Traffic signals

Traffic signals are intended to do some controlling of traffic. It obviously is a replacement of the men who patrolled junctions controlling traffic, so that so automated sense did the control and prevent snarls.

Come to the Outer Ring Road in Bangalore connecting Old Madras Road to Hebbal Main and you would find signal towers that are designed to make matters easy... however the technical brains that made it or the brains that control it haven't used the capability... so these signal lights cause more confusion and make people go paranoid. They stay at Red for long time, even though there is no a single vehicle that is going to pass under it. Can you overstep him NO and how long would you wait !! well you have to. These signals also aren't programmed to suit time of the day or cater to the peak and no peak hours.

The police fraternity in Bangalore should use some thinking also to make people feel comfortable to follow traffic laws, instead of just making laws and not having any reasonable allowance to follow.

We 'the' people..

Our people are a great asset to the nation... so says all

During the last week or so, our people have been so emotionally outraged with the terror activities that all went out in candle marches and other protest march etc... vigil and vigil. The main slogan all had to shout out was ' Enough is Enough ' and bashing up the political class. The people feel that politicians have done all things wrong for the people to be in such a state

I would like to think that Polity is again made of men or women who prior to becoming the neta was a commoner. This man roamed around us and then he chose to get ambitious... we the people elected him to hold some position in his party first, then the roles in government. Well he used this selection to think that its his right by birth. Yes, its a sad thing, but we after all made him that Rogue that we now hate of him.

Lets reflect on our actions... that make these people the fall guys. Don't we let them prey on our sentiments, aren't we allowing them to divide us, aren't we the ones who pay them the extra buck around the table to do something 'special' for us, don't we call these hallowed humans to do those things which he is not supposed to ?

Think about it people... we made him / her this way and now we are wasting candles and reams of paper & air time trying to make a politician understand that he did a WRONG... when we actually forced him into it by bribing him to misuse his office.

Ask ourselves... or rather I would like to ask those who did these marches... ' Do you follow the basic traffic signal ? ' How many amongst us do follow rules setout by the law. When we cant we misuse or find ways to bend them and now that the lamb has transformed into an Elephant, we have had Enough of it !!!

So enough is enough... yes, its enough on all counts

BMTC and its plans

Ever since BMTC introduced Volvos, the demand for these buses have been going up. Hence the corporation has been introducing more and more such air-conditioned buses on the Bangalore roads

During the last month more such routes were announced to be operated and one such was 500D. It serves the Hebbal to Silk Board up and down. I was quite happy that for the first time this bus would adorn the ring road on this side of Bangalore too

However, i have been regularly watching and have also tried catching these buses but what i notice is that they are hardly available. The timetable given on the bus operator's site looks like its yet another scheme on paper... but they don't operate those many schedules

Enthusiasm

People get carried away with enthusiasm often i guess

Volvo buses in Bangalore

During the last week, i was trying out BMTC method to commute to office, giving my Logan some rest. In the quest to ensure that i get some freedom from driving and also give the environment some reduction in carbon... made it a point that i travel by the bus. additionally i had a saving of some 80 Rs per day from the non-use of petrol

I was so enthused in doing this, that i had to walk 15 min to the bus stand from Home and another 10 from the bus stand to office. Nevertheless i made it and quite enjoyed it. One of the evenings, while returning back home i decided to wait and then travel on the BMTC Volvo.... to my dismay and disappointment it never turned up and that meant that i waited for A bus which would give me atleast a seat, it wasn't to be.

My enthusiasm to travel in a Volvo and thus reduce traffic on the roads made me to do such a pathetic wait, which otherwise i would hesitate or rather not do.

Traffic Cops

Bangalore is a hi tech city and our traffic department has implemented some excellent systems to monitor traffic and its violations. The new BTrac project has opened up a centralized traffic management center. Cameras - still and video - send in photos & video of traffic at various places in the city. Now when all this is going on our people are still loathe to understand that one has to follow the rules laid out. We are in a hurry to cross the line as earliest as possible... well what can a camera do on-site if you jump the signal nothing, except that it gives some late realization hopefully to the law breaker via other modes

Here comes our age old style of policemen policing the circles and junctions. While i was waiting at the mercy of a Volvo bus at Hennur circle, the traffic policemen were on the ground supervising and also 'catching' violators.

