Tourist Spots around Bengaluru

This spreadsheet is so awesome, I just had to share with my readers. Visitors and residents of Bangalore city will find it very useful. It lists all the tourist spots and places of interest, from 50 kilometers to 580 kilometers from Bangalore. It shows the distance of the spot, what type of place it is, what facilities are available there, where is the closest petrol bunk (gas station in Americanese), best times to visit and number of days needed to see the place. Totally awesome.

Here's the link: Tourist Spots Around Bengaluru

Suggestions for Bangalore Metro Rail

I recently came across an article which said that the Bangalore Metro Rail is soliciting suggestions from the general public for the train station design. I sent them the following suggestions. You too can email them your suggestions: bmrcl@dataone.in.

Suggestions for the train stations:

• Please design every train station so that people are encouraged to follow queue system. This is especially necessary for buying tickets.


• Please install 2 to 4 automatic ticket vending machines at every station. These machines should be able to accept cash and credit cards.


• Please encourage local artists & poets to design decorations for the stations. They can design benches, shades, wall decorations, posters with short poems, etc. Please don't cover every available part of the station with commercial advertisements only.


• Please also design major stations to have LCD screens which show:
  1. Train and bus time-tables.
  2. A dynamic map of Bangalore (similar to Google maps) showing the location of all trains and major buses in real time, using GPS technology.


• Please install security cameras at all the railway stations. These cameras should record 24 X 7. Recordings more than one week old can be erased.


• Please also design 'park and ride' type of train stations, especially near out-lying areas. These should be stations which provide ample and secure parking place for people to park their vehicles there and use the train to commute. If necessary, these parking areas can be restricted to people who use the train daily - employed people and students.

Suggestions for the trains themselves:

• Please install security cameras INSIDE the train compartments. These cameras should also record 24X7. Impose strict fines and penalties on anybody who damages or defaces train property.


• Please design a maintenance center where EVERY train compartment will be washed and cleaned EVERYDAY, both INSIDE and OUTSIDE. Please don't allow the compartments to gather dirt like the Indian railways trains.

I hope Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation is seriously looking into these and similar suggestions from the general public. I hope at least a few of these will be implemented.

Sudha is online!

Sudha and Taranga were two most popular Kannada magazines when I was growing up in 80's Bangalore. I don't know how popular they are now. I wouldn't be surprised if their sales have been adversely affected by the preference for everything English among the general Indian population these days, influenced for the most part by the ever-popular English medium education.

Today I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Sudha magazine is also available online! Although that link will take you to the homepage of the magazine, you will have to use the "Direct Access Click here" link on the homepage, to actually peruse the magazine.

I checked out every page of the latest edition online, although I did not read every page fully. It is nice to know that the basic format of the magazine has not changed in 20+ years. It has all the sections which made it a holistic family magazine - a cover page article on a topic of general interest, other assorted articles and stories, humorous articles, ongoing fiction series, interesting photos (including the customary fully-clothed 'girlie' picture), entertainment "news", interesting news bits from around the world, seasonal recipes, reader-submitted poem, reader-submitted questions, a kids' section, a jokes page, and even a comics page with... get this, Phantom comics series!

It was very pleasant to read this magazine first thing on a Sunday morning, just like I would have done all those years ago when I was a school kid and read my uncles' copy in my grandmother's house.

The homepage of the magazine invites us to "access the TRIAL version of your favorite magazine sudha and its Supplements now for FREE." That might give you the impression that you need a subscription to access the full magazine and archives. However, that is not the case. I was able to access all the pages of the latest edition as well as the archives by using the "Direct Access" link. I hope they always keep this available online.

The archives page indicates that the online edition was started in March 2006. However, the oldest three archives dated March 16th, June 29th and July 27th 2006 don't load. Looks like those were sporadic first attempts. However, since September 2006 onwards, there are regular weekly editions available online. I am gonna access each one of them just to read the Phantom comics! Woo-hoo!

Be warned though, the interface is very old and clunky. The homepage even says, "Site best viewed in IE 5.5"! 5.5, for god's sake! That version of IE was outdated even before March 2006, when Sudha seems to have attempted to go online! Anyway, if you have problems loading the online magazine, just close the browser, re-open it and try again.

If you use the 'Next" link on the top right corner of the magazine page to go to the next page, you might come across some blank pages with the message "Page not available at this time". Don't worry. A page with content has not gone missing. It seems to be just a blank page that's interspersed among the content pages for some strange reason. Possible bug in the system. However, if you come across two or more blank pages in a rows, you need to close and reopen your browser.

Once you get past that bad interface, it is the same old Sudha magazine. Enjoy!

Bangalore Notes - Feb 16th to 23rd, 2007

Feb 16th, 2007

Returned from Chennai to Bangalore on this day with my sister by the Bangalore Express. Something interesting happened in the train.

The train seats were bench-like and very uncomfortable. It was not possible to lean back or stretch or feel free... especially with the elbow and knees of the passenger in the next seat touching me. So, I spent a lot of time standing at the door, looking out the running train. At some point, an old lady with a small kid occupied my seat. I did not have the heart to ask her to vacate my seat. So, when I felt tired of standing at the door, I occupied an empty seat, which was about 20 rows away from mine, beside someone who seemed like a high school boy. On the other side of this boy was a girl and they seemed to be extremely cozy together. I saw them touch each other, put hands on each others shoulders and at one point, I even saw the boy lean over and sleep on the girl's shoulder and lap. I was pretty surprised, thinking that young people these days were quite openly affectionate, indeed.

Most of the surrounding seats were occupied by kids who seemed to be from highschool or college. I guessed that they must all be from the same school or college, returning from some camp or sports tournament. I made smalltalk with the boy and he did confirm that they were from two different colleges and they were returning from a sports tournament. I was surprised to discover that the boy actually went to a degree (undergrad) college. Sometime later, one of their teachers who had been sitting a little bit away, got up and started talking to all the kids. When he saw me sitting among them, he asked the boy beside me who I was. The boy said that he did not know who I was. The teacher then turned to me and quite rudely asked me who I was and why I was sitting beside a girl. I was taken aback by his rudeness as well as by the fact that he claimed I was sitting beside a girl. I turned to look at the boy beside me and only then did I realize that the very young looking boy with short hair was actually a girl. I told him that I did not know it was a girl. Everybody around us started laughing. I felt awkward for embarrassing the girl. I apologized to her and vacated the seat.

Before I wind up the account of my visa-stamping trip, here's a break-down of the expenses. I like to record these expenses because I think it will be interesting to compare them with the prices years from now.

Visa stamping consulate fees – Rs. 4600 (supposed to be $100)
VFS (agency which facilitates the appointments) fees – Rs. 281
Hotel expenses for one night, including buffet dinner and breakfast – Rs. 3156

The hotel expenses included a whopping Rs. 60 for a 10-minute phone call from the hotel reception to Citibank because my new debit card would not work to pay my hotel bill. This was the only unpleasant part of my stay at this hotel. I had not expected them to charge me for that call, let alone such an exorbitant rate!

Autorickshaw charges:

Rickshaw drivers in Chennai still refuse to use meters. All of the following charges were unmetered and negotiated, including the charge in Bangalore.

Chennai Central Railway Stn to the hotel in Royapettah – Rs. 70
US Consulate to Hotel – Rs 30
Hotel in Royapettah to my sister's home in Jawaharnagar – Rs. 150
Sister's Home to Central Railway Stn – Rs. 80
Bangalore Central Railway Stn to my home in NandiniLayout – Rs. 60


Feb 17th, 2007

Late in the afternoon, I went with my friend Nagendra to give my sister's wedding invitation cards to few of my friend's homes.

I visited Veena's home for the first time in my life. She was my college classmate. I have known her since 1997, and only now I got to actually go to her house. But she did not invite me inside the house. She was on her way out with her uncle, and all of us sat in her front patio/verandah, where she served us coffee and talked to us. Nagendra was teasing her telling that she does not invite bachelor guys inside the house. She said, “Yeah”. I did not find that very amusing.

From there, we went to my friend KP's home. He got married since the last time I saw him. There was some puja going on at his house. I saw a couple of young girls hovering around the puja area, along with his parents and KP. I was wondering if one of them was his new wife, but they seemed too young to be so. After the puja, KP told us that the two girls were his sister's kids. I was shocked! I had seen them during my college days, when they were just tiny tots. They were so grown up now. KP's wife was upstairs and she came down to be introduced to us. She seemed quiet, nice and had a sweet smile. She seemed like a good match to him.

From there, we went to my friend Kumar's home. He is Veena's husband and he is in the UK right now. We met his parents and invited them to my sister's wedding. His mother is quite ill, recovering from major hip surgery (I think).

Our final stop for the night was Vikram's home. I was meeting him for the first time after his dad expired on Jan 29th. I felt very bad for him. There was an awkwardness, which I had never felt before with him. I did not know what to say or do. We just made some meaningless small talk. I was glad that I had Nagendra there with me to take away some of the awkwardness with his own conversations. I asked him to come to my sister's wedding, but he said he did not want to go anywhere for upto 3 months after his dad's death.


Feb 18th, 2007

I was supposed to meet the Aptech gang for dinner and movie today. After much calling around and trying to get things organized, it looked like most of them would not make it. As of this morning/afternoon, I thought at least Sidda, his wife, Deepak (his wife Geetanjali, was visiting Tirupati with her family, he said) and Nagendra would be there. But only Deepak turned up. He picked me up from my home in his Tata Indigo car. We went to Garuda Mall. We caught up on stuff on the way to the Mall. He surprised me by telling me about being jailed on his last birthday! I was shocked. He has always been upto some adventure or another all his life. So, this news should not have been very shocking, but being in jail still shocked me.

Apparently, on his birthday, his car had been parked in a no-parking zone, while he and his friends had tea at some restaurant. When they came out, they found a cop giving them a ticket. They took the ticket and made some flippant remark. It got the cop worked up. Words were exchanged. And finally the cop booked them falsely on charges of attempt to assault a policeman, and took them to jail for the day. The next day they were out on bail, and the case is still doing the rounds of the Indian court system. Deepak talked about how people were calling him up to wish him for his birthday, while he was sitting in the lockup. He had to lie to his family and some of the close friends telling that he was out partying with friends and could not come home for the night! Damn, that must have sucked. All this over just a small flippant remark!

Anyway, we went to the Garuda Mall and bought tickets for the movie Ekalavya. This would be my first visit to a multiplex in India. I did some clothes shopping as Shopper's Stop, as there was lot of time for the movie to start.

