Seat belt traffic fine

Just 7 days in to the rule being introduced, I paid my first fine for not wearing the seat belt.

Another blunder happened. When the cop stopped me, he also told me that there was an older fine(ticket) of Rs 100/- for a violation at Ashwath Nagar. I didn't even know where this area was and don't remember travelling there. The cop also didn't know where this area was. I also told him that i had cleared all my traffic dues 3 months ago. The cop told me that this was a 2010 violation which probably was uploaded to their server recently (in last 3 months) and hence I have to pay up. Relentlessly, i paid and came home. While looking for Ashwath Nagar on google maps, i realized that it was somewhere near Marath Halli and i have never been to that area in my car. I cross checked the receipt again and realized that the cop had mistyped the car number :( . Instead of 2450, he had typed 2550 and I landed up paying some one else's fine. I checked with another traffic cop (my neighbour) and he told me that there is no way I am going to get this money back :(

I caught the traffic cop again the next day at the same spot and asked him why he did this blunder the previous day. He laughed about it and told me that he cannot do anything about it and cannot refund. He told me that next time I violate traffic, he will let me go without collecting fine. So I asked him if he expects(wants) me to violate traffic. He wasn't expecting me to say that and told me that I shouldn't violate traffic, but if I were to, then he will let me go. I pursued that for me to go to him, I have to violate traffic only in his jurisdiction. He was clueless on how to reply to my question and wanted me out. And I did .....

Ferrari collection

If you fill full tank petrol (or a min of Rs 1500/- for car or Rs 350/- for bike) at shell petrol bunk in bangalore, you get a small ferrari car collection. I already have collected 2 cars

Things to cherish from school

My recent post Entering the next phase of life has made me remember what all I did when I was a kid in school, some of which even my friends remember.

1. Accidentally hit principal with a ball.
2. Collided with a classmate and had stitches. Because of this incident, playing cricket in the school ground was canceled.
3. Involved in wrestling resulting in breaking the glass of library show-case
4. Caused bulbs to burst in physics lab as I had incorrectly connected the wires for my physics experiment.
5. