Disgusted and Helpless

For a generation that I belong to, which is bestowed with the responsibility of taking India to a superpower in world economies, the condition at home is far from inspiring. When I say "Home", you can take it as India, you can take it as Karnataka and you can also take it as Bengaluru.

Take India on the whole and like in the last couple of decades, we are not short of scams at any point of time. The only difference, we have graduated from scams that were a few tens or hunderds of crores to thousands, ten thousands and even lakhs!! Take Karnataka and you have the whole fiasco with majority vote for BJP government, here we are talking of partys on the whole trying to grab power by horse, now lets not calls these goons horses, more like donkey trading(sorry donkey)! And finally let’s take Bengaluru and we are hit by the continuous stream of land grabbing news coming out of the Yeddy family coffers.

Now, scams are not new to us. We have seen our fair share of them over the years. The CWG scam was just Kalmadi making hay when sun shines, god knows when we will host another non-cricket world event of any repute (CWG just about cuts it). While Raja was just doing what he was sent to Delhi to do, make money for DMK. Of course, it helps if you are dating the supremo’s granddaughter! The Adarsh society issue is possibly the most harmless or least money involving of the lot. And there has been one fall guy for all of these scams. Kalmadi is gone, Raja is gone and Chavan is gone. Enquiry is on for each of these scams, but the Congress party has at least shown the door to the primary person involved in these. It isn't much and it is too late, but then, it is something. What sets the Karnataka/Bengaluru scams apart is the openess of everything. All this is being said and done in the open! Imagine the confidence and gall of Yeddy to say publicly that he has done all the land grabbing that is being mentioned. And what is his defense?? His predecessors have done it and he has just followed the "tradition"! The tradition??, what kind of lunacy is this?? And he and his think-tanks figure out a perfect way to get out of this nice mess. They agree and spearhead a probe into the land grabbing, but not just the current one but whatever has happened in the last 10 years! This way, the other corrupt lot of opposition politicians keeps their mouth shut and all this gets brushed under the ever growingly stinky carpet. This jackass should be thrown out of office for not only doing all this land grabbing, but also for not doing anything about all the misdoings by "tradition" that he was aware of!! Karnataka is the first state in south India where BJP has come to power and instead of being a beacon of good governance, as was promised, it has epitomized what can go wrong in a power and money starved political setup. The mining thing and reddys happened, numerous lok ayukta issues happened, katta happened, the renukacharya happened and now land grabbing. Nothing has resulted in the BJP top brass doing anything. It is almost as if the state government has been told to make money and make money fast, the elections are gonna come anyway. And all we get from Joker of a CM is, tears... yes, this nincompoop can put crocodiles to shame!

What does this make us citizens as?? Just bystanders? Its true most of us dont have the time to spend, but we have the monetary will and wish to make governance better. If I have to pay shitload of taxes just for these goons and buffons to make merry, I sure can spend money to get some professionals to play out the case for us on court. Ideally, this can be under the purview of some government body, but since the perpetrator here and in most cases is the government, this has to be a higher authority. Something which is less tainted or influenced by governments, say the judiciary. Can this work? What is the flaw? Dont tell me that the the adage "want something done, do it yourself" is going to be the solution here, coz this whole "do it yourself" is bullshit! I am doing my part which is doing my job which gives me money in my hand to spend in this land. Remember the early part about economic superpower?? Yeah, I am part of that effort. On the other hand, the effort needed to "do it" is so high... sorry, I will rather rant on blogs and live my life in this corrupted land than have to "do it". I and I am sure more like me have the will and means to help, someone make use of it, else... thanks for reading! :-)

Bad Sport

The first test match between India and Australia at Mohali ended up being a classic. It will definitely be remembered for Laxmans class and Ishants defiance, not to mention their will to fight over physical pain. Test cricket is dead, but then, such matches do help revive the memories a bit.