We did something stupid when we were shopping. We were told that if our purchases totalled upto Rs 2500, we would get 5% cash back. At first, I had bought stuff for only around Rs. 1500. So, I decided to buy one more item I liked. That brought our total just Rs. 3 short of Rs. 2500. So, we had to buy some other small item. The cheapest small item there was a set of 5 handkerchiefs for Rs. 100. I bought that. It was only later that I realized what a fool I had been. I was surprised that Deepak, who is usually very calculative, had also not been sharp enough this time. Perhaps, he was tired of just hanging around while I spent time picking up clothes for myself.

The 5% cash back from Rs. 2500, amounts to Rs 125. I had purchased handkerchiefs worth Rs. 100, just because I was Rs. 3 short of the eligibility for cash back. That effectively made my cash back amount just Rs. 25! It gets worse – I did not have to buy the handkerchiefs to make up for the shortage of Rs. 3 at all. The tax on my purchases was more than enough to get me comfortably over the Rs. 2500 mark. But it gets even worse than that – I just checked my bank statement from Feb, and discovered that Citibank has not given me cash back, like they were supposed to. Grrr! I am going to write to them now!


Feb 19th, 2007

I went to the Bangalore University campus with my father today, to get the transcripts of my B Sc course. My father had previously called up somebody in the University office, and they had asked him to send me to the University when I was in India, along with an application form I could get from my college. They told him that it was not a big deal to get the transcripts. I just had to get the form from my college and submit it at the University office, and I would get the transcripts. The way the guy had explained the process to my father, my father got the impression that it would all be done within a day! Great expectations from bureaucrats!

Our first stop was at my college office to get the application form. The idiots in my college office did not even know what a transcript is. They did not understand what I wanted, and they said they don't have any forms for transcripts. I explained to them what a transcript is. They said if I have a format for the transcript, I should bring it and show it to them, they would themselves prepare the transcript in that format and give it to me. My dad and I decided to go check at the University office.

We reached there at around 1 PM or so. We met the guy with whom my father had talked on the phone. We were told that we should first pay fees for the application form to apply for the transcripts and for the transcripts themselves, at the State Bank of Mysore branch on Avenue Road. Then, we should bring the receipt from the bank to the University office to show them that we had paid the application fees. They would then give us the application, which should be taken to my college for my Principal's signature. The duly signed and authorized form should then be submitted back at the University office, along with copies of my degree certificate and marks cards, envelopes for the transcripts, and the receipt from the bank showing that I had paid the fees for the transcripts.

We paid the fees at the bank, showed the receipt at the University office, got the application form and took it my college. The University has a common application form for all types of documents – to get duplicates of marks cards or certificates, corrections to them, re-grading of exam answer scripts, transcripts, etc. This application form is available in all the colleges under the purview of Bangalore University, including my college. The idiots in my college office did not know it was this form that we were asking for only because they did not know what the hell a transcript was. If only they had known that it was this form, we could have filled it out during our first visit to the college and submitted it at the University office, during our first visit there. Now, we had to visit both the places twice. After getting the principal's signature, my father and I came back home. I will have to take the application form to the University tomorrow, as it was already quite late. I also discovered that Mr Borgalli, the Physics lecturer from my college days was the Head of Department for Physics now, and he was also signing forms on behalf of the Principal.

Oh, for the record, I think the fees for each set of transcripts at Bangalore University is Rs. 150 or so. I forget the exact amount. The fee for the application form itself is Rs. 10.


Feb 20th, 2007

Met Vikram first thing in the morning, opposite Malleshwaram club, next to the Malleshwaram grounds. I was using my father's Kinetic Honda to ride around. He took me to the Bullet service shop behind Nataraja Talkies, where he had given my Bullet for servicing. My Bullet was in good running condition. It just needed a little bit of work here and there, battery recharging, brakes, lights and electricals, rear view mirrors and small stuff like that. The guy at the shop told me that it would be ready next day.

From there, I went to the University and submitted the application form for my transcripts. They told me that it would be available for me on Monday, Mar 5th. But I was leaving back for the US on Sunday, Mar 4th! They told me that I could go by and check the week before Mar 5th, to see if it was available. If I was lucky, I might get it. I cursed my luck for missing it by just 1-2 days. If only my college office guys had given me the application form the first time I visited them yesterday, I might have been able to submit the application at the University yesterday itself, and I would have gotten my transcripts on the Friday or Saturday before I left India on Sunday! Damn!

From the University, I went to meet my old and very good friend Brij at his office on Lavelle Road. He has been my friend from my days in Wipro. I think I met him in 1998 or 1999, when I still worked in Wipro's MG Road office. There was an instant friendship between us since then. Brij took me for lunch at the Woodlands Hotel. They have a very good South Indian lunch there. It is simple, homely fare. The dining room itself was quite small and very plain. I was quite surprised. Woodlands is supposed to be a big, 5-star hotel, and I had expected a far richer ambience and food. But I was not disappointed, though. The food was very good. Just the kind of homely South Indian food I love and yearn for.

After lunch, we walked back to Brij's office and spent some time chatting there. Then, I left his office, proceeding for my roommate's home in JP Nagar. I took the Bannerghatta Road to JP Nagar, and for the first time, rode across the IBM office on Bannerghatta road. I felt very touched and almost wept when I saw that office because it brought back memories of my girlfriend, Sh, talking to me from there. It was when she was working there that I ran into her online. It was from there that we had our many arguments and disagreements. It was there that she wept so many times, in so much pain. I felt like stopping my Kinetic Honda there and weeping myself. But I pushed on.

After spending a few minutes on the wrong road, I found my roommate's home. Her parents were expecting me. I spent a few minutes there talking to them. Then I picked up the stuff they wanted to send with me for my roommate and for our home use.

From there, I came home, dropping by my grandmother's house on the way.


Feb 21st, 2007

This morning, I went with my father to the Bullet service shop. On the way, we bought a helmet for myself, from a curbside seller near Vivekananda college. The traffic police in Bangalore have finally come round to strictly enforcing the helmet rule for all riders of two-wheelers. This is something they had been trying to do for a long, long time... almost from before I was born, I think. All previous attempts had been half-hearted, largely ignored by the public, before the cops gave up. But this time, it was being strictly enforced. In fact, I myself wore helmet for the first time in my life during this trip to India, when riding my father's Kinetic Honda. It was darned awkward and uncomfortable. The guy who sold us the helmet quoted a price of Rs. 480 for it. My father insist that we would pay only Rs. 300. I thought that was a difference from his quoted price. If I was alone, I think I would have paid Rs. 400. The guy asked for Rs. 400 and then Rs. 350. But my dad was quite adamant, to my surprise. He knew the going rate for helmets and the guy agreed to that rate without too much trouble.

Then, we got my Bullet. I felt so happy to be riding it, although I also felt a little awkward and shaky because I was riding it after at least two years. But it's amazing how quickly I got back the hang of riding it in that Bangalore traffic, which was heavier than ever. I took the Bullet home and had lunch. After lunch, I met my friend Nagendra and together, we went to the RTO office in Rajajinagar to get the fitness certificate for my 1984 bullet. We reached there at around 3 PM, and we were told that we had to come at 10 in the morning to even get the application form for the fitness certificate. I got the emission certificate for the Bullet from a private emission testing center opposite the RTO office. Then, I returned home via my grandmother's house.

My grandmother is not keeping too well. She seems to have grown so much weaker and older in just the past few years. The change is very swift and surprising. I can even see dark patches in her facial skin, which is a sure sign of very old age. I feel very sad.

I came home and chatted with my gf Sh over the Internet. It was not very pleasant. Something she said during the chat affected me very badly. I don't want to repeat what she said, but it was something she said might happen to her because of me. I literally felt my heart drop a couple of inches. I felt a constriction in my chest. I felt like I was getting a heart attack. I cried with much grief for what she had said, feeling so helpless and powerless and almost going crazy myself.


Feb 22nd, 2007

I went to the RTO early today morning with Nagendra. He had to get his license renewed. While he was getting that done, I was approached by a middleman, an agent, who said that he would get my Bullet's fitness certificate done and delivered to my door for Rs. 1000. I settled on Rs. 750, on the condition that he did not have to deliver it to my door. I would come to the RTO, submit the forms and collect it myself. The actual fees to get it legitimately is Rs 500. But from past experience at RTOs, I knew that getting it through the straight road would involve a lot of difficulties and effort, and did not guarantee results. I was in India on a short 3-week visit. I did not have time to spend a lot of time trying to get a fitness certificate for the pleasure of riding my Bullet and keeping it on the road for a long time. So, against my mind and heart, I agreed to go through the middle-man. When Nagendra heard about the amount I had settled for, he thought it was too much by at least Rs. 100.

The middle-man guided me on the process, the forms I needed to fill, what to fill in, etc. Otherwise, he was not of much help. I had to stand in all the lines to get the forms, submit them, etc. Nagendra told me that I did another mistake by giving the guy the money in advance. If I had not done so, the guy would have done all the legwork for us, he said. What the hell! Nagendra was standing right in front of me when I gave the guy the money. If Nagendra knew that I should not give it to him in advance, he should have stopped me right then. Anyway, it was too late now.

We got and filled up the form to get the fitness certificate. But before we could submit the form, I had to get my Bullet insured. Now, this was a tricky situation for us. The RTO won't give us fitness certificate without insurance. And the insurance company would not insure the Bullet without a fitness certificate, or so we were told.

Nagendra took me to an insurance company a couple of miles away, where he thought he knew somebody. We went into the insurance office, the officer there would not even look at the Bullet. He flat out refused to insure it because it was from 1984. I was disappointed. Nagendra asked around about the guy he was supposed to know in the office. Somebody told us that the guy had gone to a 'Xerox shop' close by and he should be back soon. We waited for him outside. He came soon enough, met us, told us that he could get it done. He went inside, came out with some forms for me to sign. About half an hour later, I had the insurance papers for my Bullet. Without anybody even taking a proper look at it! The insurance fees was Rs. 393. The guy who helped us refused to take money because he knew Nagendra. But I was so happy and relieved, I insisted that he take Rs. 100.

On the way back to RTO, Nagendra and I had lunch at the MTR restaurant near Bhashyam Circle in Rajajinagar. It was very good limited lunch for Rs. 40.

