A wild look at traffic jams.

Have you ever wondered why traffic jams happen ? Everytime i am stuck in a traffic jam , i know that either its because of a petty quarrel that broke over on the road because of a small accident , Buffaloes crossing the road, or one of those buses which were made in india just after independence are plying on the road with a full load. hmm , I think these might be valid reasons but I have an insane theory as to why traffic jams happen...

Have you ever noticed how many ad hoardings are there on the roads these days. Huge hoardings selling everything from cell phones and news papers to underwear. Pretty and skimpily clad women with glossy lipstick on 20 feet 30 feet banners sure are a major source of distraction ! distraction or whatever - the folks who put up these banners want people to be looking at them for as long as possible so that the dummies can buy their products. one way to make people look at these banners is to make traffic jams so that the people are rooted to one place and can keep gazing at the billboards. Another party that has lot of vested interests are the gas station guys. these guys sure want you to keep filling as much gas as you can and often. If you are going to be stuck in traffic jams sure you are going to burn more fuel.

One more suspicious element on my list are the FM radio stations. these people know that car drivers and the like listen to the radio in their cars , and one sure way for upping listenership is to get them stuck in traffic jams so that , while they dish out some sorry music and lame humour between commericials you steel keep listening for want of nothing better to do.

I plan to to wear my detective cloak and eyeglass tonight. Heading out to see how these guys are conspiring togehter to make traffic jams happen , i have a tip off that the preparations start at midnight !

Toodle hoooo

Maddening City Scapes - 1

I love our indian cities very dearly. I have had the opportunity to live in the three big southern cities , Chennai , Bangalore and Hyderabad. While all the three cities seem to have their own merits and demerits , I cant help feeling sad for the fact that they are all headed in the same direction and just reflect various stages of neglect and disarray.

The population of these cities is becoming too huge for the infrastructure to handle which is slowly but surely crumbling down. while in some cases, you can see some action being taken to widen and build new roads , new flyovers to ease smoother flow of traffic, the progress on these fronts is just too slow to keep pace with the rapid development in industries such as IT , BPO and Pharma which attact vast populace to relocate to these cities. Once there is such a vast section of upwardly mobile population, retail and hospitality industry has stepped in to cash in too - resulting in a number of spanking new malls sprouting up everywhere.

I do marvel at the developments shopping is a delight with retail customers being spoilt with variety and innovative schemes. New restaurants and hotels offer lots of cuisines to choose from. The night life though still bland is looking to improve too. World class housing projects are coming up everywhere. Private enterprise is flourishing.

All these developments have resulted in more usage of resources such as land , water , power and roads. So much that , i have noticed every 6 months there is almost a 50% increase in traffic jams ! I listen so much more to the radio in my car these days , atleast a couple of hours every day and I seem to be getting used to this kind of life too as is everyone else.

But there sure comes a point when you can no longer ignore the happenings. Just the kind of thing that is happening in bangalore now, where every one is realising that the city's infrastructure has crumbled.

I happen to read a survey of India Today a few months back which was talking about the dismal state of our cities. Most of the cities need thousands of crores of investement pumped into them and that too over a short period of time if any of our cities are even to come close to better offf cities in asia like Bangkok or Shanghai. Note that I dare not compare our cities with Singapore or the western cities which are actually light years ahead in terms of development , infrastructure and civic amenities.

How can we ever get there ? will we ever ?
I hope to see a day where our cities are atleast comparable or boast some of the good things in other world cities.

Happy Diwali !

Diwali is a great festival, the biggest of them all truly and I look forward to it every year. The colourful skies, the gifts, the greetings, Everything !. Not to mention the corporate celebrations and corporate gifts these days which add a new flavour to Diwali.

But one thing that I absoltely dread every year is the noise. I have had my peaceful sleep ruined many a time by noisy fire crackers. and the noises are only getting louder year after year. There have been instances where I at 3 am in the morning have laboured from my sleep to plead with these noise makers to choose other stuff to toy with but to no avail - the show had to go on !

One of those Diwali's when i was in Chennai ( which is by the way a city which thrives on these 3'O clock fireworks ) I even drove out of town to nearby pondicherry just to be away from the noise :-)

But there are even more terrified creatures other than me , Pet subjects mostly and dogs in particular. our poor doggy used to find the closest bunker ( bed/sofa underside ) whenever the loud noise crackers used to go off.

The worst part is after diwali , smoke, and litter every where, paper bits sprewn around on the streets and the air reeks of phosporous , sulpher and other chemicals which predominantly make up firecrackers.

If there is one good thing coming out of the whole exercise I think the mosquitoe armies will bite the dust for a few days.

I wish we could continue to celebrate diwali as the festival of lights and not as the festival of noise and pollution :-) . Even as i speak , on this evening, in some house they are just lighting up up the evening lamps allover and the whole city is going to look oh so pretty with the lights lit up !

Let us celebrate Diwali - the festival of lights !

Melancholy

This picture was taken by me while driving through rural Andhra Pradesh, on the hyderabad bangalore highway.

There is something about Sunsets that is very melancholic to me . On one side the magnificient glory of the Sun and the beauty surrounding it... The marvelous hue , the blue sky now paling into a dark gray. And then as minutes pass the sun slowly fades away - a painful retreat indeed. Unnoticeably the night takes over.

Sunsets are marvelous times to have a drink too and nothing beats the tropical sunsets. But often i link them to goodbyes , and loved ones who go far away.