many people near the bar & definitely no one I or my family knew. Walked in at a lazy pace. I had to act I was strong & old. Otherwise there was the possibility of the barwala to send me back because of my age. Now the real problem for me started. I knew nothing about the drinks. After that wine drinking, I had come to know that there are some other things called Beer, Whisky, Rum, Arrack, Gin etc. But I did not know their brand names.
I was clueless in front of the counter. An other older person came there and asked for "Old Monk". I saw him paying 30 rupees & getting a small bottle & some change back. Then when the barwala asked me what I wanted, I told him the same thing but in a harsh tone.

This harsh tone was used because I felt all elders who drink always use harsh tone. The counter fellow gave me the bottle & I paid for it. The cost was 26 rupees. Now my worry was where to drink this ? So I went climbing a nearby hill where I knew there will be less people. Just imagine the scene. A 13 year boy with a small alcohol bottle in one hand climbing a hill.

Then after finding a strategic place between two rocks from where I can see all the below areas but finding me is a difficult thing, I opened my bottle. With the confidence of drinking wine before, I took a sip from the bottle. The sensation in my mouth is something of pain, stupidity & burning everywhere, as this fluid passed thru my throat. Man, How do these people drink this thing ?

I was left with no other option but to throw the bootle away wilth all contents in it and move back to home after accompanishing this great adventure.

The smell coming out of my mouth was yuck man!!. WTF !!! This was something I wanted to do. and here I am after doing this great endeover.

Later after my friends came back & when we were discussing our adventures of summer vacation, I told them about this story. They were laughing about my planning.

They explained the intricacies of boozing that

1.> If the booze has to be taken, it should not be taken raw.
2.> Water or soft drinks has to be mixed to it.
3.> Some numkeen(salty & peppery) stuff has to be taken along to keep our tongue clean & receptive for next sip.
4.> That bottle which I purchased contained "Rum".
5.> Rum was intially given to Horses to make them work harder. Later humans also started taking it.
6.> The brand "OLD MONK" is a world famous brand in India & the taste is very good.

After hearing this I felt enlightened about Boozing.

The next attempt will be posted later.

In my line of Duty

Work is stupid. When you are in, you feel like taking day off. When you are on leave, you miss your work. Shameless to say, I am a workolic & so naturally a alcohalic. 80 hours a week, 5 days in a week really means I have no better work to do or I love this job. This sort of working has led others in my organization to consider me as their own secretary who will help them out in all small or big jobs. This style of working initially hurt my inner mind. While I was doing my apprenticeship, one of the senior fellows had told me a line which I could not understand then. But now I can clearly decipher what they said.
"If in your dream you are doing the same job what you do in the day, that means you are a workolic"

Hope I lessen this workolic stunts & return back to my old working habits. 8 hours of busy bee & 16 hours of lazy pig.