A Changed World

My daughter and I went out for a drive today.

Actually we took a cycle to a repair shop. A routine task that seemed so much like an adventure. That is what four and half months of living in a tower does to you.

Driving in Bangalore traffic has been my favourite crib for years. I drove a car after four and half months today.

The change was spooking me out!

The car felt strange and wobbly. No, I had not forgotten to drive. One of the tyres had slumped in, bearing the weight of the car that barely moved for weeks. So I had to go and the tyre fixed too. Another human to interact with! That human too wore a mask and moved away as I stepped out to check if there was a puncture. In this altered planet we are all so afraid of each other.

It took some time to get used to, but the change was everywhere. People stood further away from each other. They pulled their masks on when they saw others approaching, they handled cash gingerly, and they were all conscious that the invisible enemy could be lurking anywhere. More than half the shops were closed, the ones that were open, had hardly any customers. This in a locality filled with pubs, cafes and restaurants, where there was sometimes no place to drive, let alone park on a weekend afternoon.

The world had changed so much in a few months.

What had not changed were the roads. Piles of garbage had been dredged out and placed right next to the drains, for the next shower to take them in again. A third of the road remained unusable because of the unfinished surface after the previous digging and the next strip of road was roped in for new digging.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, around 200 years ago.

The Red Carpet Effect

Disclaimer: Sometimes drunk and very, very tired sound the same. I am the later. But I am not giving up on the second day of the challenge.

I wanted to write more than a post for the sake of a post. I wanted to write something that made sense. That connected meaningfully. That was upbeat and happy or at least mildly positive.

Woman proposes. Traffic disposes.

I drove through Bangalore traffic.

On a rainy evening, after a very long day at work. Through a 9 km road which has almost 1.5 km of it completely dug up since last year-oh yes, and that excludes two other dug-up junctions, since last July. 

The number of cars has increased exponentially, and the IT companies in the IT city still don’t want to empower their employees to work remotely. So, we all crawl at an excruciating, knee aching 5kmph. 





And then there is no signal to play live music, I don’t have the energy to download and save it in advance and the radio channel plays a song with lyrics that go:

 “Hot summer, ऊपर से मैं भी hot
आजा साथ लगा ले मेरे दो tequila shot
And just do that, do that, do that, do that पानी वाला dance.”

It’s a wonder I can write a grammatically correct sentence after that!

Sensible and meaningful are a decade away.

Maybe one day I will take a day off just to write (all CLs and SLs for this year are over). I will sit on a swing in my balcony (currently it is blocked by an old sofa no one wants to buy and have been planning the remodelling for the last three years), sip coffee and listen to real music on the Bluetooth speakers currently appropriated by my daughter – maybe on that one day, inspiration will visit again and will be stringing out words that make sense. Maybe one of those days, I will even complete the novel I had started to compose while in college (and which I plan to complete every ‘next year’).

For today, it has been a task just to put one word after the other and post. Apologies if it’s someone other than a bot reading my post. Please hold on, I will get there-one day.

Wayanad-Day 2

(Continued after a long gap from previous the post) 

The Plan: We had decided to go to the hotel first because we were closer to Kuruvadweep, check out the interesting places nearby and go for trekking up the Edakkal caves the next day.

Reality Check 1: Since I belong to the generation which still believes in verifying googled information by asking people-we checked with the hotel manager about our proposed route. He discouraged us strongly from taking the shorter route so we ended up taking the more popular but longer route-through Sultan Bathery.

Reality Check 2: I am a map freak. GPS notwithstanding I had downloaded and customized a route map beforehand and got really upset to know it was left behind at home. 

My elder daughter took over immediately-she is sometimes the wisest one in the family-“Mom, that map is in Bangalore; we’ll manage without it. Tell me what you want” -searched online and drew the one I needed, at the breakfast table:

The first part of the drive was lovely-an empty road meandering through shrubbery which became denser as we drove into it, merging into the Muthunga section of the Bandipur reserve. 