But that being said, with Commonwealth Games on at Delhi, it was super insensitive of the BCCI and all concerned to have the most anticipated test series, possibly more than an India vs Pakistan series, to be help coinciding with the games. We live in a cricket crazy nation and the series just takes the spotlight away from CWG. Delaying this series by a couple of weeks should not have mattered to cricket, but would have made a world of difference to CWG. Abhinav Bindra went on to say “The Commonwealth Games will dominate the news columns. At least I want to live with that illusion.” Imagine our Olympic Gold medal winner having to make such statements.

This whole crap about BCCI being a non government body and the government having no control over it is all bullshit! For a non government body it sure has a lot of government ministers and in some cases chief ministers as head of the state cricket boards! The government should have cracked the whip and told BCCI to take a break of two weeks and then continue with their money making ways!

"History doesn't win matches"

The title of this post are the words of Arsene Wenger before Arsenals Premier league match against chelsea (which they lost). Similarly, even the players (or coaches) can't live on their past laurels. Going by what I have seen this season, here is my wishlist of folks who must either hang up their boots or at least be demoted from their high pedestal.

1. Danni Alves (Barcelona) - He is playing "Oh so bad!"
2. Patrick Viera (Man City) - Please retire!
3. Rafa Benitez (Inter Milan) - You screwed liverpool, now inter?
4. Ronaldinho (AC Milan) - In football, running is mandatory!
5. Iker Cassilas (Real Madrid) - World Cup is over, can better goalkeepers take over?
6. Jamie Carragher (Liverpool) - You can't outrun a tortoise, good luck with rabbits!
7. Fernando Torres (Liverpool) - Spain and Liverpool have been patient, now score!
8. Andrea Pirlo (AC Milan) - You are the playmaker, make some plays!
9. Barcelona - The world knows your game! Change it!!
10. AC Milan - Even young reinforcements cant carry your old long-timers!

I am harsh on some and lenient on some, but I believe there is definitely some food for thought here. :-)

Time erodes quality...

The very first infotainment program I can ever remember watching was "The World This Week" on DD presented by Prannoy Roy. I used to diligently watch it every Friday (I think?) and that was my window to the world! I have since followed Prannoy Roys shows, his election coverage (along with Vinod Dua in Hindi), the lauch of NDTV, the growth of NDTV etc etc.

Since he is CEO and stuff, he no longer reads the news, at least not regularly. Tonight I happened to tune to NDTV and I was surprised to see Prannoy reading the news. The Prannoy I remember was crisp, sharp, to the point and rarely wasting time. But the Prannoy I saw tonight was so so different and super disappointing! He was talking to Montek Singh Ahluwalia about inflation and stuff and he was OK, then he took up some lame cricket controversy and talked to Gavaskar. It was super artificial, he was not "into" the news, was out of depth, and was out of words!! Some unnecessary pleasantries, lotsa backrubs and many fumbling words later he moved on to the next "item". We now had Deepika Padukone and Neil Nitin Mukesh on show to promote a film. Again, total waste of time in both talking and asking departments. The question only got more stupid! Again no attachment to the story he is trying to say or make and there you go… News@9 is over!

It is so sad to see a stalwart such as Prannoy Roy showing that he is just one of "them". Even though I knew he is just as much a part of the bad media we are all exposed to in India today, it just feels really sad to actually see it. :-(

Loyalty?

Apple Inc is bigger than its long time rival Microsoft and friend-turned-foe Google and is in no mood to leave the throne. The iPhone 4 just cemented its position even more firmly.

But it was not all rosy, what with the gizmodo leak and steve losing the bang that he is so used to generating in his keynotes. People soon forgot all this when the real deal was released and was lapped up by enthusiasts. So much so, that people started dumping their hardly used iPhone 3G phones to get the latest fad, fashion statement, cool gizmo, the "in" thing, etc etc. Not soon after the release the problems with iPhone's signal reception issues cropped up and the blame was on its much touted antenna design. True to apples legacy, they seem to have recovered from this setback too, albeit rather lethargically. But Apple could not let go of this shame so easily, after all they had a reputation to maintain. The person who got the sack was Mark Papermaster, the HW design guru.