By the time we came back to the RTO with the insurance papers, it was too late to get my Bullet inspected for fitness certificate. Apparently, two-wheeler inspections happen at 11 AM in the morning, the middle-man told us. What the hell! Why didn't he tell us that before? I was so angry. But there was nothing to be done now. We would have to come back again tomorrow.

In the evening, I met A, whom I had first seen on the 14th. I did not really want to meet her. But having met her in person once before, I did not feel good brushing her off over the phone. I decided to meet her in person and tell her my feelings. I picked her up from the Gangenahalli bus stop. We went to Sankey Tank. I was really impressed by the clean-up work that was done in and around Sankey tank. It was pleasant and popular park-like place now for people to visit, walk and hang out. I spent much of the time quietly enjoying the lake, the trees, the birds, the birds' nests, etc. Later A would tell me that while I was enjoying the place, she was observing how I was enjoying the nature.

From Sankey Tank, we went to Shanti Sagar at Bhashyam Circle in Sadashivanagar. We had chaats and icecreams. The bill came up to Rs. 144. The service staff at the restaurant would not allow us to talk in peace. They kept pestering us to buy something. Very irritating. Nevertheless, I managed to tell her that I was in no position right now to start any new relationship, especially not a relationship like ours, which was kinda-sorta arranged. I told her that I was still emotionally tied up to my feelings for my gf. But she did not want to let things go abruptly like that. She did not try to force me or plead with me, to give her credit. She reasoned that may be if we got to know each other better and spent more time talking to her, my feelings might change. I told her that I did not think so, I did not see that happening any time soon, and I did not want her to wait indefinitely for me. Finally we agreed that she could wait for a month and a half, and if my opinion had not changed by then, she should move on.

News as of May 16th: As things turned out, I did not wait for a month and half. Pretty soon after I came to the US, I told A that her wait for futile. I came to know from my mother that her family was very disappointed with my decision. Even later, she told me that she was quite disappointed too. But it did not take long for her to find somebody else, who lives and works in Bangalore. She will be getting engaged to him soon. I hope she will have a nice and happy married life. She is a nice and pleasant person, might have probably made a good wife for me (I did not have any complaints about her as a person). But my heart was not into her. My heart is tied up elsewhere. As I mentioned in this post, I don't want to compromise on love.


Feb 23rd, 2007
Went to RTO in the morning, along with Nagendra. After waiting from 10 AM to almost 1 PM, the inspector who was to inspect the vehicles for fitness certification came up. He walked around my Bullet. Then we had to wait for another half an hour or more before he said my Bullet had cleared the inspection. I would be getting the Fitness Certificate at 3 PM tomorrow. I got the receipt from the RTO office. Then, we parked my Bullet at Kumar's house. Nagendra and I went to Bangalore Central to shop for clothes for myself, for my sister's wedding. On the way to Bangalore Central, we stopped at this new restaurant called Halli Mane in Malleshwaram. The place was jam-packed, totally crowded. It seemed to be very popular. The food was very good. There were signs all around which advertised the attention to cleanliness and hygiene at the restaurant. I had their limited plate meals for Rs. 12, plus a raagi mudde for Rs. 5. Both were awesome. The payasa made of gus-guse was the best of all!

I took 2 hours to choose two shirts, two pants, and a kurta-pyjama set at Bangalore Central. Nagendra got very impatient during that time. Later he would claim that I spent 4 hours to shop! It was pretty late in the evening by the time we finished. By that time, my parents had called Nagendra's cell phone 2-3 times.

Today, we had the nalungu ceremony for my sister S, who is getting married soon. This is the ceremony in which all the women of the family, and female relatives and friends, apply turmeric paste, sandal paste, flowers, rose water and other traditional cosmetics to the face, arms and legs of the bride.

Bangalore Notes - Feb 14th, 2007 – Meeting A & Travel to Chennai

Met A for breakfast this morning. It may be recalled that A is the girl who was introduced to my parents by our neighbors as a possible match for me. We met at the Malleshwaram 18th Cross bus stand. A had brought me a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate – I had told her that’s my favorite chocolate. I had taken her some chocolates I had brought from the US. A wanted to visit the Sai Baba temple near 15th Cross and Sampige Road. In all those years I spent roaming around Malleshwaram, I had never visited this temple. After that, we had breakfast at Janata Hotel on 8th Cross. The hotel is well-known masala dosa, which we had. I don’t know why it is considered to be so special. It was as good as a well-made dosa anywhere in the world – in Bangalore, Singapore, San Francisco or Phoenix.

I had thought we would be able to linger over breakfast and talk, but the ambience of Janata Hotel was suitable not for sitting and talking. It was strictly an eat-quick-and-leave kinda place. So, we started walking towards another temple adjacent to 8th Cross, between Margosa and Sampige roads. I thought it was a Krishna temple and we might find some quiet spot outside the temple to sit and talk. The temple turned out to be a Raghavendraswami temple, and while we sat there, A said she wanted to go to the ISKCON temple. So, we ended up visiting the third temple in one morning!

I had not visited ISKCON in a long time, and I was quite shocked by the security checks before entering the temple. There were guards at the front gate, with guns and a dog, checking the insides and the trunks of all the cars which came in. They did not allow backpacks or cameras into the temple – these had to be left outside against a receipt, near the place where we left our shoes. After that, we had to pass through a metal detector and were then frisked by another guard. Once inside, the visitors are almost always on a path that’s well-defined by ropes, which guides them through the temples, the movie theatre the shopping areas and food vendors, right back to the place where we left our shoes.

I can understand all those checks because ISKCON Bangalore has received bomb threats in the past. Nevertheless, I did not feel good about all the restrictions and herding. That’s enough to discourage me from visiting the place too often.

A and I were able to talk for sometime at ISKCON, outside the temple. The conversation was all general, about impersonal stuff – I don’t even remember all the things we talked about. Then, I dropped her off at the Yeshwanthpur bus stand and returned home. I could not take her any closer to her house because it was getting late for me – I had to return home, finish my packing, have lunch and catch the train to Chennai in a couple of hours. I am going to Chennai for the interview at the US Consulate for my visa stamping.

I left A with the impression that she is a nice, pleasant, comfortable person to be with. But I did not feel anything particularly romantic. Given the state of my life and emotions right now, I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to feel romantic again. Perhaps, never. Perhaps it was a mistake to interact with A, meet her, and waste her time and energy. I should have stuck to my guns and not let my family push me to interact with anybody. I always regret it when I go against my convictions for the sake of other people. So, what’s new? Ugh!

It always sucks when one’s convictions are in conflict with the expectations of others – especially family, friends and those we love. Going against our convictions makes us feel weak and spineless. Going against others’ expectations makes us seem rude and inconsiderate. I hate having to deal with this nonsense, and I hate the social setup which puts people into these kinds of situations.

Travelled to Chennai by the Brindavan Express train in the afternoon. The train left Bangalore at 1430 hrs and arrived in Chennai at around 2015 hrs or so. It was a mostly uneventful journey. I talked to a lady on the train, who has recently become involved, along with her husband, in one of the countless network marketing schemes. She gave me her card and invited me to meet her husband and see a presentation about her business during my stay in Chennai. I told her that I’d call her if I could spare time, but most probably I would have no time during my short stay there. In fact, my stay in Chennai is so short, I will not even have time to visit my aunt’s (mom’s older sister) home. To her credit, the lady did not try to force me too much. If she had, I would have clearly told her that I am not interested in joining any kind of network marketing scheme. Over the past 6 years, I have met many people, including some close friends, who have tried to get me to join such schemes. I have even seen friends try their hand at it and fail. I don’t think that business is for me.

I am staying at the Days Inn Hotel Deccan Plaza in Rayapettai area of Chennai. It is a comfortable place, with good service, and more importantly, it is quite close to the US Consulate.

Dying together is better than living apart!

Today's Times of India, Bangalore edition, had the following article:

Lovers end life in Mysore hotel

Mysore: Two lovers on Sunday night allegedly committed suicide, by consuming alcohol mixed with poison, at a hotel in Yadavagiri.

The deceased are P N Rajshekar(26), a software engineer, and Vasavi(24), a trainee at Infosys Technologies. Rajshkar hails from Hyderabad and Vasavi from Visakhapatnam. They both worked in Mysore.

According to police, the duo had checked into the hotel on Sunday evening.

The incident came to light when a room service boy received no response from the room on Monday morning. When the door was forced opened, the two were found dead.

Police traced an empty bottle of gin and a phial of pesticide. A suicide note left by the couple stated that they were happy to die together and it was inevitable. The note urged not to tear their photograph that was placed in the room. Fingerprint experts were pressed into service.

What a waste of young lives! Clearly, they were both educated, with good careers, and the prospect of a great future together. It's all gone to waste now.

I bet this had something to do with the parents of one or both the dead people. I can never understand why/how educated young people feel obligated to their families to the point of making themselves miserable and even ending their lives, instead of antagonizing their families.

Their families and elders should feel ashamed of themselves for driving the youngsters to such desperate measures.

It is so sad. Yet, in another way, I feel happy for the dead couple. At least they were in it together and died together. I can just imagine the kind of intense bond they must have had, the immense sorrow they must have shared when they couldn't make things work, and the peace they must have felt as they finally decided and accepted the end.

I think having total compatibility and agreement with our lover, being together, even if it is in death, is much better than living with differences and mutual pain between us. Dying together, in total bonding, is better than living apart in separation.

Tracking BMTC Buses - Google maps mashup anybody?

Today's Times of India, Bangalore Edition, had a piece about being able to track the location of BMTC (Bangalore city's public transport service) buses using the cellphone text message service. From the article:

Now, all you have to do is SMS to find out the location of the bus. This facility, for now, has been provided to only the Volvo bus commuters.

The procedure is simple - if you're in Koramangala, and want to go to Electronics City, send an SMS message to 9945634666 reading 'Yi V356C U'. (where Yi stands for 'Yelli Iddira?', 'V365C' is the route number, 'U' stands for 'up'). Buses heading out of the 'starting station' are designated to as 'up' and buses heading towards the starting station are designated as 'down'.

Within a minute, you'll receive a reply stating 'Singasandra; Bangalore Dairy; Maharani's College', meaning there are three buses on this route currently, each of them approaching the stops listed, after having left the previous stops.

This BMTC new facility uses on-line GPS data.