One amongst the lot is overtly ambitious and flying around the huge circle which has high traffic concentration and that too in the evening. Others in the gang are only working on the towards Kothanur side. My man in contention i observe to be hyper active and enthused. Blowing his whistle and running to the violators, stopping some and others run away. I was impressed, he managed to even stop a BMTC mini bus because this guy jumped the signal. Next was a stylish Toyota Innova... A BPO driver zooooming on his Chevy Tavera. All of them get Caught and our constable directs the offenders to the 'Sahebru' [ the boss ]

While all this is going.. the signal towards Banaswadi clears from Hebbal side and quickly our constable switches on & off the controls, which means this signal now is going to turn RED. He knew that and started running towards the road side from the panel. Its Red and an Auto driver jumps as usual and there is our flying constable... straight into the Auto i thought but the hooligan runs away.. our constable does not think he lost, because he spits into the vehicle and that gives his ego a boost, wipes his mush clear of more saliva and then calls the auto driver classic abuses

Well.. all this going on and our Sahebru was by the side of the road buying a pirated CD i was quite shocked to see him pay the vendor

Rain

When it rains, it pours ! Some of our people don't like it that way, they infact even dislike rains for some reason

Now, think of a time when it actually should've rained and it didn't... what's going to happen. Our Electricity companies will start announcing Load shedding, Diesel prices would start climbing, our farmers will start seeing red. When all this is happening our friends, who we talked about earlier will start doing prayers for rains

On the one hand, we blame rains and on the other we wish that it rains quickly and heavily.... well that's man !

Rain brings with it some dirt cleaning, it also brings with it dirt.

Roads and alleys probably get cleared of dirt, since rain washes it off into the gutters. But often in Bangalore atleast that doesn't happen everywhere... most roads get clogged with water and slush gets ripped onto your vehicles. Finally when you are done travelling in a rainy day, get back and take a look at your Car hmm its going to look like one great dirty car

Just for the sake of it !

One of the latest events to have made lot of noise in Bangalore was the opening of the new International airport. Yes, the airport is located out of the urban spread and it demands you to travel out into the uninhabited for close to 35km.

To those of us, who were so used to HAL Airport, this came as something unacceptable. That we have to travel so far, we have to start so early, we have to bear the traffic, we have to shell out so much money, we have to etc....

All who travel, travel. But the travel from City to the Airport was made up to sound like its gonna be a ride into the wild wild west ! 35 km... my my can you believe. You dare don't ask me to do it. Reasons given by these criers made it sound all the more discouraging.

Well... actually the distance is there. Yes its 35 km, but the roads arent that bad, facilities for travel are almost there. BMTC buses plying AC schedules, Taxi's  a plenty. What was it that made all shout....

Nothing, absolutely nothing. As we always do .. just for the sake of it, without actually understanding realities, we all shout.

Pain of Separation

Well.. the title must've given you a thought of a marriage separation, however I am talking about a separation from a workplace

Seven & half years at an Organization was not a small thing for me. A commoner would say, "That's Ages ", well it would sound that way, but I must say, it went pretty quick. And when the day came for me to leave this place to join another Org, i realized that it wasn't so easy. The Emotional attachment to my workplace was so high, i broke into tears while bidding bye to my colleagues & team members. Not many may feel that way, but its really emotional and i am sure, it would take sometime before i get used to this Seperation

An Excellent Beach Photo

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Originally uploaded by Thejas

What scenic the beaches are... the trees shorn of leaves and the heavy waves are just an eyecatcher. See that through the wet grass, just cant take your eyes of the same

Brothers in Harmony

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity  : Psalms 133 : 1

Bible talks about brothers living in harmony and togetherness. Well its a great feeling to be doing this and live it up.

At our Church [ bethsaida@gmail.com ] any function or arrangement to be made, we get together and organize the program as one unit. The happiness that is there is something of an extra kind. All are willing to do anything and help one another for the need. Action after action is so well coordinated that nothing really would be left out.

To be one is difficult however, when you are one its Harmony !

Gaming Craze

Playing games on the computer is such a fad amongst youngsters. To encourage this fever Sony has Playstation, Microsoft has Xbox and not to forget the umpteen other small and big time PC games.

As a schooler, Mario interested me a lot and played it often. However, after school lost interest in it and no more took any specific action to play games, not even on my PC. However, all of that changed when i got hooked to MSTS.... thats Microsoft Train Simulator. WOW ! as a railfan i couldnt ask for more to experience the thrill of driving Trains.

Indian Rupees 300 and you can get to buy the software. I bought it from Taher Stores on Ebay and the shipment came in quite fast aswell, thanks to him. Once i got the CD in hand, i had to ensure that a superfast computer was there too support MSTS and that was made as well, anyway my old PC was dying.

I am simply glued to this game and later when i started analysing there are lots of people who are fans of this product, although its not very big a hit compared to other games. There are dedicated websites to download routes, rolling stock etc....

• www.train-sim.com,
• www.uktrainsim.com,
• http://www.irfca.org/~ronik/msts/

Play it and enjoy... well there would be many who wanted to become a loco pilot and didnt, MSTS allows you to be a virtual one.

Virtual reality is so great that man now can feel easy that some of the things that he cant have access to, is now in his reach !!