This lead led me to read a bit more about Mark and the first thing that hit me about him was that he was with IBM for 25 years!! I know that some in India too agree that IBM is a place you are retire at, but still 25 years, wow!! But then, even after 25 years and after all his contributions, when he left IBM to go to Apple, he was sued by IBM! Yes, that is what 25 years bought him, a law suit and 2 court certificates to prove that he hadn't leaked any "IP" to Apple.

I have always believed that, you can almost never buy loyalty. Either the employee feels it or he doesn't. And if loyalty sounds too old school, call it professionalism. But whatever you call it, "it" is hard to come by. During my early days, I have gone through bouts of this loyalty pangs and almost felt guilty when I had to quit. Did it a second time, it got better and slowly realized that there is no such thing as loyalty. Once you leave a company, the company has to keep the interests of those who are still associated with it at higher priority. This can be at the cost of friendships and unsaid remorses (in some cases 25 years of it!!).

As insensitive as it may sound, it is business, nothing more, nothing less. They companies know it, the employees seem to take some time to figure it out. :-)

Outcry... really?

Nice weather, some errands to run and more resulted in me deciding to make my weekend a long one and stayed at home on Friday. This gave me time to do things I used to do a lot earlier and never find time to do now, like seeing TV channels other than Sun Music! :-) I decided to take a round of the breaking channels. The same stories were breaking in different channels albeit each channel focusing on a different one at any point of viewing.

The first one was regarding a ex-BSF jawan who was shown the boot by Canadian Immigration officials. Each channel was showing Canada in the worst light possible. It was as if they had committed the greatest crime against India. An insult so unbearable that some politicians (trying to cash in of course) wanted us to send back the Canadian high commission diplomats to Canada. While it is true that the reasoning given by Canada to reject the ex-BSF jawans immigration application was not the best possible one and in ways insulting to the Indian armed forces, I think a different look is worthy, considering the usual "trial by media" mode in which India and its media works these days.

1. Canada houses a HUGE population of Sikhs many of whom are ex-khalistan fighters who are not known for their peaceful ways. Coincidentally, the ex-BSF jawan was a Sikh and assume for the sake of argument that this was the reason that the officials didn't want him in Canada. Not letting him into Canada was their prerogative and if they had openly told the above mentioned reason, it would have amounted to racism and somehow the Caucasians somehow get the worst of it. Indians are just as racist if not more than any other country, but we and rest of the racist hypocrites would pounce on Canada if it had given this as the reason for rejecting the ex-bsf jawans visa.

2. Canada as a country has the right to not allow anyone to come into its territory. Fault it for the reason it gave, but not to its right to choose its citizens/immigrants.

3. The ex-BSF jawan was going to leave India and be an immigrant. Not a very patriotic thing to do, but somehow the media wants to make us and apparently succeeds in making us patriotic for this!

4. Some indian techies can vouch for much worse treatment by the US consulate during the visa process or the US immigration authorities at the port of entry. The reasons for rejection can be far more frivolous and yet we all are OK with it. Some of the horror stories my colleagues have faced is better left untold.

5. Racial profiling is the name of the game in European and US airports. They would never agree or accept it, but from their point of view, they stand a better chance of catching a Faisal Shahzad by doing this rather than check the Caucasian race people for the sake of being politically correct! Again, a country protecting its interests, can't fault that!

To summarize, I agree that Canada could have been more judicious in its reason, but is this really such a big deal ? We settle for far worse on so many more serious fronts, but somehow chose this to be the battle that needs fighting ?

Upgrading To Inaccuracy

The Indian Railways have come a long way in last decade. A lot of modernization, cleanliness and expansion drives have happened. One of the big pluses of the last decade has been irctc and the other numerous sites maintained by the railways that have sprung up.