It's great to know that BMTC has started tracking buses using GPS data. This gave me an idea for a new Google Maps mashup: Use BMTC's GPS data to create a constantly updated map of Bangalore, which shows the position of BMTC buses a user searches for. Buses travelling up and down can be differentiated by color codes. The user should have the option of being able to search for one, more or all buses for which BMTC has GPS data.

This could be a very useful service, and a great idea for an engineering student project. The Google maps API is easily available. It's just a matter of tying that up with real-time GPS data from BMTC's systems.

Any engineering students in Bangalore up for the challenge?

Bangalore Notes - Feb 13th, 2007 – Whining & Visiting

Woke up shortly after 3 AM today, although I slept well past 11:30 PM yesterday - effects of the jetlag. Try as I might, I could not go back to sleep. These lonely early mornings are the worst - the pains of hurt I caused to others and the hurt caused to my own self are felt most acutely at this time. This blog seems to be taking on a whining tone once too often these days... What I feel is many thousands of times worse than what I can express here. Words are not adequate. I am the last person to want to turn my blog into a whining forum about deeply personal things. I don't mind whining and ranting about impersonal issues though! :-) Like how not having an Internet connection at home is such a big bother!

I told my folks so many times to get an Internet connection before I came home. They don't know how essential and useful it can be. I guess I did not do a good enough job of communicating that to them. Moreover, the state of matters in the 'Silicon Valley of India' is that there is a wait of 4 months or more to get a broadband connection from BSNL, which many people claim to be the best and most dependable Internet service provider. I emailed Airtel a few days before I left Phoenix and gave them my Bangalore home address and phone number. They replied back to say they would get in touch with us, but we are yet to hear from them. I don't want to whine any more - personal or impersonal. I'll go lay down and see if I can make myself snooze a little.

I dropped in at Pankaja’s home this morning. She lives in Hyderabad now and has been staying in her parent’s house at Bangalore for the past couple of weeks or so, while her husband is visiting the US. She is returning to Hyderabad this afternoon, and I will not get another chance to meet her before I have to return to the US. I met Pankaja’s baby Siddi – she is one year and 8 months old. This is the first time that I am actually meeting a baby of one of my friends. From Pank’s home, I went to my aunt’s house – my mom’s younger sister. Her 16 or 17-year-old daughter is almost as tall as I am, and I bet she still has some more growing up to do! Can’t believe that she used to be the baby carried around in my arms and played with, not too long ago! I spent most of the day at my aunt’s, falling into jet-lagged sleep on her couch, later in the afternoon, before returning home in the evening.

Meeting Pank’s baby made me realize how far ahead all my friends have gone. They are all at the next stage in their lives – being married and about half of them already with kids. Srikanth was the last guy to marry – he got married on the 9th of this month and is honeymooning right now. Nagendra and I are the only two people in my group of friends who are yet to marry. Nagendra is probably waiting to hold down a permanent job before he finds someone to marry. As for me, I am waiting for true love.

Bangalore Notes - Feb 12th, 2007 – Bangalore Bandh

Today was the day of Karnataka state-wide bandh (which means closure of all schools and businesses), protesting the recent decision about the sharing of Cauvery river water with Tamilnadu. The bandh was mostly peaceful. There were a few incidents of people stopping vehicles which appeared to be commuting to work against the bandh call, and letting the air out of their tyres. The TV news also showed one place where a bunch of motorcycles were burnt. Apparently, these belonged to some people who had travelled to work. I feel sorry for the guys who owned those vehicles - I bet most of them are just middle-class or poor people who couldn't afford to replace the vehicles without feeling a painful pinch in their pockets. Some of them have probably not even paid off the loan on the vehicles which were burnt. And I bet, the insurance will not cover their loss. I wonder what compelled them risk things and to go out to work despite the highly emotional bandh.

I also wonder about how effective these bandhs are in achieving their objectives. Who feels the pinch of bandhs? Certainly not the state or central governments for whom it is nothing more than the loss of one day's tax revenue. Certainly neither the elected nor the unelected administrative officials would be bothered by such a loss. The people who are affected the worst by these bandhs are the who have the least power to do anything about the issues - the common people. The people who own businesses, the people whose personal plans and lives are adversely affected by the closures, the people whose travel plans are disrupted - these are the people whom a bandh affects the worst. So, how does a bandh really help in achieving any objectives? I guess it is mostly an activity for show, and also a psychological outlet for those people who feels passionately about the issues, but cannot do anything more effectively and meaningful to change things.

I woke up rather early today - sometime between 4 AM and 5 AM, I am guessing. Could not go back to sleep, my heart and mind filled with depression and nostalgia and pain for everything that happened in the past 2-3 years. It all feels like a piece of cactus stuck in my throat or chest, which I am not able to push down or bring back up. Wish things had not happened the way they did. The thing about wounds of the heart is that, the pain lives forever and ever. There is pain when the wounds are alive; there is also pain when they are healed, because the defeat and loss of love is always there. It feels so overwhelming at times - like the stuck cactus is blowing up like a balloon, becoming bigger and bigger, pricking more and more, constricting throat and heart. Time to get out of the bedroom now!

Went up to the terrace. The first impression was that of all the neighborhood buildings which seem to be growing up vertically. Between these buildings, I was greeted by a glorious sunrise - I immediately came down to grab my camera and clicked off a few pictures. (Photo will be posted when I have a better Internet connection!) The sight of the rising Sun caused a feeling of exhilaration and upliftment, tinged by a sadness and ache. I could not help thinking that if this was like the old days, I would have shared this photo with the girlfriend, infecting her with my exhilaration and taking joy in her enjoyment.

Three of my uncles came home today. Much of my waking hours were spent showing them and my family, photos from the last year and a half - photos of my new home in Phoenix, photos of my visits to places in beautiful Arizona, my housewarming party, etc. In the afternoon, after lunch, try as I might, I could not stop from falling into jet-lagged sleep. Between the sleep and visiting with family and relatives, I could talk to only two of my friends on the phone – Vikram and Pankaja. I wanted to call a few others, but time just slipped away and then it was too late in the night to call.

I also talked to A for the first time on the phone today. This is the girl who was introduced to my parents by our neighbor. My parents gave her my email address and she wrote to me. We chatted over the Internet about 3 times when I was in Phoenix. I don't feel ready to get into any new relationship so soon after my recent break-ups. I also feel weird communicating with someone introduced by my family, under the shadow of the pressure and curiosity from both families. I feel like I am artificially trying to start a relationship, without just letting things flow the way they naturally would. I am trying my best to let things work out on their own. For that reason, I have strictly told my parents to keep off me and not force me or ask me anything regarding this girl. But they find it hard to understand - they want me to do something and reach a 'yes or no' decision ASAP. They say they don't want to keep the girl's side waiting - if my answer is to be a 'no', they want to let them know that and let them move on with their lives. Sometimes I feel that I should have never let my parents give out my email address to A and have her write to me. I don't feel good stringing her along when I am not yet ready for a relationship. I have even told A all of this - about my feelings on arranged relationships, about my recent breakups, about my not being ready for a relationship, and about my not intending to get into any relationship with anybody unless my heart and soul was fully into that person and unless the other person felt the same way about me. Thankfully, she seems to understand all this, and seems to be willing to take it easy and let things flow naturally. We'll see how it goes.

Bangalore Notes - Feb 11th, 2007 - Arrival

Landed in Bangalore shortly after 5 PM. It was an uneventful flight. The highlights of the flight were the touch-screen entertainment systems on the Emirates airlines, and the forward and downward looking cameras mounted on the nose of the aircraft, which transmitted live video to our screens. For the first time in my life, I had some excellent views of the take-off and landing, just as it would appear from the cockpit of the plane! The other thing was that there seemed to be more leg-room in the Emirates flights, compared to Singapore airlines I have flown in the past. Some people had warned me that the flight from Dubai to India could get bad, with lots of labor-class people boarding at Dubai and misbehaving in the flight. Absolutely nothing of the sort happened. The people on the Dubai-Bangalore flight were as well as behaved as any group of airline travelers I have seen. The service on Emirates airlines was alright, and the food was alright too – there was nothing bad nor special about either.

At the Dubai airport, I could not resist buying a bottle of single-malt Scotch at the duty-free store. I have no idea who will drink it here, and I don't know what the reaction of my family will be either. Drinks are a taboo in my family, although (or perhaps because of) my father and his father's drinking habits in the past. Ideally, I would like to open this bottle with the male members of my family, at home, when all the females are out shopping or something. We shall see how that will go. The last time I had come to Bangalore in 2005, I had brought a bottle of tequila - my mom and sisters did not like my doing that very much. I used it to party with my friends and left about 1/3 of the bottle at home when I returned to the US. Wonder what happened to it...

My parents came to the airport to pick me up. They seem to have aged quite a bit since I last saw them in 2005. They certainly have much more gray hair, especially my mom. I can also see signs in her face of struggles with less-than-ideal health. After we returned home, I saw my dad struggle with some digestion problems, which he said were due to all the tea and snacks he was served when visiting people to invite them to my sister's wedding. Makes me feel sad and very concerned for my parents. They don’t even have medical insurance since my dad retired in August 2006!

It took about an hour for us to get home from the airport, in the relatively lesser Sunday evening traffic. I was impressed by the fly-over work on Airport Road near Indiranagar. The last time I was in India, in May-June 2005, the construction on this fly-over had not even started! So, that's some pretty quick work... going by the usual standards of public construction here. The underpass at the Rajajinagar entrance area was also completed providing much relief to that junction. I bet our travel time was cut down by at least 15 minutes, if not more, just because of these two - fly-over on airport road and the under-pass at Rajajinagar entrance.

When I came home, I found my grandmother there along with one of my cousins. I was glad that they were there. If not, I would have felt a little weird and lonely to be in the house with just my parents. We have never really been by ourselves until now - just the three of us! I spoke to my uncles and aunt on my mother side, on the phone and then fell asleep soon after dinner. I was glad to fall asleep at the right local time, although that would have been morning in Phoenix. Sleeping and waking up at the right local time is the best way to beat jetlag.

Yahoo! Our City - Bangalore

Yahoo! has started a new Our City portal. Right now, it is in beta and only available on Yahoo's India site (yahoo.in) for Bangalore and New Delhi.

This new effort by Yahoo! is a great example of what a localized web portal should be. The best thing about this site is that it is a mash-up, weaving together information from a variety of sources, including and not limited to, Wikipedia, Yahoo! News, Upcoming.org (for events), del.icio.us (for bookmarks), The Weather Channel, various blog sources including Bangalore Metblogs and Flickr (for photos).

