Its been nearly a month since i landed here in Bangalore, after taking up a new job. Kinda difficult fitting in to the new place, language, people blah blah. Beginning with my vehicle, which bears the licence plates of Tamil Nadu, it's an easy prey to the bumbling traffic cops of Bengaluru (here i guess the cops are John Wayne fans, they wear cowboy hats !!). Already pulled over couple of times by cops with tummies bigger than my bike's tank, i decided to pay up the Karnataka State road tax and bail myself out of all the irritating John Wayne.. er .. traffic police troubles...
But that aint as simple as it sounds... heres my tale of filing the road tax in Bengaluru RTO.
Day 1: I found the place on google maps, and drove to the RTO office without any good samaritan help. Yeah, it seemed more like a fish market than a RTO, anyways always optimistic, i walked in with my documents(RC book and insurance).MAYHEM. It was a Kannada only zone... even the forms were in kannada !! Somehow i understood where to pay the tax... the fatso behind the desk said i needed to pay 12% of my vehicle's cost as Tax !! that comes close to Rs.6000 !! I went out to an ATM and withdrew the amount and came back to the fatso's place... now he says he wants a Demand Draft as they dont accept cash above 5000 bucks... grrrrrrr wanted to stuff the 6000 bucks wads of notes into his mouth !!! It was pretty clear that the fatso wanted some under the table financial transactions.. i gave up and headed back home.
Day 2: My dad went to the same place. He found an "agent" outside the RTO office who demanded 500 bucks (his fees + the bribe to be paid to the RTO officer).Dad returned home half an hour later with the Road Tax bill .. Voila!! Thanks to corruption in India i could pay the Tax !!
Thats just a trailer of what happens in Indian government offices.Things havent been very smooth so far for me here. Yesterday some shithead-tuna-brained thief stole my helmet from the parking lot of a high profile shopping mall... Sigh dunno whats yet to come for dear old moi... :(
Showing posts with label Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stories. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Monday, July 23, 2007
Salaam Bangalore !!!
I make a trip to Bangalore every month but the last one was the most miserable yet the most memorable one so far!! The misery started last week when I had a severe dehydration problem er... from top and bottom [courtesy: my office food topped with dead flies, and sometimes they move their legs like a downed soldier who stepped on a mine]. I was kinda semi-hospitalized and lost a few chunks of my weight. So I decided to go over to my parent’s place in Bangalore to hog as much as I could and gain the lost pounds. I finished the crappy work assigned to me at the office early to take the late night Bangalore Mail.
I hitched a ride on our company bus and reached Chennai Central only to find a stupid strike going on there and all trains were delayed indefinitely… boy!!! this was gonna be a loooong wait. Why do such crap things happen to me every time I go to Bangalore, another time my bus broke down in the middle of nowhere (that’s another long story)..jpg)
It was an agonizing four hour wait during which time I learnt a lotta new things about Chennai Central. Finally when my train arrived at the platform I could do the following things :
a) I had come across every single stray dog at the station and now I could prepare a chart on them cross referencing the breed, coat color and their barking frequency.
b) I could quote the badge numbers of all coolies working there.
c) I learnt that the clock at the far end of platform number 7 was running on Ethiopian National Time.
Anyways my train came and I reached Bangalore four hours late the next morning. And as per plan I started hogging down food much to the happiness of my mom. I had no initial plans of meeting my buddies in b’lore… but it had been a long time since I met any of them, so I decided to meet them and catch up on some good old times. First call to Jerry… place and time decided… The Forum Mall on Sunday. I asked Jerry to pick up Jithu and meet me there. I hadn’t brought much of my clothes with me other than the office formals I was wearing and a few changes for home. I rummaged thru the cupboards and found an old white tee and a pair of jeans which I used to wear when I was in college. Both fitted perfectly and off I went to Forum to meet my buddies.