A few hundred miles out of the concrete city and it is another world. Once you get used to the quiet you hear a noise of a different kind-monkeys chattering across the bushes, the dry grass crackling under their legs, a constant hum of the cicadas which almost reaches as a crescendo as you stand still.  There weren’t any tigers to spot-never seen one in the entire Bandipur-Nagarhole region but yes monkeys and deer and a few elephants braving the summer heat to hunt for fodder. 




A giant Malabar squirrel dashed across the road as the forest thinned out and we drove right into a Kerala police check-post! 

Thanks to friends who traveled the road before, we had the PUC ready. But  the bigger issue was alcohol. 

Kerala had prohibition when we visited-sale, purchase and transit of any form of alcohol was banned and the police carried out the most rigorous searches I had seen-the group in a car in front of us was asked to alight; all their bags were searched and the police were trying to check under the seats and probably under the mats too. 

They didn’t have sniffer dogs-so we were not searched that thoroughly-my husband was just ‘warned’-“Any liquor Sir, and you will have to go to JAIL”

BTW: The longest queue we saw in Wayanad, around 50+ people standing in a drizzle was outside a toddy shop –but I guess that’s another story.

PS: Prohibition has been withdrawn since then, probably because drinking stats actually went up while the state lost the taxes. It still makes sense to check rather than go to jail!

Wayanad-Driving through hills, forests and a river valley-Day 1

The Holiday Resolutions:

There are too many things to do right here. I get more tired planning for and recovering from vacations. Let’s not go anywhere this time. 

Ok, we'll take one small break. But this time we’ll not drive-let's take a flight, or a train, or a cab, or hire a driver…

The Reality:

Driving for three and a half days through steep hills, sharp bends, lush forests and the Kabini river valley.

The Decisions:

Since this was an unplanned, unintended trip we quickly decided on Wayanad because it was the only non-visited destination within driving distance. We booked our hotel after a quick Face book research, packed a few sets of clothes, filled petrol, and decided to leave early on Saturday morning.

My husband decided to work from home on Friday to ensure we pack in early on Friday evening. He was determined we would leave as early as possible on Saturday to avoid the traffic jams that happen on exit roads to Bangalore at the onset of all long weekends.

I dread waking up early in the mornings. And I have memories of long traffic jams on National Highways as early as 5.30 am and continuing all the way to Mysore when we had travelled to Coorg on another long weekend.

So we took the inspired decision of leaving right then (Friday evening) and spending the night at Mysore. (We get to sleep till 7.00 am that way).

The Drive-Phase 1: Bangalore to Mysore

We also tried to avoid the other Friday evening travelers-specially the buses travelling from Madivala to Coorg/Kerala/Tamil Nadu by taking Mysore road. That was a bad idea. The entire stretch is in a mess because of the debris from the first phase of Metro construction and the excavations happening almost up to Bidadi for the second phase.

My husband tries to take over driving through most difficult stretches of the road, but due to the infallibility of Murphy’s Law, I usually get to drive through these interesting lengths. And so I negotiated through the Friday Namaz traffic, the going home for weekend traffic and the Metro mess for an hour and a half and before the city let us go.

Then the holiday began for real.

We made the customary halt at Kamat’s. The girls are now too grown up to play with the geese and too jaded to enjoy the ‘mudde idli’ but we still stop here every time we cross the place. And after the initial drive this was a welcome break.

The next part of the drive was smooth except for pockets of traffic when we crossed the intermediate towns. The big jam,right on the National Highway at the usual quiet town of Mandya was unexpected-this was first-day show for Bahubali2!

We reached Mysore without further drama and checked into the service apartment we had stayed in previously-it has homely food, enough space for a tired family of four with two teenagers and is located on the Ring Road so we don’t need to enter the city.

We had a leisurely dinner, squabbled over who’s sleeping where and usual, random stuff and planned the next day’s route before packing up for the day.