Since the information on this local portal is culled from many different sources which are constantly updated, it ensures that the portal always presents fresh information to visitors. Too bad that there is still no worthy online mapping application for Indian cities. It would have been a perfect fit here.

My favorite part of the site is Kannada World. At a time when many organizations and individuals in/about Bangalore easily forget Kannada, it is heartening to see Yahoo! put in a special Kannada section. Way to win the hearts of local people. The next step on the portal is to change all references to Bangalore to Bengalooru. :-)

Bengalooru! Bengalooru! Bengalooru!

Today, November 1st, is the Golden Jubilee of the formation of Karnataka state. This occasion is marked by the move to universally spell and pronounce the name of Karnataka's capital city Bangalore, as Bengalooru.

This has sparked a lot of comments and debates across the world and the cyberworld. On this occasion, I am presenting below some of the popular myths and realities surrounding this issue.


Myth: Bangalore to Bengalooru is a name change similar to Madras to Chennai or Bombay to Mumbai.

Reality: It is not really a name change like Bombay to Mumbai and Madras to Chennai. It is more of a spelling change to reflect the correct pronunciation. It is just an adoption of a more Indian, less anglicized pronunciation of the name, and the corresponding spelling.


Myth: This is a new idea which came from politicians and ministers, who are just out to gain political mileage.

Reality: The city has always been known as Bengalooru in all Kannada publications and in everyday talks among Kannadigas. The idea of universally using the pronounciation and spelling Bengalooru, starting from the golden jubilee anniversary of Karnataka state's formation, came from the well-known literary personality, Jnanapeetha award-winner, Dr U R Ananthamurthy. The idea became popular among the general Kannadiga public, and then was taken up by the government and politicians.


Myth: There is popular sentiment among most people against the "name change".

Reality: Among the grass-roots, "person on the street" Kannadigas in Bangalore and rest of the Karnataka state, this idea is very popular. Even among non-Kannadigas who were born and brought up in Bangalore, this idea is popular. Most of the people who oppose, especially the most vocal ones, are usually immigrant non-Kannadigas, who have little or nothing invested emotionally and culturally in Bangalore.


Myth: The "name change" costs a lot of money. Money which can be used to improve the infrastructure of Bangalore.

Reality: Any costs involved are one time only. The costs can be further minimized by continuing to use existing stationery until they are exhausted and using the new spelling only on new stationery. The money needed for this change is much less, compared to the costs of maintaining/improving the infrastructure of a city. For people who claim otherwise, here is a comparison: cost of stationery used in your house vs the cost of building, maintaining the infrastructure of your house. Understand the difference?


Myth: Bangalore is an international-sounding word. Bengalooru sounds "local", and so it is not good. So, 'changing over' will be awkward and difficult.

Reality: This is another illogical argument which sounds at first like it is logical. Bangalore is not an international word by itself. The city became internationally popular, mostly in just the past two decades - there is not a long history and attachment internationally to that name. For the true foreigners, especially people who just get to know the place, Bangalore is as strange and foreign-sounding as Bengalooru. It is relatively easy to change the pronunciation and spelling, especially because Bengalooru is pretty close to Bangalore. Even the international airport code BLR, need not be changed. When the world has adapted relatively easily to Mumbai, changing over to Bengalooru is no big deal.


Myth: Bangalore is a global brand. Changing the name now will adversely affect the brand.

Reality: This is another statement which seems to make sense, but really doesn't carry a lot of weight. Name changes happen as frequently in commercial branding as in other areas of life, and in business, they happen more ruthlessly. For me, AT&T is a name with history, known all over the world, for a very long time. I had never heard of Cingular. I am sure this is true of many more people. Yet, when Cingular took over AT&T's mobile phone business, the name change was immediately all-pervasive and very effective. Did that name change adversely affect the brand and the business? There are no signs which indicate that. For people who are already familiar with Bangalore, it will be business as usual in the future Bengalooru. They will continue to get the same advantage and benefits from the city, which made them go there for business in the first place. And for people who don't know the city yet, and who are future business prospects, it makes no difference at all. Future business deals will not be made or broken based on whether the city is called Bangalore or Bengalooru. Anyone who suggests otherwise is an idiot.


Myth: This is a big change, a big deal, a big issue. And it is all for nothing. It won't improve the infrastructure or conditions of the city.

Reality: NO! This is not a big change, as I have mentioned enough times already. Nor is it a big deal or a big issue. The expenses are relatively low and one time. Any awkwardness and inconvenience is also merely passing. Taking the longer perspective of time, after this small change, future generations will know the city as Bengalooru for decades and centuries to come. The past few decades of mispronunciation, starting from the British times, will just seem to be a passing phase compared to the longer history of the city. I think for the benefit of having my city's name pronounced properly for decades and centuries to come, by people around the world, it is all worth it. Imagine that you correct some foreigner when s/he mispronounces your name. Suppose s/he quips back, "Pronouncing your name correctly does not change the way you look or make you richer". Will that make any sense?


Myth: Blah! Blah! Blah!

Reality: Bengalooru! Bengalooru! Bengalooru!


Related post: Bangalore Vs Bengaluru

A Tale of Two Trains

The Bangalore Metro Rail project has finally received the cabinet nod as reported in The Times of India:

NEW DELHI: In what will come as a big relief for Bangalore residents, who have to grapple with clogged roads every day, Union cabinet on Thursday approved the Metro rail project for the city.

Emerging out of the cabinet meeting, Union urban development minister S Jaipal Reddy said the Rs 6,395-crore project, to be completed by 2011, would cover a length of 33 km in two corridors.

That is good news. However, I can't help but wonder if the 2011 target date for completion of the first phase of the project is too ambitious and unrealistic.

Yes, it is good to have a positive outlook. Nobody wants to be pessimistic. But having seen the saga of the Bangalore International Airport Ltd. (not to mention the many fly-over stories of Bangalore), is there anything at all to give us real hopes that the project will be completed on time? A 33 km urban railway which runs above ground, below ground and on the ground to be completed in 5 years in India? Yeah, right!

Let's compare the Bangalore Metro Rail project to the Phoenix Metro Rail project, which is in the contruction stage right now. The two projects together make a great comparative case study because they are both contemporary urban rail systems, covering the same distance (33 kms ~ 20 miles).

The first phase of the Phoenix Metro Rail project from "right of way acquisition" to inauguration is taking eight years in a country like the US. Construction phase alone spans about 4 years. And as far as I know, the Phoenix metro rail has no underground segment.

Can we really believe that the Bangalore Metro rail will be completed in 5 years, after receiving the "cabinet nod" just now? Given the way things work in India, I would say that is not optimism. That is an unbelievable fantasy!

Just building one fly-over involves so much bureaucracy and delays. How can we hope that a big project like the metro rail will happen on schedule, let alone an aggressive schedule? We have seen how just one fly-over construction disrupts surrounding traffic and life in Bangalore city. I am scared to imagine what a 33 km construction would do to the city!

The Phoenix Metro Rail can be a model for the Bangalore Metro Rail on how things should really be done. I highly recommend my readers to check out the Phoenix Metro Rail's website. Take time to navigate the site, check all the details, right down to the animated simulation, the community outreach, the marketing efforts, etc. I have personally seen some of the construction efforts and how it is handled so that there is minimum inconvenience to existing traffic and businesses. They have come out with marketing and promotional programs to help businesses along the rail tracks, which are affected by the construction.

The volume and depth of information available on the Phoenix Metro Rail's website gives us an idea of how well the project is coming along. More important, it provides us important information and confidence in the project. Contrast that with the Bangalore Metro Rail's website.

I am born and brought up in Bangalore. I love it as much as any localite or immigrant to Bangalore. The purpose of this post is not to spread pessimism or to criticize for the sake of criticizing. As I mentioned in a previous post on NRI Nationalism, we can learn a lot from seeing how things are done in other places and countries. There will probably be more comparative posts in the future, about the Bangalore and Phoenix Metro Rail projects. I hope this series of posts will spark healthy debates and discussions, will be informative to all the stakeholders of the project(s) and will help in a small (or a big) way towards providing a great train service to the urban commuters.

Related link: Bangalore Metro Rail Watch

Operation Hijack Bangalore

There is an unmistakable conspiracy afoot to hijack the Bangalore agenda, and so far the bad guys are winning.

I don't know where to start or how to go about writing on this subject in an organized and structured way. So, I will just jot down a bunch of questions/points and then expand on them one by one. Following are the questions/points which will be covered in this blog post:

1. What is Bangalore or Bengalooru? What is the background?
2. What is the Bangalore agenda?
3. Who are the hijackers and why are they doing it?
4. Hijacking the Infrastructure agenda.
5. Perception of the IT industry by non-IT folks.
6. Bangalore Demographics and Kannadiga angst.
7. Hijacking the Kannadiga agenda.
8. Reservation for Kannadigas in IT industry.
9. The anti-IT paradox.
10. Targetting Infosys.
11. Why should Bangalore be protected as the technology capital?


What is Bangalore or Bengalooru? What is the background?

Bangalore is the capital city of the Karnataka state in southern India. Among all the cities of the world, Bangalore is second only to the United States' Silicon Valley, in terms of popularity for its technical industry. Almost every major tech company of the world (from Google and Yahoo to Microsoft, IBM, Texas Instruments, etc.) and of India (from heavyweights like Infosys and Wipro to very small, hardly heard of companies) have their presence in Bangalore. Bangalore has turned out to be the capital of the world tech-work outsourcing industry, resulting in the addition of a new word into the English language: Bangalored! Playing host to technology companies is not new to Bangalore. For decades, Bangalore has hosted the headquarters of some of India's biggest companies such as HAL, ITI, HMT, BEL, BHEL, BEML, ISRO, etc. The technology industrial base of Bangalore accelerated the ascension of India as a major player in the world's technology market. It has made valuable contributions to the economic growth of Indian. Sometime in the far future, this very industrial base of Bangalore will be recognized in history as the core engine of India's renewed world dominance in the modern times.

Sustaining and growing such a large industrial base is not possible without having good educational institutions. As such, Karnataka state and Bangalore region have one of the highest concentrations of educational institituions in India. It is also not possible to support such a huge industrial presence by the local population alone. Moreover, Bangalore is relatively close to the borders of neighboring states Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh. Hence, there is a large presence of non-Kannadigas (non-natives of Karnataka) in Bangalore. It is estimated that over 70% of the city's residents are non-Kannadigas.

