This is the MG Road, this one goes to Indian Express Bus stop .. bla bla etc. At one junction, the auto stopped under semi-constructed namma metro flyover. He started enriching my knowlege with some stats. Construction of these metro tracks started way back in Dec. 2006 and its 2009, they have not achieved anything concrete yet. They are spoiling the garden city by erasing all the gardens. What’s the point, 2012 is near, nothing is gonna survive.
Gosh !! I was amazed. The movie 2012, seems to have made a real impact even on the autowalas.
Case 2: Weekly shopping at Reliance Fresh for the vegetables. At the vegetable counter, the reliance guy, Bhaiyya 2012 dekhi kya? Ekdum mast movie hai .. jarur dekhiye … kya mast effects hai …
Looks like the movie has made an impact in different segments and sectors of the Indian Population. What’s your take on this ? Bunch of my friends liked it and appreciated. I am yet to watch it 
9:45PM – 12 K.Ms - Old Madras Road signal. Lights, red. Gigantic water drops started falling. Being on a two wheeler, had no option but to stop. Parked in Indira Nagar on the juice shop. Had an awesome mango shake. Rain pouring in at gushing speed. Roads started submerging , water everywhere. All traffic rules violated, everyone rushing here and there. No option , but to wait, cosy and dry under the shop.
10:15PM – 12K.Ms – Making calls to friends to kill boredom
10:20PM – 12K.Ms – More calls !!! geez, I am bored.
10:30PM – 12K.Ms – More calls !!! geez, I am bored.
10:40PM – 12K.Ms – Rain seemed to reduce in intensity. Made an attempt to proceed further, drenched slighlty. But bearable. Heading south.
10:50PM – 10K.Ms – Whoa, what’s that? Never seen so many vehicles and jam on a flyover (Domlur flyover). Cars coming in from all the directions. What’s happening. Rainfall intensified.
11:00PM – 10K.Ms – Managed to get down from the flyover, swerving in between car spaces. Drenched badly. Roads submerged in water till knee length. Parked the vehicle and hid under the big stationary shop.
11:00PM – 10K.Ms - Waiting for rain to reduce. Cars, trucks , buses all stuck up on the road. Honking honking ! Jam packed. No one goes anywhere. No movement on other side of the road. Looks like the other end is witnessing a phoenix, ganges in south !!! World came to standstill. People trying to manoeuvre their bikes across the water logged gaps, pavements. People falling in water logged ditches, heading in some direction. Total chaos. Power went off. Street lights off. Can see big shiny blue DELL on the far end.
11:30PM – 10K.Ms No traffic movement ahead. Looks like the inner ring roads are submerged totally under water for a stretch of 4KMs. No one goes ahead. The mob broke the divider to let the water flow out.
12:00 AM – 10K.Ms Still waiting under the shop. A noble voice shouted: The inner ring road is totally submerged and vehicle movement is impossible. Cars take a reverse and follow Old Airport Road, Old Madras Road, MG Road etc. Slight movement in vehicle began.
12:15 AM – 10K.Ms The traffic reduced. All vehicles headed in reverse direction. Drizzling. I too took the reverse route .
12:30AM – 8K.Ms. Brigade Road . Roads damp, but not flooded.
12:30AM – 6K.Ms. Bannerghatta Road. I am an idiot that i did not take this route. May be I would have escaped that Domlur inner ring road crisis.
12:45AM – 2K.Ms Outer Ring Road. Whoa, I am reaching home finally . Hurray.
12:50 AM – 0K.Ms Alas ! Reached home. Drenched. Took a shower to freshen. Had dinner. Did some tweeting and finally slept at 2:00AM . It was a tiring day .
Epilogue
Wallet got drenched badly. It took two full days to dry. Luckily, the two 500 notes managed to stay off from getting biologically recycled owing to excessive hydration.
Catastrophes bring people closer. They seamlessly start helping each other without thinking as otherwise they would.
Voila, it was an amazing experience
The latest addition to the field is video based direction, which is new and unique in its kind. Video Maps is the new terminology coined by the Bangalore based startup Vidteq . The key features include video for the complete route, location based services images etc. Video based experience is beneficial for people on the move and who are new to the city.
Vidteq on NEWS9
No. 72. Rakesh Gupta
No. 73. ….. and so on.
Hurray ! I was floating on cloud nine . I had made in to the company . The on campus drive at my college hyped as arduous process had been a cake walk for me. The faculty member read loud the list of the students who had made in. Celebrations were inevitable . 24th September 2006 :
Hey, did you collect the offer letter ? No, have they come? Cool. Having an offer letter in your hands of a big shot MNC, with a year more still left to complete your engineering degree, sounds fantastic. I had made my mind, I will join it. Become a fundoo coder shoder !! All things seemed to be so perfect. My future path was decided. But, I failed to realise that heavenly signal. As they say in literature, when you desire something, universe conspires to let you have the best. But, I was blinded by the charm and glamor and was not able to see that I had something better to achieve. 10th May 2007 – 25th June 2007:
Desperate wait for the receiving the joining letter at the company. As the history says, it should be something in the middle of June. Perhaps, this was one of the firsts of heavenly signal which I failed to realise. The signal that I am destined for something better and I should seek or continue with some other opportunity. 1st July 2007:
For the first time on the college’s history, a database giant had arrived interviewing our batch. The coll was over and everyone was relaxing at home. But the offering and name of the database giant tempted everyone to rush back to the campus from even their remotest abodes and try their knowledge and luck. The selection process was strenuous and I was pleased to make into top 18 out of the 500 people appeared. But unfortunately, they needed only 12 folks. Hence, had a narrow setback. I was disappointed, but this was another heavenly indicator that destiny has something else in store for me and I should realize my potential. 10th July 2007:
The joining date of the company came(23rd July). As expected, it was in their huge training campus. I had mixed feelings. But, I had made my mind and was careless to hunt for any other opportunities. 17th July 2007:
The company had altered the joining date and location to 6th August, to a place where I had never been too. Perhaps, this was the biggest heavenly indicator. Again, I could not sense it. What could I do ? I was not seeing things beyond joining this company, which eventually turned out to be a big mistake of my life. I have been avid passionate about Java and Open Source technologies since my college days. With an expectation of getting similar kind of work/training, I joined the company at the new location 6th August 2007:
Lush green campus and huge glassy buildings, good enough to dupe anyone. I was joyous. The training process started and things went on smoothly. Till one fine day, we had the catastrophic event …. MAINFRAMES, yes your batch has been identified for the mainframes stream. Happy hunting folks, Its gonna be a wonderful time. Man, I was shattered, I never desired to study those outdated legacy systems. The company was not willing to cater to your personal interests. 10th October 2007:
I started pumping my resume like anything. I wanted to get out and do anything but not mainframes. Ill-fated, nothing much happened. Only ray of hope was to complete training and expect to get a different technology project. Chances are meager, but you never now. 1st Feb 2008:
After successful completion of training, off to production. Seems, a whole new world is going to start. Fortunately, I managed to sneak into a non mainframe project after persuading one of the managers at the company. New energy and enthusiasm started to reverberate again in me. 10th April 2008:
All that glitters is not gold. I could perfectly understand that. This one was the biggest and best heavenly indicators, you need to work hard, you are destined for something else. Now I started feeling it hard. The project, they call it support and maintenance barely requires you to be smart, logically and technically sound. There was nothing much crucial I was playing. It started striking me that I am losing, losing rapidly; everything, my knowledge, my analytical and logical skills. What would my future be ? A dumb box. Oh no ! I won’t let that happen. Job hunt began with more fierce efforts. I needed to move out. No kidding this time. It’s a high priority to give justice to my career life. 15th July 2008:
Filed the resignation, a sense of relief or moksha. 20th August 2008:
I walkout like a free bird. With lesser apprehensions about my next venture.