I happened to visit one of them to get to know if the train I was to help someone board was on time. It said the train was on time and I got to the station on time. The train was blissfully late by 50 minutes and Bangalore can be quite cold this time of the year around midnight! Below is the information I got of the train after I just witnessed it being 50 minutes late!!



Either give accurate information or give no information at all. Half knowledge is dangerous and cold!

Really?

Our President, Pratibha Patel is no where as dynamic as Mr.Abdul Kalam. As a result, she is hardly seen or heard doing anything significant other than trying to ensure her family has a holiday every time she goes on an "official" visit abroad.

Off late, our leader has been donning the newspaper for equally frivolous reasons. She is going into the record books for sitting inside a Sukhoi fighter jet. Really? Is this really so important? What the hell does this accomplish for anyone? Is anybody "proud" of her? Damn as hell I am not! She just wasted a shit-load of my taxpayers money.

I wonder why our leaders are still stuck doing these kind of cheap gimmicks even in this time and age!

Now just a slumdog!

Azharuddin Mohammed reached heights he could not imagine, saw places he could not even dream about and shared stage and red carpet with legends he could not even afford to see on screen.

After all the glitter and glamour of the Oscars, the little boy comes back to his life, his reality, to be treated like a superstar.



But then, has his reality changed very much? His irritated father is angry with him for not putting on a show for onlookers, completely disregarding that the young boy has just been through adrenaline pumping last few days and a tiring 24 hour plane journey. He gets an ass kicking (which he is probably used to), but this time in front of a crowd which was there to applaud his performance but instead see one from the dad.







I haven't seen the movie and am not really in a hurry to see it either. But, as people say, if the film talks of optimism and hope, I think one of the protagonists of the movie needs to see the movie more than many others!

Boon or Bane!

I received the below content in an email. Apart from the extra development fees (or whatever...) that is built in into the existing air fares out of Bangalore, we will now need to shell out an extra Rs.260 per head every time we use the International Airport. If the committee that did the financial feasibility study of the airport didn't come up with the approx amount needed to run the airport, who approved the project? If the financial feasibility committee did do its job and if the promotors/administrators didn't get the financial part of this feasibility agreed and accepted, how did they get approval to start the project? How can the common man be imposed this fee at a random point in time? Why should someone use RTI to actually know if the money is being well used or not?

I am not a frequent flyer and won't be affected too much by this. But in my opinion, this kinda unilateral writ being pushed onto the consumers is wrong!!


Dear Sir/Madam,

        Update: Bengaluru International Airport to charge a User Development Fee

If you are traveling from Bangalore, please note that the Bengaluru International Airport is now charging a User Development Fee of Rs 260. This fee will be charged effective January 16, 2009 and be collected directly by the airport.

Who will be affected?
All passengers travelling out of Bangalore from the Bengaluru International Airport will have to pay Rs 260. However, infants under 2 years are exempted.

Where to pay the UDF?
You can pay the fee at the specially built counters just outside the terminal. You will then have to show the receipt before entering the terminal.

How can I pay?
You can pay by cash, credit cards or debit (only Visa, MasterCard and American Express) at the UDF counters outside the terminal. If you are paying by cash, we would advise you to have the exact change ready.

Will it take time?
While the airport has made provisions to provide enough counters, it may take up to 10 minutes during peak hours - from 6am to 10am and 5:30pm to 8:30pm. While at other times, it may take no more than 3 to 4 minutes.

But why is this extra amount being charged?
The UDF of Rs 260 has been approved by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India. This amount will be used for the development and maintenance of this state of the art airport and to provide other services and amenities.

For any other information, you can contact the Bengaluru International Airport at 080 - 66782251 or 666782255 or visit their website: www.bengaluruairport.com.

Genius...But!

So... another grand slam final and another Nadal win. Don't get me wrong, it was a great match and all, but somehow I expected something different. No, I didn't think the result would be any different, but I expected something more from Federer.