Among all the cities of India, Bangalore is the most favorable city for non-local people. A non-Kannadiga can live in Bangalore for decades, without learning the local language and have no difficulties at all. Locals of Karnataka are some of the nicest, accomodating ("adjusting" in local slang) and least parochial people in India.

Bengalooru is the correct pronunciation of the name of the city whose anglicized name is Bangalore.


What is the Bangalore agenda?

It is quite simple really: To provide for the healthy sustenance and improvement of living conditions for all the residents and businesses of the city, particularly the vast and highly successful technology businesses.

The above deceptively simple statement covers everything including cost of living, infrastructure, environment, people-friendly policies & processes (from being able to party late into the night to respecting and supporting the local language and local culture), business-friendly environment, and security (from criminals as well as terrorists).


Who are the hijackers and why are they doing it?

The Number 1 hijackers of the Bangalore agenda are the local politicians. They are doing this for two reasons:

1. Simply because that is what politicians do: try and grab power, and then stay in power by hook or crook. Principles be damned. Welfare of the citizens is flushed down the drain. They have no interest in nor inkling of the long-term strategy for the development of their constituency, city, state and the country's welfare.

2. There is lot of money, power and prestige associated with being in power in Bangalore, as the ruling party of Karnataka state. The many successful companies in Bangalore pay a huge amount of tax to the state's coffers. Any political party at both the state and national levels would like to get their hands on those huge funds.


Hijacking the Infrastructure agenda:

One of the most visible problems in Bangalore today is that of infrastructure. In particular, the road, traffic and drainage situation. Most of Bangalore's roads were never designed nor built for the kind of traffic they are experiencing today. Except for streets used for purely residential access or streets in remote locations, most of Bangalore's roads experience rush hour traffic during all hours of the day (except very late in the night) and on all days of the week. The noise and environmental pollution levels is staggering. The waste of time and fuel, as well as the stress levels due to dealing with such traffic is high. The dangers on the roads are very real (see: Accident Statistics for Workers of Electronics City, Bangalore).

The need of the times is for the road and traffic issue to be high on the city officials' sights. There has to be definitive short-term and long-term plans to deal with the current and future traffic growth. The situation has to be constantly monitored and periodic changes/progress made. If the government agencies are doing these things, the public are not aware of them. What we have seen so far is an Outer Ring Road around Bangalore and a few flyovers, which have definitely helped, despite having some issues of their own. What else is being done? There seems to be a bankruptcy of ideas and a dearth of action. Meanwhile, the traffic in the city is bursting at the borders of the roads.

In this situation, a mass transit system for the city is an emergency necessity. It has to be developed and implemented on a war-footing. Instead, the Bangalore Mass Rapid Transit project is progressing at a snail's pace. As per the out-dated homepage of the project, construction was supposed to start in June-July 2005, two years after the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation submitted the "DPR" (Detailed Project Report?) to the Government of Karnataka. It took all of two years to just get "in-principle" approval from the Planning Commission of India, another approval from the Pre-Project Investment Board and yet another approval from the Karnataka State Cabinet! In May 2005, H. D. Deve Gowda, objected to the project and sought fresh debates about the cost and feasibility of the project, about the choice of a light rail vs an elevated rail system! Over two years since the project's inception, after all the approvals were received, just before construction is supposed to begin, a debate was called for!

As per the current estimate, the project is to be implemented in 5 years from the start of construction. We can safely add a conservative 2 more years to this estimate owing to the pace at which things get done in India. At this rate, the project could be expected to be completed in the year 2012. If Deve Gowda's call for fresh debate had worked, it would have added another year or two to the project. What would be the traffic situation in Bangalore by the year 2014?

I am not an expert on mass transit systems to know if the questions and concerns Deve Gowda raised were valid. However, I do feel that the cost of delays to the project is far higher than any additional cost the city would incur by choosing one system of mass transit over another. I feel that Deve Gowda, who is a coalition partner of the current ruling party in Karnataka, but who frequently acts as if he is in the opposition, was trying to hijack the infrastructure development efforts to gain attention and political mileage.

Even worse than the story of Bangalore's roads and mass transit system is the story of Bangalore International Airport! Check out this page: Bangalore International Airport Watch. See the number of times the start and end dates have been struck and changed. The oldest start date is Oct 2002, the newest July 2005. The oldest end date was in 2003 and the newest one is in 2006. The ex-prime minister, Mr A B Vajpayee, performed the ground-breaking ceremony in Jan 2002. This ceremony is supposed to be the traditional starting of construction, but the construction has not started until three years later in 2005! A difference of 3 years. Three years may not seem to be a lot, but when you consider that the project was conceived in 1991, you get an idea of how long the project has been delayed before it could merely start!

During all that time, there were endless delays, along with the entry and exit of many a player and partner, because of political games. Many governments have come and gone, ministries have risen and fallen, chief ministers and prime ministers have appeared and disappeared. None of them could expedite the project and give Bangalore a good airport it deserved. Meanwhile, the airport project continues to be used for scoring political points as shown by the recent fall-out between Narayana Murthy and Deve Gowda. In my opinion, even if Narayana Murthy decided to quit when Deve Gowda accused him of not achieving much as the Chairman of the Bangalore International Airport Limited, he should have at least given a proper response highlighting his achievements. His exit, not fully explained, only darkens the issue, rather than shed any light.

Even the location of the airport well beyond the northern border of Bangalore is suspect. Most of Bangalore's technology companies, which form one of the biggest clientele of air travel to and from Bangalore are concentrated in the southern part of Bangalore. It would have made sense to build the airport closer to this region. Building it in some place along the Mysore road, would have not only been closer to the tech companies of Bangalore, it would have helped the development of the Bangalore-Mysore corridor as well. Instead, the airport is coming up in a place which requires travellers from southern Bangalore to travel all the way across or around the city, and then travel some more distance before reaching the airport. This will also have an adverse impact on the traffic situation in the city. I have read reports which alleged that the airport is being constructed to the North of Bangalore because vested interests (including Deve Gowda and his family) own large tracts of land in that area, and they wanted to increase the value of their land holdings.

With real initiative, the Bangalore International airport project would have been completed a long time ago. Not only that, with true vision, the airport would have been conceived as a major hub to the Indian subcontinental region, rather than being designed as just another Indian destination. Imagine how much more profitable the airport and the supporting businesses would have been if it could have been built as a hub where international flights and passengers could lay over enroute to the East and the West! That is the vision which should have driven the Bangalore International Airport project. Instead, the project seems to be driven and delayed in turns by the selfish interests and petty politics.

The Bangalore mass transit system, the Bangalore airport and other infrastructure initiatives in Bangalore are not coming up due to political initiative. They are coming up despite political obstacles and hijacking. Each of them has a long and labored birth, and by the time they become operational, the needs of the city would have grown well beyond the levels that these projects were supposed to address.


Bangalore Demographics and Kannadiga angst:

As I had mentioned above when describing Bangalore's background, a large part of the city's population consists of non-Kannadiga immigrants from other states. Even among people born and brought up in Bangalore, many people are from a non-Kannadiga background. This has been the case in Bangalore for a long time.

In any part of the world, when the percentage of immigrant population rises, there is bound to be some discontent among the local people. The immigrant populations take up the available land and resources, they drive up the cost of living and essential commodities, they bring in their own culture and languages which may result in the erosion of the local language and culture. In a city like Bangalore where the immigrant population reaches 70% or more, these things happen on a much higher scale.

The immigrants have not been very sensitive to Bangalore, its local people and their culture either. At best, they show apathy, disinterest and indifference to the Kannada language and Kannada culture. At worst, they behave in a way which hurts the local sentiments. The businesses which serve the residents of Bangalore gear their products and marketing towards the predominantly non-Kannada people. Often, they totally ignore the Kannada people. It is easy to perceive this as an in-your-face disrespect and insult towards Kannada language. Some very recent examples of such behavior include:

1. Sales and marketing people who cannot or will not speak Kannada in many of Bangalore's big retail businesses.
2. Lack of Kannada language programming on Radio City, Bangalore's popular FM channel.
3. Citibank's refusal to accept a document from a Bangalore-based customer (myself), because it was attested in Kannada. I will blog about this in a separate post.
4. Negative feedback and opinion expressed by a lot of non-Kannada residents of Bangalore to the issue of correcting the name of the city to Bengaluru or Bengalooru.

Understandably, such factors create dissatisfaction and distress among the locals of Bangalore and the Kannada populace of the rest of Karnataka. They are witnessing their own language and culture facing erosion in their own state capital. They cannot be expected to sit quiet.

It is worth noting here that a similar erosion of Marathi language and culture in Mumbai led to the formation of the very parochial Shiv Sena party, which has harassed non-Marathi people over certain issues, which has tried to use force in imposing Marathi language and culture in Mumbai, and which has tried to prevent non-Marathi people from filling certain employment openings in Mumbai.


Hijacking the Kannadiga agenda:

The dissatisfaction and angst of the Kannadigas is hijacked and subverted by certain politicians towards their own political ends and to settle petty scores. This is so obvious that I am surprised the Kannadigas don't see it themselves. Ideally, the primary agenda of a Kannadiga movement would be to protect and enrich the Kannada language and culture. Sadly, this agenda is hijacked my short-sighted people, achieving little or no constructive purpose for Kannada language and culture. Such hijackings only result in destruction and bad name to the Kannadiga movement. Examples of such actions:

1. Violence against Tamil and other immigrants during the Kaveri water dispute between Karnataka and Tamilnadu. The violence did not contribute to any resolution of the dispute. It badly affected many lives, brought a bad name to Bangalore and the Kannadiga movement.

2. Violence and unrest in the Bangalore city when anything happens to the popular movie actor Dr Rajkumar. Whether Dr Raj was kidnapped by a forest brigand or even when he falls ill at times, violence erupts in the city as if such violence would protect or serve Dr Raj's interests. Such violence only results in loss of public life and property.

3. The recent protest in front of Infosys office in Electronics City, Bangalore. The activists demanded priority and reservation for Kannadigas in filling job openings. This was once again an unproductive and misguided move. More about this in a subsequent section below.

It is unfortunate that under the instigation of certain short-sighted politicians with vested interests, the Kannadiga movement in Bangalore today has an element of anti-IT industry stance in general and an anti-Infosys attitude in particular. This is a pure and simple hijacking of the Kannadiga agenda.