.jpg)
As always I reached almost an hour before the others, but this was Forum and I aint gonna get bored even if I were alone. After babe-watching for a few minutes I decided to mug up some books for free at Landmark. I went straight to my favourite section… “comics”(:-D hee… I still like comics). I dragged a chair and started reading “Amazing Spiderman Vs Batman”. It was going good and just when Spidey was gonna kick Batty’s butt I felt a hmmm er well… a pleasant air-conditioning in my jeans. The MasterCard ad started flashing in my head where the guy says that its priceless to find yourself unzipped before someone else does… how true!! But how can this be I aint a 2 year old kid, how can I be so sloppy!! Thankfully I hadn’t tucked in my tees, hence no one was gonna spot the open post office, unless I lift my arms or wipe my forehead with the edge of my tees or do anything remotely stupid to that.With a quick flick of a magician’s hand I zipped myself and headed for the upper levels of the store. I was climbing the stairs and here we are again… the air-conditioning returned again. It was like some enemy of mine had created an African voodoo doll of mine and playing around unzipping it, to make me frustrated. I realized the zipper lock was gone for a toss… this was the worst nightmare for any civilized male homo-sapien.
Beads of sweat started forming on my forehead in the 5 degrees Centigrade climate of Landmark. I said to myself… “dude don’t panic… as long as ur tee is out u r safe… and don’t do anything stupid”. And here I was… walking around unzipped at the most happening place in Bangalore. And somehow it reminded me of our very own “mundu” of Kerala. Finally Jerry and Jithu arrived and as we failed to get any movie tickets decided to hog down some food. Meanwhile I called up K and asked him to join us.
Me: K, where are you? We are at forum... can you come here?
K: Yeoh man!! I am at a free lunch… u know if I don’t hog for free it ll be blasphemy!! I ll meet ya guys immediately after this party!!
Me: ok cya bye.
Then we headed to a place outside forum and gobbled up chunks of biriyani. I told my pals to wait while I go n fix my zipper at the rest room. I went inside to zip up, but this time the zipper hook came off totally!! I returned to my buddies and showed them the trophy- the broken zip hook. Both of them almost lifted me by my arms and took me a place nearby to get myself changed. I had to shell out abt 550 bucks to get a new pair of jeans and save the day. Meanwhile Jerry called up K
Jerry: where are you ?
K: Damn my Honda aint starting… I ll be a little late (Sound of breaking chicken bones in the background)
Jerry: Ok (hangs up)
We headed back to Forum to meet Rep and Thomas… and I was wearing my new jeans. We huddled around a table at the Transit food court and started on job crap, tech crap, bike crap, gal crap and discussed on how many lines were drawn in the past one year, how many lines got broken and how many lines became circles. Jerry called up K again.
Jerry: where are you ?
K: Man!!! I just slipped on a banana peel… I ll be there in no time… promise!!
Jerry: grrr (hangs up)
Rep and Thomachan joined us and so did K, with a look on his face which proclaimed that he was waiting for us there since two days!! . It was fun, it was the first good dude-talk of my wavelength since college. One thing that moved me the most during this trip was, I expected only a hi-bye conversation over phone with most of my pals, but to my surprise every single one I called turned up at Forum, some even keeping aside their already scheduled plans… and I am still on cloud nine for that!!! I am a man with few friends but the few I have are worth dying for… and of course I will miss my old jeans.
_names.JPG)
I hitched a ride on our company bus and reached Chennai Central only to find a stupid strike going on there and all trains were delayed indefinitely… boy!!! this was gonna be a loooong wait. Why do such crap things happen to me every time I go to Bangalore, another time my bus broke down in the middle of nowhere (that’s another long story).
.jpg)
It was an agonizing four hour wait during which time I learnt a lotta new things about Chennai Central. Finally when my train arrived at the platform I could do the following things :a) I had come across every single stray dog at the station and now I could prepare a chart on them cross referencing the breed, coat color and their barking frequency.
b) I could quote the badge numbers of all coolies working there.
c) I learnt that the clock at the far end of platform number 7 was running on Ethiopian National Time.