Rote Planning for-Phase 2: Mysore to Kuruvadweep

We had three route options from Mysore to Kuruvadweep, all pass through wildlife reserves and hence get closed after sunset:

1. Mysore (road will close between 6PM-6AM) > Hand post > Anthersantha > Bawali > 6km > 2^nd Gate junction (turn left) > 5km > Palvelicham > 1.8km >  (total 110 km)

2. Mysore>Hunsour>Nagerhole ( closed between 6 P.M. to 6 A.M.)Divert via Gonikuppa > Kutta>Tholpetty>Kattikulam (155 km)

3. Mysore> (via) Nanjanguad>Gundlepet> Muthanga wild Life Sanctuary> (Road closed between 9 PM to 6 A.M.) > Sulthan Bathery> Pulpally> Dasanakkara> Payyampally> Kurukkan Moola> (155 km)

We decided to take the shortest route to the hotel, check in, take rest and then explore the nearby areas.

Coming up in the next post: Welcome to Wayanad, by Kerala Police

Driving in Bangalore

Kannada Bharata?
Rule No. 1: Learn FAST
That’s the first survival tip for Bangalore roads.

Rule no. 2: Women shouldn’t be at the wheel. No, don’t try to educate the auto wala, the call center cabs, or the sleekly oiled gentlemen in the Skoda. Even the cops have the same attitude. Save your breath.

Rule no. 3: You are from “The North”-you are responsible for everything that’s wrong with Bangalore roads, and the culture (well that’s the subject for another post).

Rule no. 4: If like me, you are a woman, at the wheel and from North (technically I am NOT from North India-but that’s again another story!)-It’s back to Rule no 1.

While you are still at it. Parwa illa-learn the key words, and keep some telephone numbers of Kannadiga friends (preferably guys-Remember Rule no 2). You never know when you might need them.

This is from experience. I have been harassed by cops. Then there was a driver who tried to make me pay for scraping against his car when I didn’t let him overtake me. Both times, the tone changed dramatically, when I just dialed a number.

I have been told that having a “Jai Karnataka” flag or a poster of Rajkumar is the ultimate passport to avoid being harassed on the road, but I am yet to try it out.



Anyway, this is the extreme scenario; there are some other tips which help my everyday commute a little easier:

• Always keep food, water, newspaper, novels, pen and notepaper in your car. You never know where you can get stuck and for how long. In the mornings, I have my breakfast while driving to office, on the way back; I make grocery lists and the menu for dinner, next day’s breakfast, kids’ tiffin and lunch during these breaks.
  
• Keep your phone charged if you don’t have a car charger. Use longer stops to connect with all friends and family.
  
• Always keep your horn, brakes and tyres in good repair. Last monsoon, I kept two spare tyres in the boot and used them. I am still carrying both-although with the increased security awareness ((?) Another story!) it always takes two extra minutes before the guard lets me enter the office parking.
  
• While driving, the most comfortable thing to do is to target any office cab, they are there in every lane and by lane and tail it. They know the best routes and lanes and when to overtake from which direction.
  Sounds weird? But there is a complicated logic in knowing the exact moment to overtake. And yes, you overtake from either left or right depending on psychographics of the vehicles in front of you and on both sides. Most of us have our own way of working it out, but it’s again easier to follow a cab.
  
• The bumpers need to be at kissing distance. Otherwise the whole strategy fails.
  
• Never tail a BMTC bus. Unless you are nostalgic about playing criss-cross hopscotch.
  
• While dealing with Jay walkers-Honk ferociously, scowl and mutter gibberish. Most will understand. Let the others cross. (the fundamental Rules –remember!)
  
• If you see traffic build up on the main road-stick to it. The arterial roads will be worse –everytime.
  
• Explore the lanes and bylanes. There is always a better way. Although my daughters are not too enthusiastic after the number of ways we’ve got lost trying to find one. The moment they see me take a unfamiliar turn one or the other will ask anxiously “Mummy can we please go from the longer way?”
  

I’ll keep updating the list. Please share your tips too, it’ll make the drive a lot smoother.