Federer has played Nadal in 5 grand slam finals now, if I remember correctly. He has lost 4 of them and 3 of them on different surfaces. Now, the genius that we all know Federer is, how can he be losing so consistently. Well, this in my humble opinion is his problem. He is a one dimensional genius. He doesn't have a plan B, at least not with Nadal, And its only with Nadal that he really needs a plan B.

For e.g. it doesn't take rocket science and 13 grand slams to know who will win an endurance testing baseline slugfest between Federer and Nadal. And similarly its also straightforward to guess who would win a serve and volley contest. So, how come Federer didn't use a single grand slam final to try this possible 'Plan B' or for that matter any other 'Plan B'??

To reiterate, I do enjoy seeing Nadal beat Federer everytime as rooting for the underdog (not any more I suppose) is more fun. But still, what would Federer want to be remembered as ? The greatest player of all time or Nadals bunny ??

Comment Promotion

This post was initially as a comment to this. But since Arun tracks my blog and my comment was more than a 'comment', I thought of posting it here. :-)

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First off, must have been quite a lazy afternoon for you to have tried your hand/mind at sathsang. :-)

That being said, self exploration is always good and if sathsang gets your there, nothing wrong with that. My view is, I somehow don't get the core point for being stateless and staying away from 'maya'. They main 'gyan' delivered by most spiritual leaders/oraters is, "if you have no wishes, you have no disappointment". That is so obvious, I don't see the point in everyone repeating it! What is the big funda in this ?? If you have no wishes you also have no drive to be better than 'average'. So, as per all the swamis, we have to be just average to be happy. Its so easy and frankly cliché to see all the bad and say that its 'maya' which is the cause of all misery. If "everyone" in the world always strove to be average, then would we have seen all the good in this world today ?? The lives that medicine is saving ? The lives that technology is improving ? etc etc.

Till I see someone who makes more than an obvious observation and says "stay away from maya", I don't see any point in wasting even the laziest of afternoons!
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Sense And Sensibility!

When Mumbai 26/11 was happening, all the media channels ensured that no political parlays were allowed or debated. They could afford to do this because they had an opportunity to not do any programming and had LIVE "action" to show. Now that the 'LIVE'ness of the incident is over, the media is back to the politicians for debates and gyan. Can't blame them in entirity, as they need to look at their topline too. And at the end of the day, the whole incident was covered more correctly by the media than what we see them do on a daily basis.

No, this is not a 'rant' on the media, but on the same old boring topic of politicians. Why I don't tire telling this to people I meet or writing about it in emails and now blogging here is coz, the sheer narcissist attitude of many of the senior politicians after the incident is unpardonable at so many levels. You wanna be corrupt, be corrupt. You wanna be inept, be inept. You wanna be lazy, be lazy. The people of India usually don't care. But this... this is very very different. 'Everybody', in my office, my family, my friends, whom I have personally met have had a sense of seriousness about what has happened. There are no jokes cracked, there is no blame game going on, its just sheer shock about what has happened and worry about what are we going to do about all this. And what do we hear from our politicians ?

Vilasrao Deshmukh:
i) On why Ram Gopal Verma accompanied him to the Taj : Many people come to such places
ii) On whether he is going to resign : I have offered to resign, and if the CWC thinks there is some responsibility I need to shoulder for this incident, then yes, I will obey.
RR Patil:
i) On whether he is going to resign : There is no question of resigning
ii) On whether there was intelligence lapse : In big cities, such small things happen
Achuthanandan:
i) On why Sandeep Unnikrishnans parents shouted at him : I don't know. If not for Sandeep, even a dog won't go to their house.
Mukhtar Naqvi:
i) On the outrage against politicians : All this is rubbish

There are many more examples:
1. Like how Veerappa Moily wanted a probe into why Hemant Karkare was targeted and there was BJP hand in it. Sure sir, that is exactly the problem!
2. Or how Arun Jaitley felt that the entire government should resign. Sure sir, now is the right time for elections and we can all get busy voting you guys back into power.
3. Or how Advani or Rajnath Singh cannot make it to the 'all party' meeting hosted by the PM. Sure sirs, lets win the elections in Rajasthan first, Maharashtra elections are not around for some time.