Anyways my train came and I reached Bangalore four hours late the next morning. And as per plan I started hogging down food much to the happiness of my mom. I had no initial plans of meeting my buddies in b’lore… but it had been a long time since I met any of them, so I decided to meet them and catch up on some good old times. First call to Jerry… place and time decided… The Forum Mall on Sunday. I asked Jerry to pick up Jithu and meet me there. I hadn’t brought much of my clothes with me other than the office formals I was wearing and a few changes for home. I rummaged thru the cupboards and found an old white tee and a pair of jeans which I used to wear when I was in college. Both fitted perfectly and off I went to Forum to meet my buddies.
.jpg)
As always I reached almost an hour before the others, but this was Forum and I aint gonna get bored even if I were alone. After babe-watching for a few minutes I decided to mug up some books for free at Landmark. I went straight to my favourite section… “comics”(:-D hee… I still like comics). I dragged a chair and started reading “Amazing Spiderman Vs Batman”. It was going good and just when Spidey was gonna kick Batty’s butt I felt a hmmm er well… a pleasant air-conditioning in my jeans. The MasterCard ad started flashing in my head where the guy says that its priceless to find yourself unzipped before someone else does… how true!! But how can this be I aint a 2 year old kid, how can I be so sloppy!! Thankfully I hadn’t tucked in my tees, hence no one was gonna spot the open post office, unless I lift my arms or wipe my forehead with the edge of my tees or do anything remotely stupid to that.With a quick flick of a magician’s hand I zipped myself and headed for the upper levels of the store. I was climbing the stairs and here we are again… the air-conditioning returned again. It was like some enemy of mine had created an African voodoo doll of mine and playing around unzipping it, to make me frustrated. I realized the zipper lock was gone for a toss… this was the worst nightmare for any civilized male homo-sapien.
Beads of sweat started forming on my forehead in the 5 degrees Centigrade climate of Landmark. I said to myself… “dude don’t panic… as long as ur tee is out u r safe… and don’t do anything stupid”. And here I was… walking around unzipped at the most happening place in Bangalore. And somehow it reminded me of our very own “mundu” of Kerala. Finally Jerry and Jithu arrived and as we failed to get any movie tickets decided to hog down some food. Meanwhile I called up K and asked him to join us.
Me: K, where are you? We are at forum... can you come here?
K: Yeoh man!! I am at a free lunch… u know if I don’t hog for free it ll be blasphemy!! I ll meet ya guys immediately after this party!!
Me: ok cya bye.
Then we headed to a place outside forum and gobbled up chunks of biriyani. I told my pals to wait while I go n fix my zipper at the rest room. I went inside to zip up, but this time the zipper hook came off totally!! I returned to my buddies and showed them the trophy- the broken zip hook. Both of them almost lifted me by my arms and took me a place nearby to get myself changed. I had to shell out abt 550 bucks to get a new pair of jeans and save the day. Meanwhile Jerry called up K
Jerry: where are you ?
K: Damn my Honda aint starting… I ll be a little late (Sound of breaking chicken bones in the background)
Jerry: Ok (hangs up)
We headed back to Forum to meet Rep and Thomas… and I was wearing my new jeans. We huddled around a table at the Transit food court and started on job crap, tech crap, bike crap, gal crap and discussed on how many lines were drawn in the past one year, how many lines got broken and how many lines became circles. Jerry called up K again.
Jerry: where are you ?
K: Man!!! I just slipped on a banana peel… I ll be there in no time… promise!!
Jerry: grrr (hangs up)
Rep and Thomachan joined us and so did K, with a look on his face which proclaimed that he was waiting for us there since two days!! . It was fun, it was the first good dude-talk of my wavelength since college. One thing that moved me the most during this trip was, I expected only a hi-bye conversation over phone with most of my pals, but to my surprise every single one I called turned up at Forum, some even keeping aside their already scheduled plans… and I am still on cloud nine for that!!! I am a man with few friends but the few I have are worth dying for… and of course I will miss my old jeans.
_names.JPG)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Movie
So here i am....with my first post as a blogger. Kinda late though, for a guy to start a blog after working for two years in software industry... but what the heck better late than never!! I am still wondering what to post as i aint much of a writer and words dont flow outta my head effortlessly....coz maybe i think too much!! Well i'll share with you about something that happened last week. Nothing much, its about a movie....
THE STAGE
--------------
A beautiful and sunny but dusty chennai.... as usual we geared up for a long day in office...but surprise surprise.... all our networks came down. In short the entire facility had come to a standstill. But we being enterprising employees had different ideas to pass the time till the networks were up and running...some started playing badminton, some cricket and some simply pranking around. But of the lot, my group of 6-7 teammates had different plans. An insider from the networking dept told us that some major networking switch had blown off and it wont be rectified till at least evening.The very same day the much awaited rajni movie - Sivaji was set to be released. We decided to go for that and the stage was set for the plan.
THE PLAN
--------------
The masterplan hatched up and the first objective was to secure tickets, as getting a ticket for a rajni movie on the first day is far more challenging than....er hmm ISRO putting satellites in the orbit. We had to pay 200 bucks for the usual 40 bucks ticket but neverthless successfully blocked 20 tickets in a nearby miniscule theatre on the ECR. Next was the mode of transportation....getting a MTC bus to the movie was outta question. So we started literally begging for bikes from fellow teammates who were oblivious to our secret masterplan. Finally we got enough bikes and we set off in the blazing chennai sun to see "THE" movie.... not coz we were fans of the "great actor" but just for the heck of it.
THE DRAMA
---------------
We could spot the crowd in front of the theatre from a mile away. Police vehicles were flying in and out of the place as if it were some riot......yeah it was a riot. People from all walks of life doctors, engineers, School kids and college dudes, auto drivers...everyone was wrestling his way to the ticket counter to see their hero. Not everyone had the luxury of corporate bulk booking like we had.
THE MOVIE
--------------
Finally the movie started. Fans of Rajni were scrawling all over the screen with some bags in their hands. We braced ourselves for the worst. Then came the first appearance of the thespian on the screen... then it was a war zone. Flower petals, fire crackers, confetti all started showering on us from all sides. Boy... we forgot to take our body armor. It was total pandemonium, it was like being caught in a crossfire between two heavily armed groups - one the grr8 actor on the screen the other being his die hard fans. Then as the fans ran out of their ammunition they settled back in the seats to enjoy the movie... so did we.
Then we had a realization, a bit too late for a salvation. This movie was not for the intellectual types like us. Hence we decided to forget all the physics, chemistry and maths that we learnt in school and college and watched the movie as complete morons. Then everything started to make sense. The jet engine like sound when rajni flipped his towel, the hurricane like wind which blew when he got angry, the way the chewing gum finds it way to his mouth after reflecting off walls and his palms and of course the heroine falling for the hero who is elder than her father in real life.Well i was soooo very impressed by on of his antics that i wanted to try it at home.In one scene Rajni had to sign a lotta papers. He gets frustrated...we thought he would use a a carbon paper and finish it off in a jiffy ... but NO... he takes two pens in both hands and starts signing off with both his hands. ... so much for being ambidextrous huh ?? My head started spinning unable to keep pace with Rajni's incredible antics. But i dunno why do we clap when Keanu Reeves does similar stuff in Hollywood and howl when our own Rajni does it here in Kollywood. Then the realization dawned that why go for expensive holly movies when we have our own homebred Neo. Finally after three hours of mental torture, the doors opened and i embraced the sunlight while running towards my bike cursing the idiot who blew out the network switch at the first place !!!!
PS: I had to add this postscript after getting a lotta warning comments that i could get my ass kicked for writing like this about the most "loved" actor of the state. Well though my views expressed in the post are true,i didnt intend to hurt the ...hmm sentiments? of Rajni fans.In fact the dude still looks young for his age and his more "realistic" movie Dalapathi is still one of my personal favourites.
THE STAGE
--------------
A beautiful and sunny but dusty chennai.... as usual we geared up for a long day in office...but surprise surprise.... all our networks came down. In short the entire facility had come to a standstill. But we being enterprising employees had different ideas to pass the time till the networks were up and running...some started playing badminton, some cricket and some simply pranking around. But of the lot, my group of 6-7 teammates had different plans. An insider from the networking dept told us that some major networking switch had blown off and it wont be rectified till at least evening.The very same day the much awaited rajni movie - Sivaji was set to be released. We decided to go for that and the stage was set for the plan.
THE PLAN
--------------
The masterplan hatched up and the first objective was to secure tickets, as getting a ticket for a rajni movie on the first day is far more challenging than....er hmm ISRO putting satellites in the orbit. We had to pay 200 bucks for the usual 40 bucks ticket but neverthless successfully blocked 20 tickets in a nearby miniscule theatre on the ECR. Next was the mode of transportation....getting a MTC bus to the movie was outta question. So we started literally begging for bikes from fellow teammates who were oblivious to our secret masterplan. Finally we got enough bikes and we set off in the blazing chennai sun to see "THE" movie.... not coz we were fans of the "great actor" but just for the heck of it.
THE DRAMA
---------------
We could spot the crowd in front of the theatre from a mile away. Police vehicles were flying in and out of the place as if it were some riot......yeah it was a riot. People from all walks of life doctors, engineers, School kids and college dudes, auto drivers...everyone was wrestling his way to the ticket counter to see their hero. Not everyone had the luxury of corporate bulk booking like we had.
THE MOVIE
--------------
Finally the movie started. Fans of Rajni were scrawling all over the screen with some bags in their hands. We braced ourselves for the worst. Then came the first appearance of the thespian on the screen... then it was a war zone. Flower petals, fire crackers, confetti all started showering on us from all sides. Boy... we forgot to take our body armor. It was total pandemonium, it was like being caught in a crossfire between two heavily armed groups - one the grr8 actor on the screen the other being his die hard fans. Then as the fans ran out of their ammunition they settled back in the seats to enjoy the movie... so did we.
Then we had a realization, a bit too late for a salvation. This movie was not for the intellectual types like us. Hence we decided to forget all the physics, chemistry and maths that we learnt in school and college and watched the movie as complete morons. Then everything started to make sense. The jet engine like sound when rajni flipped his towel, the hurricane like wind which blew when he got angry, the way the chewing gum finds it way to his mouth after reflecting off walls and his palms and of course the heroine falling for the hero who is elder than her father in real life.Well i was soooo very impressed by on of his antics that i wanted to try it at home.In one scene Rajni had to sign a lotta papers. He gets frustrated...we thought he would use a a carbon paper and finish it off in a jiffy ... but NO... he takes two pens in both hands and starts signing off with both his hands. ... so much for being ambidextrous huh ?? My head started spinning unable to keep pace with Rajni's incredible antics. But i dunno why do we clap when Keanu Reeves does similar stuff in Hollywood and howl when our own Rajni does it here in Kollywood. Then the realization dawned that why go for expensive holly movies when we have our own homebred Neo. Finally after three hours of mental torture, the doors opened and i embraced the sunlight while running towards my bike cursing the idiot who blew out the network switch at the first place !!!!
PS: I had to add this postscript after getting a lotta warning comments that i could get my ass kicked for writing like this about the most "loved" actor of the state. Well though my views expressed in the post are true,i didnt intend to hurt the ...hmm sentiments? of Rajni fans.In fact the dude still looks young for his age and his more "realistic" movie Dalapathi is still one of my personal favourites.
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