Peter : Hey man, rush, press the button, the lift is about to close
( The lift door was about to close. Two middle aged people were having serious conversation in the lift, lets call them Mr. Sam and Mr. Duke )
( Adam managed to press the button, just a second before the doors were going to be an inch apart) Mr. Sam : So whats up with that guy …
Mr Duke : Seems his mother has some health issues … he needs to be posted in that city
Mr Sam ( shouted to his peak) : Bullshit !!! .
Peter and Adam astonished …..
Adam : I thought that company stresses a lot on corporate etiquette. What about the management lessons.
Peter : Leave that dude. What if the case is authentic …
I told her about our Research company, and welcomed her to join us. As it was an easy game, pay and get the certificate. She decided to explore all options, keeping this one open. My pal convinced her about the advantages and ease of doing there. Fortune rocked and she popped up in the gang.
Jackpot was hit when I realized that her residence in the city was at a walk away distance from where we stayed . It came to my delight. Opportunities to hang out and spend more time with her, know each other enhanced. Had wonderful excursions an outings with her and the gang in the city of gardens, Bangalore. I started developing a love for the city, probably because of this reason.
Three years have passed. We have moved our own ways.And as I blog, the rain drops splash the window of the bus, crawling and struggling hard across the water logged Hosur road. After a hectic day of mundane work this rain and melodious song of James Blunt (1973), brought a nostalgic feeling.
Vendors are shouting high to sell their products. A train bound to different place moves towards the platform. Mohan busy with his talk at STD PCO gets a miss call on his celphone.Thinking it as a reminder call from the gang, he assumes that this train is theirs and gets into it. He failed to notice the train details or see the whole gang sitting on the platform.The train starts moving. “Is it the train bound to Chennai”, Mohan asked a passeneger inside the train. “No, its just going till Chattisgarh only”, passeneger replied surprisingly. Mohan feared that he has entered the wrong train. He either needs to pull the chain or jump. He preferred the latter method. The train had moved out of the platform and the barren ground had started. Owing to the slippery surface, Mohan’s jump turned out lethal and he hit a hard rock with his left knee. The cargo trousers were fully torned. Its around 9:15 PM in night.
With his rickety walk, Mohan moved towards the platform 1, where he had left his gang of friends. Mohan said, “Yaar thodi chot lag gayi thi… koi baat nahin. I will manage”. Everyone was baffled by his torn half trousers on the left leg. Before anyone could speak or figure out anything, Shyam took him in search of medical facility on the station. The wound was deep enough to expose piece of flesh.There was no medical faicility available at the railway station and hence SHyam took him to the nearby hospital in an auto.
The clock hit 9:25PM. Just 10 minutes left before the arrival of train. Shyam called up Rohit and said to try pulling the chain in case they are not able to make it to the station on time. Rohit and Amit rushed to the station master’s office to seek some help. Unfortunately, he was not there. Train arrived. Shyam talked to the Ticket Collecter Officer and he discouraged the step of pulling the chain.”Hum kuch help nahin kar sakte, chain kheechoge to jail main daal denge”, ticket collector replied in a harsh tone. Meanwhile, Manish escorted Sonu in stuffing everyone’s luggage in the coach. Their coach was aound ten boggies behind the main central location In case, Shyam and Mohan are not able to return within 5 minutes, the will have to cancel the trip.
The gong of the train striked. Shyam, still on call with Rohit said just two minutes we will be right inside the station. Sonu and Manish at a far location in the backside of train were in a confused sate whether to move the luggage out of the train or let it be inside.Train started catching up pace. Rohit and Amit rushing with the train, unable to decide what to do. They could now see Shaym and bandaged Mohan rushing towards the train. As they got inside the moving train, Rohit and Amit also moved inside. Immediately, Rohit called up Sonu who is with the luggage many boggies behind to be seated. Mohan had got around six stitches for his wound.
Thus they were able to make inside the train by a very narrow margin.
* ORIGINAL NAMES CHANGED TO HIDE IDENTITY ]]>