I mean... c'mon guys, even if you can't do your jobs, at least act Indian, FOR ONCE!

Keep 'em coming!

Sushil Kumar won a bronze in wrestling!! If my memory serves me right, this is the first time India has won more than one medal at any one Olympics. Yipppeeeeee!

Why is it that when we don't win a medal we whine about it comparing ourselves with Burundi and when we win one we whine comparing ourselves with China ? Hell, this is sports... shit happens... Anju bobby george fouled all her 3 jumps yesterday. We start cursing her... just imagine, do you think she would have enjoyed 4 years of preparation to culminate like this ?? Yogeshwar Dutt missed at least a bronze in wrestling yesterday by just 10 seconds! Can this be deemed as a "dismal end" to his challenge ??

Yes, I love cricket (its been waning off late), Yes, it is the bane of every other sport in India, Yes, the administration sucks, But, please, leave the sportsmen/women alone!!

Do Not Disturb - Does Not Work!

About a year back, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) introduced the "National Do Not Call" registry. This was supposed to help reduce the number of unsolicited calls that we receive on our mobiles. I registered myself within a few months of seeing this news in the paper.

Since then I have seen no reduction in the number of "spam" calls I get. Each time I get the call, I remind them of the registry and why they don't update the databases with the information in it. Most times the poor soul calling me has no clue of the registry and feigns ignorance and cuts the call. I wait for all such calls daily and then call up my service provider (Airtel) and inform them of the numbers. They promise to "work" on it. Nothing ever happens and calls never stop!!

Do Not Disturb.... having registered for this sh*t service has only had me spending more time trying to get it to work!!

Intention ?

One of the unsung heroes on the chaotic roads of Bengaluru are the traffic policemen. They usually do as good a job as can be expected, at least for the extent of monetary motivations they have. They also are now part of a chicken and egg problem on maintaining road etiquette. The growing traffic results in traffic police not able to stop people who are violating rules, because that will result in a bigger traffic jam. And since the traffic police are not hauling people up, people tend to bend/break the rules more brazenly. This has to be bettered and looks like they have found some method.

What the traffic cops do now is to be more active during non peak hours and weekends, when they doing their job will not result in adding to traffic jams. While this is all good, the intention behind fining people for traffic violations seems to be lost. We have drivers licenses which have the scheme to allow for warnings to be marked. We don't necessarily have a centralized system to track this, but that isn't an absolute must at this point. If someone is found violating rules, take note of his number and if he has exceeded the max number of warnings, send notices to him to pay the fine. This is already been done for some cases (parking violations) and needs to be made the de-facto mode, in my opinion. Instead, what happens today is, stop people who haven't broken any rules, ask them for every possible document (which is good), point to silliest of things physically not right with the vehicle (not so good) and if nothing works, use the trump card, emission test report. Most law abiding people will have all the paper work except for this, coz lazy folks (me included) can't get a lifetime emission report and hence will most probably forget about it.

By fining a person who has all his papers right, but doesn't have emission report is not wrong. But when this same person sees blatant traffic violations happen day in and day out and see them going about it merrily, while he waits behind a pile of vehicles following lane discipline or stopping at red lights of giving right of way to pedestrians etc etc. it does dampen the spirit. Why doesn't the government think of outsourcing the traffic violation fining to a 3rd party who can hire enough number of people to do the job. Assuming governement makes Rs.300 per violation, I can see several stretches from my home to office where daily collections would be more than Rs.1L. This will fill the coffers and also put the fear of the traffic police in everybody. Once the coffers are filled, they won't have to fine Rs.600 for not having an emission test report, and leave such poor souls at peace.

p.s: The above is not a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely intentional. :-)

Reliably Stale!