Perception of IT industry by non-IT folks:

Today, Bangalore has become synonymous with India's IT industry. Any discussion of Bangalore's issues should include a discussion of its IT industry.

The IT industry in Bangalore and the rest of India came in quietly, under the radar. At first, the public and the central or state governments hardly noticed them. Why would they? Most IT shops were small. They did not occupy large spaces nor did they employ too many people. They did not bring in any large machinery, nor did they ship out any visible voluminous products in trucks. However, the IT companies could not be hidden for long. They were booking extraordinary profits (compared to other industries), earning in foreign currency, growing rapidly with buildings appearing all over the city like mushrooms on wet ground, and they were starting to employ more and more people! Before anybody could blink 10 times, the IT industry shed its new bride's veil and captured the attention of the whole nation like an extremely bright and beautiful new daughter-in-law captures the attention of the whole family. The IT industry in India could grow the way it did not because of government support, but rather because of the absence of government interference. In the beginning, the IT companies needed practically nothing from the government. The government hardly took notice of their existence. The industry grew free and happy. Due to its extraordinary success, predominantly by and for the middle-class people, the IT industry was the darling and pride of everyone in Bangalore.

However, the rapid growth of Bangalore's technology businesses, has resulted in an even more rapid growth of Bangalore's population and the accompanying problems. Cost of living in Bangalore is one of the highest in the country. The real estate market is skyrocketing. The traffic is bursting at the seams. What used to be the Garden City has now become a highly polluted city. The local people feel that the high-growth technology industry of Bangalore has contributed to these not so nice changes. In a leap of logic which is incomplete, inaccurate and fuelled by mischievous vested interests, the non-IT people of Bangalore have started to blame the technology companies as the root cause of Bangalore's woes. These companies are viewed as being apathetic to local people and their conditions, driven by a pure profit-motive. They are thought to have arm-twisted the government into giving them too many facilities and breaks at the cost of the development of the rest of Bangalore city and Karnataka state.

Read the following translations of Ravi Belagere's articles to get a glimpse of the thoughts and attitudes of the non-IT people in Bangalore towards its IT companies:

1. An Open Letter to Sudha Murthy
2. Nobody here is bitten by a (mad) dog to raze the city and rebuild it!


Reservation for Kannadigas in the IT industry:

Background info 1.: Dr Sarojini Mahishi Report and related info.
Background info 2.: FAQ on Discrimination of Kannadigas in IT industry.

I am in no position to comment on the general accuracy of what is presented in the FAQ above regarding the discrimination against Kannadigas in the IT industry. What I can say based on my 8 years in the industry, working for a Bangalore-based IT company is that, I have personally seen no region-based or language-based discriminations in the groups that I have been involved with. There are a couple of points though:

1. During the early part of my career, in the late 90's, I noticed that almost all the desktop and network support engineers working in my company were from Kerala. I don't know if this was because my company had hired a Kerala-based contractor to provide desktop and network support, or if the person recruiting for that group favored people from Kerala. This started to change during the early part of 2000s, and people from other regions started to appear in this group.

2. I have also heard from one friend that in the department he worked for, in this same company, there was preferential treatment given by the managers to "people whose names ended with -an" (tamilians).

My experience with human nature in general and with Indians in particular suggests that there is indeed some truth to region-based and language-based favoritism from managers and recruiting personnel. To what extent this is true, I cannot say.

Suppose we accept as truth that there is indeed a preferential treatment given to people from certain regions. The solution to that problem is not to shift the preferential treatment to people from another region. The solution is to remove any preferential treatment at all, and let people compete purely based on their merits. This is the proper way of doing things. Giving priority or reservation to any particular group of people would be counter-productive. It does nothing but replace one problem with many more.

Consider the following three main scenarios in which a company recruits most of its employees:

1. Specific requirement: When an IT company needs a person with a particular skill-set and experience to fill a specific project requirement, it cannot and will not wait to discriminate based on the person's caste, gender, region or language. There is a dearth of good people in the industry and no company can afford to get bogged down by such petty considerations. Doing so would be detrimental to the company's competitiveness and ability to deliver on the project.

2. Campus recruitment: I have spent the first quarter century of my life in Bangalore. I have spent the first half of my career in Bangalore. During all that time, I have personally come across no instances of a good college or a good student left out from campus recruitments by good companies. There are far too many companies in Bangalore and they are all looking for good people. It is natural that they would look for good people across the country. Karnataka does not have enough good colleges or good students to satisfy the recruitment needs of all these companies. If the companies had to comply with any reservation rules for Kannadigas or local people in any part of the country, they might end up having to fill the numbers with less-than-good candidates and this is not good for the entire industry as a whole.

3. General recruitment of experienced candidates: Occasionally, companies have general recruitment drives for experienced candidates. A combination of factors from points 1 and 2 above apply in this case also. Companies cannot make it a practice of preferring candidates from particular region or language without suffering serious adverse effect on their competitiveness and morale.

It may be true that the majority of the people employed in the IT industry of Bangalore are non-Kannadigas. However, I don't think it is true that deserving Kannadigas are not being employed. I am sure that every deserving Kannadiga gets an IT or ITES (IT-enabled Services) job in Bangalore sooner or later. S/he need not even travel to other states, unless s/he wants to.

If companies in Bangalore are forced to comply with any reservation policies to recruit only locals of Karnataka, they would have no choice but to move to more liberal and favorable places. Bangalore and Karnataka would lose out when that happens. This is not a threat or a blackmail. This is a case of simple economics. And please don't tell me that it is a good thing if IT companies move out of Bangalore. More about this later.

Coming back to the topic on hand: Just as it is not possible for companies to implement and follow a practice of giving priority to Kannadigas to fill vacancies, it is not possible for them to give preference to candidates from any other regions as a matter of general policy or practice. Read that again carefully. To repeat, it is not possible for companies to give preferential treatment to any other regional group (North Indians or Tamilians) for the same reasons mentioned above. So, if they are getting such partial treatment, it is only happening in occasional instances by specific managers or HR personnel, and not in general. That is definitely quite bad, but it is not as bad as Kannadigas in general being discriminated against.

What companies can and should do, is to put specific checks and balances in place to ensure that no such region- or language- or caste- based preferential treatment is given to anyone. There must be strict audits and severe penalties for individuals and companies who violate this rule. There must be internal and external boards to handle individual complaints when such practices happen.

The government can certainly pass such a law based on equality. But can a government that is run by political parties, which come to power playing caste-, region- and language-based politics have the guts and will to implement such laws? I doubt it. Once again, this is the case of the country's progressive practices being hijacked by political forces.


The anti-IT paradox:

The anti-IT stance of the non-IT Kannadigas in Bangalore is a fascinating study in the paradox of the average Indian's attitudes and opinions under the influence of politicians and vested interests. A similar paradox is played out in most other issues in India, when politicians hijack the agenda for their own narrow gains. Consider the following:

1. The non-IT Kannadigas in Bangalore are distressed by the deteriorating living conditions in Bangalore. The IT leaders in the city are also dissatisfied by the very same conditions. Yet, when an IT leader like Naranayana Murthy of Infosys gives out a statement criticizing the conditions in Bangalore, the non-IT Kannadigas get angry and worked up. It is hard for me to understand why they should get angry when Mr Murthy criticizes the very same things they don't like. If Mr Murthy's statements force the government to take notice and provide better infrastructure, the non-IT Kannadigas would benefit from it just as Mr Murthy and his organization would. Incidentally, around 7-8 years ago, the current Hosur Road was in a very bad condition. The road was improved by the government only after Mr Murthy's colleagues from Infosys and other IT companies staged a symbolic protest on Hosur Road with road repair tools, claiming to repair the road on their own. Now, everybody in the region enjoys the benefit of an improved road. Not just the IT industry.(It is a different matter that even this much improvement is not enough for that accident-ridden road).

2. The non-IT Kannadigas have been told that the IT industries have arm-twisted and blackmailed ("Give us this, or we will move our companies elsewhere!") successive Karnataka governments into providing special facilities to them. The reality is that, the government has not provided any special or extra facilities to the IT companies. What little has been done for the IT companies covers the bare necessities for any business to function. Especially when compared to what governments in other countries provide to all citizens, and when compared to what governments in other states are willing to provide.

3. The non-IT Kannadigas have also been told that providing facilities to the IT industry has drawn the government's attention and resources away from the rest of Bangalore and Karnataka. The implication here is that, if the IT companies had not forced the government, it would have diverted its attention and resources towards the improvement of the rest of Bangalore and Karnataka. Anybody who has grown up in India and believes this implication is extremely naive, if not downright stupid! Everybody in India knows how lazy and bigoted the political class is. If they could have their way, the politicians would all go to their legislative offices and chambers, take a restful nap and go back to their homes. Whatever little developmental efforts they directed towards the IT companies and their neighborhoods came after a lot of demanding and cajoling, pushing and pulling. Will any intelligent Indian truly believe that if the IT companies had not been provided anything, the government would have used those resources for the development of the rest of the city or state? No! A resounding N-O! The politicians would have just wasted away part of the money and pocketed the rest!

Points 2. and 3. above describe not-so-clever excuses provided by the politicians for not working to develop their constituencies. It is unfortunate that the Kannadigas have accepted such excuses and allowed themselves to be fooled.

4. The IT companies are accused by the non-IT people of not doing enough for the society. They are becoming the favorite whipping boys when any lack is perceived anywhere. Is there a lack of sufficient relief efforts when a natural disaster strikes? Blame the IT companies for not caring enough to share some of their hard-earned wealth! Is the infrastructure situation in Bangalore deteriorating on a daily basis? Blame the IT companies for not doing enough to improve the infrastructure situation. Does Narayana Murthy say that 75 percent of the fresh engineering graduates in the country do not have employment-worthy skills? Blame the IT industries for not improving the academic quality in India!

What the non-IT people should realize is this:
(i) It is not the core business of the IT companies to provide disaster relief, improve infrastructure, improve the quality of academic education in India. Certainly they can help and contribute towards these efforts. However, these are the core businesses and responsibilities of other organizations and agencies. There are other people who should take the responsibility for these and they can approach the IT industries for help and partnership. The IT companies will not deny the right approach. Is it fair to blame the IT industries for not doing something which is not their core business? Is it fair to let go of other people - like politicians and the government - whose core business it is to work towards the development?
(ii) The IT industry in India and in Bangalore is relatively new. Most of the achievements by the older companies have happened just in the past 10-15 years. Is it fair to expect them to not only earn good profits, pay their employees well and improve the general economy of the country in that short period of time, but also to directly work for the improvement of the living conditions of the city? If the IT companies are expected to do this, then what are the governments for?
(iii) Big companies like Infosys and Wipro have very well-organized and formal systems and processes to work for social causes.

