After a five to six year hiatus, i finally decided to start blogging again and what better way to start than with Bangalore
One cannot write an article about Bangalore without mentioning something about the traffic. (especially considering that i’m traveling a total of two and half hours by bus everyday ). The traffic levels are of course high but there are certain unique properties i’ve noticed...
1)Traffic jams generally happen only after 9 am in the morning and the roads are practically free and shutters closed on most shops(except of course the liquor ones which bustle) by 9 pm(everybody all tucked in probably owing to the amazing climate).
2) Weekend traffic is exorbitantly high especially during lunch hours,sometime even greater than office rush hour.(nobody cooks here during weekends).
3) The most interesting thing about the buses here is the ratio of the width of the road to the width of the bus which is around 1.3(my estimate of course). In fact I feel that the algorithm they use to decide bus routes is to take all possible routes and minimize to total width of the roads taken.Seriously,i feel whenever given the option the buses take the narrower road.
And adding to all this is the infinite construction going on.In most places,there is the metro construction and where there is no metro..they are building a fly over and where there is no fly over either,there is a new pipeline to be laid out .
In conclusion, traffic in Bangalore is a pain(probably not a new conclusion but still have to say it)
Most of the time in the bus for me everyday is spent sleeping in the awesome AC(Have a Volvo bus pass).I haven’t seen so many AC Volvo buses in any other city and they are different than other cities in the fact that they aren’t like super-fast buses that stop only in specific stops.So traveling in these buses has forced me to listen to a large number of Kannada songs,some of which are surprisingly catchy so much so that Chapli once actually asked the conductor to increase the volume for one of those songs(name of course unknown) only to be turned down .
Next would be the food..
The first and foremost thing i have observed that food here is generally laden with butter/ghee.Take the pav bhaji they make at Prakruti(IISc Canteen) ,they use a little more than one tablespoon of butter for the bhaji and one for the pav. Its decent to eat at the time ...but thats all you will be having the whole day after that. Dosas here are decent (again except for the exorbitant amount of butter or ghee) but the sambar is just a little too sweet for my liking.
Probably the most amazing thing you get in Bangalore is the coffee.It is to die for.Being a coffee addict resulted in an increase from three to four cups a day to like six or seven.one peculiar thing which i have noticed only here is their ability to divide drinks into every conceivable fraction..Having a 1/2 soup is very coupon but im sure no one has ever had a 3/7 soup.I’m seriously not kidding.I have also had a 3/5 lime juice(more just to test the limits to which they would go and i learn the hard way that there are no such limits)
To be fair to Bangalore..the chaat ain’t that bad (probably would have got a better review from most others but alas i am from mumbai)...
Considering that Dosa, Biryani, Chaat, coffee, cold drink, omlette more or less covers all my meals ,i guess i’m not really ideal to comment more about the food. I’m very open to any particular type of food i should try out before i leave Bangalore. Taco bell ( i don’t know why but its strangely only in Bangalore) is really worth a visit cause it the most value for money fast food place i have been to other than Mcdonalds (of which i have got infinitely bored but still go :) ).
Finally IISc
It is an amazing place to work with an atmosphere very conducive to research. Everybody is extremely chilled out (including the prof)even in the face of the heavy load on them and that tends to be very contagious and at the end of the day they really get bucket-loads of work done... It kinda inspires you to work.So work generally starts between 9-10 (no fixed timings),and it starts with a morning coffee or two Prakruti.Then get back ,check mail, facebook(i have become active only after coming here),cricket/tennis scores, then work for about 2 hours before lunch at round 12:15. Our IISc lunch group consists of Me, Vignesh, Purnima, Bharath, Mithun(rarely though) from iitm, Astha and sometimes Rajata(from IITD) and Adithya from IITKGP. We have long conversations/debates about things varying from astrology to cricket to books(mostly criticism). Purnima generally tends to become our secondary source of entertainment during lunch due to her many quirks (unlike most people).An awesome thing about her is that she doesn’t get offended easily ,this i learned the hard way by apologizing many times after making fun of her (this sentence has been added making sure she doesn’t take offense :) ).One is the fights between Purnima and Bharath as to who finishes first which ends with bharath taunting her after.But to be fair to her ,she has shown capability to eat fast and a lot when she wants to (but unfortunately that isn’t very common). The best entertainment is when the stray dogs around the canteen come close to us and then Purnima and the dog enter into a melodious harmony with her screaming with every bark(this was especially magnified when we ordered from dominos). After lunch is the time i get maximum amount of work done with coffee’s at intervals...before which i get call by 5 from Vignesh like clockwork asking me whether I’m enthu to leave.He is one of those people who can work with extreme concentration in the hours he spends here but he has to leave after the 7 hour mark. Initially i use to leave with him...but considering my concentration..i realized i had to stay back a little longer...
Internet at IISc is just too awesome where i get 5-6 parallel download speeds of above 500 kbps and i end up downloading the stuff i watch before crashing .(sitcoms..don’t get any ideas)
