"Minority biased Junctions" (...Bangalore Traffic)

About 4 years ago, Bangalore got its spanking new 200 ft wide double laned with 40 feet service lanes, Outer Ring road...

One would drive up here to break free from the traffic snarls elsewhere in the city...and check if their spanky investments still worked at high speeds.

Mostly worked fine, until a small hitch started showing up first little, then some more... and these days in full measure...

The hitch is what I call "minority-biased-junctions"... Bangalore's archaic mechanism of junction management...let me explain..

1) There is a very wide road, which is the highway, and contributes 80-90% of the traffic of the junction

2) The perpendicular "feeder" road is more like a 30-40 ft wide street, basically an outlet for the settlements off the highway, and contributes 10-15% traffic of the junction

3) There are no traffic lights (if they are a fair chance they will not work)

4) The "minority bias" is a speed breaker, placed not on this "feeder road" but on only on the highway in both directions.

6) What happens as illustrated above is that while the 70-80 Km/h highway traffic slows to a halt, the "feeder" traffic from the jumps on the highway as there are no deterrents, human, electronic or physical to it...

7)...and the 80:20 rule plays out...20% of traffic gets 80% of the junction time and 80% gets 20% of it...

Perhaps the idea was the same socialist one - tax the big road folks to feed the smaller road folks..problem is, it works about as much as socialism did for us.

In peak hours, you have a mile of traffic build up on this 200 ft wide highway, while the 30 ft wide street traffic jumps right on the road, nearly no waiting ...

This problem is not new, it got worse on the Hosur Road before we got lucky with a 9 KM elevated road ...so no junctions possible... but unlikely we'll get as lucky again...

So please, planners can you try wake up to some simpler solutions like simple signals adjusted to the traffic flow and do away with these "minority-bias" speed breakers!

750 sq kms and nowhere to go...

That's what happens on weekends, I sit like this on my chair, musing on what to do with with this huge 750 sq km pizza on a plateau called Bangalore....

So much to explore in some ways and then so little..

Theatre, Kannada mostly, I will have to look at the audience to figure out more than the play॥

Movies at PVR, All sold out, try your luck

MG Road, Cubbon park, Lalbagh, Visvesvaraya museum, no..they're not what they used to be..

One of those unlimited cliched exhibitions at Kanteevra stadium, no..no..no..

Go trekking with one of those adventure clubs, who take troops of 40 and turtle climb 300 feet hills, mostly very young couples helping each other along and who dont seem to notice you at all..

Take your wife to one of the happening hotspot discos, hasnt happened yet for me, as it requires the near impossible convergence of a good housemaid, my 3 year old's agreaableness to let us go and a fitting wardrobe so that us over-the-average-indian-age types can still pretend young.

Try to rub into the creative character of the city, join a music lesson and soon realize that the closest age group is 11 years younger to you and picks up 50% faster...you attend two weekends and then the third onwards the class is suddenly younger and faster

Go to the local derby season, Wonder La amusement park, or take a ride on the double decker tourist bus that shows you around bangalore...I'm saving these for "rainy" days.

So my standard last and safe resorts...try to feel busy by being in a busy situation...1) go for a tea at Koshy's with a novel and keep sitting there, while you may not be part of it, you will definitely be midst of lot happening around you...and 2) if you find travelling therapeutic, take a BMTC Volvo ride around Bangalore, you'l love how these sleek red beauties can accelerate on 20 feet wide roads with a spaghetti of a traffic around them...

And then come back, muse and write this blog...and hope to plan it better next week!

Good News India..

Changing in own little ways, a few pioneering spirits slowly adding up .. Good news India

Well apart from all that we wonder whether deserves to be news...a true oasis.

Butter and Mashed Bananas...

I have always wanted to see theatre...and finally I did last week...at Ranga Shankara, after 2 years of glossing over the idea... waiting for an english play..and then wondering where the theatre was.. and in some weak moments giving up...

Good thing is I made a great start, thanks in all measures to a brilliant bunch of Bangaloreans who gave an intense and richly creative performance in this play called..Butter and Mashed Bananas.

Its a great sense of relief that you feel when you realize that not missing out the smallest detail is not an aberration...when you see the small gestures in the performance, that seemingly instinctive are actually scripted to the finest detail.

Thanks to Harami(!) theatre and Ajay Krishnan, the director of this play who also does the live music score for the play.

Highlights - the inimitable Indian paradox, Left and Right, Page 3 sequel, freedom, the hypocrisy of the powerful, music and choreography... and minimalism..

And when you walk.. out you you also thank, that besides and despite all, how creative genius thrives in the country !

So all those lazin, on the verge of wishing- better- of- your- time Bangaloreans.. go-theatre!

Ranga Shankara is a landmark location in JP Nagar...

Mind you kids under 8 not allowed inside...and save the organizers some effort by switching off your cellphones inside the auditorium.

Why making money is alright...

The study of advanced subjects beyond your graduation basics and at a maturer time frame makes you feel better about your material pursuits...And as I was studyingMacroeconomics yesterday... I noted that GDP is calculated is based on the "value addition" of a raw material, and intermediate goods at each stage leading on to the final product... The key word is "value addition", and when we add value, we usually do something meaningful, and apply the vast grey reserves in a good, purposeful and right way...And then isnt that the basic enterprise of the world, to make use of the resources at your disposal meaningfully than fritter them away...And then, money is nothing but a consequence..

Age and insights help give a better perspective, and I realize now that the great stories of Gautam Buddha and Ashoka gave a strong bias to my early youth towards the principles of renunciation as being the ultimate ones. Too young for macroeconomics and value addition then. Well, I kind of have a more mature outlook now. What matters is that you should sustain your energies towards adding value in whatever you do, peaceful and righteous by social norms and you will be alright from the heaven and earth perspectives both.

Guns'n Roses

Guns 'n Roses in Bangalore...how would you feel. To me, its the greatest band ever second by a fraction to Pink Floyd, with Dire Straits and Metallica tied third. Everyone has their favorites and that's my order...but what I am talking about is how would it be to have a GNR concert in Bangalore...first time in India, that doesnt matter much...what does is to listen to Axl Rose and Slash and Knocking on Heaven's door and Sweet Child and November Rain and Estranged and Don't cry...
As far as I have seen nobody portrays the very fulfilled, wondering what to do next, musical genius than Axl, particularly in the single Estranged...
Somebody, potential organizers out there. I am prepared to pay $200 to watch this concert live...and the last I saw was Scorpions, 5 years ago on a $6 ticket. There are 10,000 higher plane rock fans than me in Bangalore, and 20,000 more who will come...total that up, isnt that good revenue to give GNR in Bangalore...