Once again, I suspect that it is the work of the politicians and vested interests in shifting the blame to the IT industries for things they have failed to achieve. As it happens so often in India, people are gullible enough to believe the politicians and blame the IT industries.

5. The non-IT Kannadigas say that the IT industries have brought too many people from outside the state to Bangalore and this has led to all the woes of the locals: skyrocketing cost of living, crumbling infrastructure, heavy traffic and pollution. While it is true that the rapidly growing IT industry in Bangalore facilitated these changes for the worse, the industry is not the root cause of all these problems. This is something incidental which has happened in the past in other boom towns and will happen in the future also, anywhere in the world. Take the example of Silicon Valley of the USA to which Bangalore is often compared. Just like Bangalore, Silicon Valley had and has a large immigrant population. Just like Bangalore, the cost of the living has gone up there, and the local culture and living conditions have been affected. Whether the effect of such a growth is positive or negative on the city depends to a large extent on how the city administration handles the growth, in partnership with the businesses. In the best of circumstances, in the slowest of growth periods, Indian administrations cannot cope. It is not surprising that they have not been able to keep up with the pace of Bangalore's growth. Hijacking the infrastructure improvement efforts, as I described earlier, only contributes to this deterioration. The non-IT people should think a little more and view the problems with a broader vision. Then they would realize that they cannot blame the rapid growth of the IT industry alone. They would realize that the greater accountability lies with the city and state administrations.

6. The non-IT people view the IT industries as an exclusive and elite layer of the society which takes all the good stuff from the society, without giving anything back. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The truth is that the IT industry and its people are intricately woven into the fabric of the society. They are not working and living in a vacuum. The money that the IT industry pumps into the city's economy has created many times more jobs than the number of direct IT jobs. I would not be surprised if for every IT employee in Bangalore, there are at least 2 non-IT jobs created. Of these 2 non-IT jobs, at least one to one-and-half jobs would be within the Bangalore city itself. The other half to one job may be in the rest of the country. Even if the IT industry did not participate in any of the social welfare and improvement activities, just this single fact of pumping money into the economy and creating more jobs is a commendable achievement.

7. The non-IT people think that if the IT companies threaten to leave Bangalore and setup shop elsewhere because of the bad infrastructure situation in the city, it is quite alright. They think that the people of the city will not starve if the IT companies leave. Well, there is some truth in it. But it is also true that the millions of jobs which support the IT companies will go out of Bangalore. The general economic well-being of the region will come down. When that happens, Bangalore will not go back to being the peaceful and clean Garden City it once was. Human history shows us that when cities decline, they don't go back to being the peaceful self-sustained villages they once were. Instead, they decline into an uninhabitable and ugly wasteland of crime, poverty and disease. I am sure neither the non-IT people nor the IT folks nor any other well-wishers of Bangalore would like that happening to the city.

8. The non-IT people also think that the IT companies won't leave Bangalore all that easily because they would face similar problems in other cities and states; Bangalore, despite its infrastructure issues, is still a better place than most other states in India. This may also be true. But it is not just other cities and states in India which are vying for a piece of Bangalore's IT action and business. Other countries in Asia and elsewhere are also vying for pieces of the same pie. And they may have a stronger will and better sense to provide the kind of atmosphere which would facilitate the happy co-existence of the technology companies with the local population.

Everyone of the 8 points I have written above regarding the anti-IT stance of the non-IT people in Bangalore represents a paradoxical opinion and attitude of the Indian public. They seem to be opposing the very things which would bring them more benefits, with which they should be partnering. The people are sentimental and their sentiments are so easily hijacked by the unscrupulous politicians. Their emotions and energy are used by the politicians to shirk responsibility and accountability, to shift the blame onto others, and to achieve their own selfish ends. The public are by turns naive and unaware as well as willing and active participants in this hijacking.


Targetting Infosys:

In this hijacking saga of Bangalore, Infosys, one of the foremost IT companies of Bangalore and India, has been a special target of the non-IT Kannadigas. Infosys as an organization and Narayana Murthy, one of the founders of Infosys and its chief mentor, as an individual, have come under a lot of criticism. Such criticism is often short-sighted, shooting off the mouth type of statements which reveal a basic lack of understanding of the issues. It is hard to believe that just a short two to three years ago, almost everyone in Bangalore spoke of Infosys and Naranayana Murthy with pride. There are several reasons for targetting Infosys and Narayana Murthy. Following, I believe are the main reasons:

1. From the beginning, Infosys and Narayana Murthy have both been media-savvy. They have never been shy of the media, and in fact, have actively cultivated the media. In the old days, the technology reporting by the Bangalore edition of the Times of India was little more than organizational announcements composed in the offices of Infosys. As such Infosys has a high visibility in Bangalore as well as in India among all the IT companies. Especially for the non-IT people of Bangalore, Infosys is the face of the IT industry. So, it naturally becomes the target of their anti-IT sentiments.

2. Being the poster-child of India's and Bangalore's IT industry, Infosys and Narayana Murthy are looked upto by a lot of people in the country. Their words hold a lot of weight and influence. Especially when compared to the words of mere politicians. As such, when Narayana Murthy talks about the conditions of Bangalore, of India, about the performance of the governments and politicians, he gets a lot of bandwidth in the media, and the public attention that goes with it. Naturally, the politicians hate this. They cannot respond to Narayana Murthy's criticisms by solid performance because such honest and effective responses are beyond their meagre imaginations and corrupt capabilities. So, the only easy short-cut they have is to discredit Infosys and Narayana Murthy in the eyes of the public. They are trying every trick at their disposal to achieve this. So far, they have been successful in taking along the non-IT Kannadigas on this anti-Infosys and anti-Narayana Murthy ride. Fortunately, the rest of the populace is not affected by this... yet.

3. There is a more sinister reason for targetting Infosys and that is purely political. Infosys has not only been media-savvy, they have also actively engaged the government, especially the Government of Karnataka state. The state government partnership with Bangalore's IT industry in general and Infosys in particular was at its closest during the tenure of ex-chief minister of Karnanataka, Mr S M Krishna. During that time, the Bangalore Agenda Task Force was formed as a partnership between the government and the private industries to improve the governance of Bangalore. The task force was actively led and driven by the senior management of Infosys. Although the current ruling coalition government of Karnataka is led by the Congress party to which S M Krishna belonged, the ruling ministers, including the current chief minister of Karnataka, are not exactly his friends. Moreover, Deve Gowda and his party, who are the main coalition partners in the current government are quite opposed to S M Krishna and they consider him as their main rival. In a bizarre attitude of my enemy's friend is my enemy, Deve Gowda and his ilk consider Infosys and its managers to be their rivals since they were/are friendly with S M Krishna. In fact, some people believe that Deve Gowda's group is apprehensive about Infosys trying to engineer a come back of S M Krishna to power in Karnataka. Hence, they are trying their best to create trouble for Infosys and its management, particularly, Narayana Murthy.


Why should Bangalore be protected as the technology capital?

Why should Bangalore be protected as the technology capital of India? Why should any one city gain such a title and associated importance? Wouldn't it be better for the technology companies to be spread out all over the country so that it is beneficial to the local populations as well as to the companies themselves?

These are good questions to ask. There is an element of truth to them. Many companies are indeed located in other places across the length and breadth of India, and this will continue into the future, provided India continues to be an attractive destination for the technology businesses. The pie of IT businesses is too large to fit in any one city, be it the silicon Valley of the US or Bangalore of India.

However, when certain types of people or organizations come together in a particular place, sometimes they create a certain magnetic energy, a unique synergy, which attracts more and more similar people or organizations to the same place. Such a core group becomes the engine of accelerated growth. The resulting progress is far greater than it would have been if the people and organizations were spread out and did not come together in one place. This is a phenomenon that is observed in all fields, all over the world, including in the field of art, literature, academy, manufacturing, etc.

This is exactly how Bangalore became the technology capital of India, and accelerated the growth of India's technology industry. An industrial base was kick-started in Bangalore by the Indian government decades ago. More and more people have built on that base and the existing human capital of the region, and this has resulted in Bangalore becoming the technology powerhouse it is today. And the good fortune of Bangalore is spreading to other parts of the country. How many companies - foreign and Indian - initially setup shop in Bangalore, and then branched out to other parts of India? How many companies came to India lured by Bangalore, and then setup shop in other places of India? I don't know the exact numbers, but there must be hundreds of them. It is precisely in this way that Bangalore has helped spread the IT business to the rest of the country.

If there had been no Bangalore as we know it, perhaps the growth of the technology business in India might not have been quite so fast. I am not saying there would have been no growth. There would certainly have been growth. Only, we might not have experienced this kind of momentum and acceleration. In the fast-changing technology business, momentum and acceleration is extremely important. Losing momentum can and does often lead to total failure. Precisely for this reason, it is very important for both the Karnataka state and India as a whole to protect and preserve Bangalore's position as the technology capital of India by helping develop a conducive atmosphere there. Conducive to the people and businesses.. If Bangalore loses, the whole country loses. It is as simple as that.

Conclusion:

Bangalore is like an aircraft which is being hijacked by the terrorists who are disguised as the pilots. These pilots are the politicians who should ideally be flying the aircraft to safe heights of success. The residents of Bangalore - both the local people and the immigrants, and the industries of Bangalore are the passengers on the aircraft. The leaders of Bangalore's industries are like the stewards and navigators on the aircraft. The pilots are doing a bad job of flying the aircraft, they are leading it through turbulent zones and causing distress to all. Yet, they have cleverly manipulated a section of the passengers, the non-IT folks, into thinking that the stewards and the navigators are causing all the problems. These non-IT folks are directing their ire at the stewards and navigators, who only want to help the passengers. When this plane crashes, the hijacking pilots, the terrorist politicians, will easily escape with their safety gadgets and parachutes. The rest of us will suffer. The need of the hour is for all the stakeholders to participate in the development efforts as responsible partners, instead of targetting each other, playing the blame game and contributing to the general deterioration.

But then the story of this hijack is not unique to Bangalore. This has been played out in other parts of India, with other issues. Will Bangalore and its people be able to shake off the same old Indian instincts and responses and rise above? It is all upto each one of us.