Blogs

Looking up is always as much of a delight as looking around.  

Outer Ring Road traffic on a usual weekday. Picture Courtesy: Mayur Channagere   The ORR stretch from Ibblur to Marathahalli is home to Ecospace, Embassy Tech Village, Prestige Tech park and Cessna Business Park. In addition we have a world class hospital, scores of commercial buildings, offices and approximately 50,000 residential units (and still growing). Several lakh square feet of space, both residential and commercial, is under construction. The Sarjapur road, adjoining ORR, houses Wipro corporate office - currently 10,000 employees. A new Techpark sprawling on 65 acres is coming up in Carmelaram, near Decathlon Sarjapur road. Many more residential…

George Varghese writes:   From: George Varghese <grgvrghs@gmail.com>Date: 27 November 2015 at 14:14Subject: The sweetest investment you can ever make....To: Here's a chance to make a social, ethical, environment-friendly investment and get the sweetest returns you can ever imagine and also at the same time support a rural entrepreneur make a livelihood. Interested? Read on..... What this is about: A local farmer Nagaraj living near Bisilkoppa village, Sirsi Taluk is also an experienced bee keeper. He is interested in expanding his bee keeping enterprise by getting 100 new bee boxes. At a cost of Rs.4000 per box (box with bee…

It's happening again. And again. I get to know about an event...a film, a performance....that I would like to attend. Two of them are across town from me. But when I get there, the venue is jam-packed, and we are not even able to enter the hall. Many of us stand around, disconsolately, trying to see if the organizers will let us at least take a peep inside. Sometimes we get a glimpse of what is inside or a snatch of the music, if we sit, devotedly, near the door. Otherwise, we just finally turn away. The first time was…

In quite a few of my previous blogs (I don’t remember if those blogs were here or at Funny Side Up), I’ve referred to conversations with auto and cab drivers. Generally, these have been in the context of something entirely unrelated, and I’ve only mentioned them to illustrate a point. Of late, though, I’ve come to realize that having conversations with the chap conveying me from point A to point B (or, should the need arise, points C and D as well) is quite a lot of fun. I’ve been talking to drivers for quite a while. Our old driver…

Reshmi Nagendra writes: Last evening when I was returning with 2 of my friends in my car, I had one of the worst encounters with a BMTC bus driver and the conductor of that bus(K A 0 1 F A 923, route number 213 L). The bus driver overtook us from the left side so recklessly and that left scratches in the front of the car, near the headlight. When I stopped and questioned him regarding the way he spoke , the driver straightway started addressing me in singular and used fowl language. Since I am also a localite I…

Our Puttenahalli lake is a little world in itself, of the best kind because it includes birds, butterflies, trees, flowers and more. Showcasing these is our calendar for the new year, "Life at Puttenahalli Lake."  Take a sneak peek at the gorgeous photos taken by experienced photographers who are also from our neighbourhood. Each of these photos shows the miracle that is Nature. We are printing a limited number of copies. If you would like to have a copy or two, or more, please place your order in advance.    Calendar details Format - Desk top  Size - 5.7" x…

I saw this "repair" of a broken window on a Vajra (Volvo) bus.   Jugaad, or creative solutions, are all very well, but does BMTC really not have money to repair a bus properly, and have to resort to ugly solutions lik this?

It was a pleasant experience to have these two teachers from Indira Priyadarshini school over, and answer a fairly detailed questionnaire (which will, hopefully, result in my getting an Aadhar card!).   However, it occurs to me...can this whole exercise not be conducted more efficiently? These two have had to take off from their teaching duties for 10 days, as no doubt others have to, also. Why not employ other educated youth who are not employed, for this? These teachers will have to go back and try to catch up with 10 days' backlog. Also, they had to write the…

What a day! It was a treat to see people pouring out of streets and alleys to join the human chain, merge in seamlessly, bringing their own posters, chanting their own slogans, and through small acts of kindness, reinforcing each others' faith in the compassion that is at the core of all of us. One protestor brought biscuits and drinks for the rest of the gang. Another stepped off the bus unaware of the protest, but joined in spontaneously and started coordinating the walk towards Vydehi. Buses gave free rides to the protestors gathered at Marathahalli and Kundanahalli. Men, women…