One of Indias most touted people company, Reliance, has made several inroads into the retail and consumer business. One of these forays is into daily commodities, FMCG, fruits, vegetables etc. via Reliance Fresh.

Like anything that Reliance does, they started their Reliance Fresh wing also in a very big way. They have many outlets in Bangalore and are growing. They have one conveniently close to my place and we decided to give it a try. Since it was their first couple of weeks of operation, I didn't expect things to be smooth and they sure were not. They were so far from not smooth, they were abysmal in service. We decided to never use Reliance Fresh again.

Many months have since gone by and Mango season has come around. I happened to go to Reliance Fresh with a cousin of mine to help with his shopping and I saw that they had a Mango mela on, and had the famous Alphonso Mangoes for Rs.75 for half a dozen which comes to approx 1.5kg. Seemed like a good deal, bought it, and surprisingly the mangoes were damn good! Since then, I have frequented Reliance Fresh to get these mangoes and have continued to have bad experiences with their service every time! Todays experience:
1. I got there at 7:30AM, the time the person in charge of Mango sales told me to get there to get fresh mangoes.
2. They officially open only at 8:00AM and I am told to wait.
3. It ended up opening at 8:15AM and I found only one stale box of Alphonso Mangoes. I asked the person in charge of the Mango sales and he said "I have 4 crates of fresh alphonso mangoes being unloaded", and suggested me to wait. I had anyway lost my sleep, so, there was nothing more to lose, hence waited longer.
4. I waited till 9:00AM, inquiring every 10 minutes on the status of mangoes and all I get is "They are being unloaded".
5. Finally the sales person tells me, "Sorry Sir, no alphonso mangoes today!". I asked him, "Didn't you tell me you had 4 crates of it!" He just gives me a blank face in reply. I am pissed, but what could I possibly say or do! I decided to buy some other variety of mangoes and headed towards the billing area.
6. I was among the first few who got into the store, but with all the waiting, there were hoards of people already near the billing area.
7. To my surprise, they opened only one billing counter!
8. To save some pennies, they have decided to have the person doing the billing to be the same person who does the packing! Double the work, less efficient, more than double the time!!
9. I went and complained and had another counter opened. But not to my surprise, the bar code scanner was not functioning properly and the lady at the counter had to hand edit all the items. And this of course, gets very messy for someone who doesn't know English well, but is supposed to bill Spinach and button onions and what not, while all she knows are the Kannada names for the same!! She is running all over the place to get them translated.
10. I got out of the outlet at 9:30AM, 2 hours since I started the saga of trying to buy 2 kgs of Mangoes!

Reliance is probably very good with their energy and petroleum and chemical factories and refineries. But when it comes to direct consumer service, its pathetic and penny wise pound foolish! They can learn more than a thing or two from a much smaller competitor, at least in number of outlets, M K Retail !!

Now on, never going to Reliance Fresh, even for Mangoes!!

Mr.Transformer: Tiger To Wuss

My interest in IPL has increased over the course of the tournament, simply because we are able to witness some good spirited performances from old, new and unknown cricketers. But the fact that the Bangalore Challengers team sucks has not helped my interests in any way.

Though the IPL is yet to come even close to the rage following that something like EPL has garnered, I think it has started in the right direction. So, even though I don't care much if Bangalore loses, the caring is not nil either. I think Dravid, Charu and co. have to be blamed for the team selection, coz the team does suck, comparatively. This being said, for someone who claimed fame because be brought back Tipus sword and oozing with compassion for Karnataka, and strong local interests, the business beast inside Mallya didn't take long to surface. His decisions and his comments stink of typical board room moves. You throw people out of a company and then manage the outfall. But in the world of sports, things are a little different, as he has quickly learnt. He threw Charu out and Brijesh Patel came in, what changed ? Nothing! He apparently cut short Venkatesh Prasads opinions when it comes to team selection, what changed ? Nothing! He made the worst of comments against his team captain, what changed ? Nothing! So, Mr. Mallya... understand this... this is unfortunately business in sports, but as you can see, there is a different way of going about the business of sports!

I don't know if, like the EPL, the bottom feeders are relegated and some other team is given a chance. If so, first off Mallya and secondly Bangalore don't deserve to be part of the next edition of IPL!

Keep Waiting!

The international airport at Bangalore is ready for use. Bangalore has been waiting for this airport for a long time and its now a reality. We will now have 747s and 380s taking off and landing in our very own Bangalore.

Wow... all the above sounds so good, nice and a done for deal. Just that all of the above are true and still no flight is gonna take off or land at the new airport any time soon. The politicians are at it again! Craving for election issues, they have now landed on this issue. The problem that people claim is that infrastructure to get to the new airport is bad. All understood, well intentioned and well pointed. And how is the situation being construed by the politicians ?? They are now going from Governor, to Prime Minister, to President to Supreme Court to keep the HAL Airport open till infrastructure improves! This time around, they also have all the people of Bangalore frustrated with the infrastructure in general supporting them too.

The point being missed here is... why the noise now ? Did a genie come and magically create the international airport in one day ?? Nope... all these politicians knew very well, that this day would come and there were no concrete steps taken to solve the problem before it hit us. I remember numerous statements made by one and all for each days delay in the opening of the international airport. All this pressure... for what? To see this day ?? We are now, point by point, going back on the very basic of agreements based on which we had international funding garnered for the international airport! How sick is that!

Now lets take a different view to the whole problem ? How many in Bangalore can afford to travel by air ? The answer to this question already brings us to a very small percentage of populous of Bangalore. How many of us who can afford air travel use this mode of transport ? Thanks to budget airlines, this number is quite a bit. That being said, how many times a year do we travel by air ? I would say 3 or 4 times a year should be a healthy average. Can't we take the pain of a few hours to get to the airport these 3 or 4 times ?? Is all this hoopla for a few sales, marketing, wealthy people who happen to travel every week ? If so, why don't they shift their residence to some place close to the airport and put all of us out of this constant ruckus! Lets have the politicians concentrate on getting their manifestos more focussed on the real issues!

I am in no way saying that the infrastructure is fine, no way is it even close to bearable. But then, the people who should be fried or fired for the pathetic state of affairs that we are in today are escaping it all by telling us that not having the HAL airport is bad for the public and that they will lose a tooth and limb (never will they ever) to ensure that the old airport is kept open or the new airport will stay closed!

Pricks! @#$%^&

We won... sigh

India just leveled the series against South Africa and have retained the fear of touring the sub continent. This is one of those very rare occasions when the result is in India's favour and yet I feel this sense of sadness. The world No:2 and No:3 test teams have lost a total of 32 wickets in 3 days. The match is comfortably finished by the end of 3rd day. Morne Morkel bowls a good length ball and the ball fights to even go above the shoes of the batsman. Harbhajan Singh bowls the first over of the second innings even though we have 2 fully fit fast bowlers in Sreesanth and Ishanth.

All in all, a desperate attempt for victory by India. We have gone to the extent of making the Green park in Kanpur void of the slightest bit of grass and in fact, it was a bigger dust bowl than one has seen in the most gloomy of days of Indian cricket. I am sure history will remember this series as a 1-1 draw and nothing more. But lest we forget, the more pitches we create like this, the lesser we become as a cricketing nation. In fact, the pitches in all the 3 matches of this series have been disappointing. The first one at chennai was a dead pitch, the second one was more green than it should have been and the last one was more brown that it should have been. I don't believe in changing pitches in India to be similar to Australia or South Africa. The Aussies or Springboks cannot be expected to create a spin friendly pitch and similarly, there is no need for us to make pace friendly pitches. But that being said, we need good cricketing pitches. Test cricket is interesting when matches go the distance, not when things end on the 3rd day, with one team having the obvious advantage, like what happened in the 2nd or 3rd tests of this series.

Anyway, yippeeee... we won! :-(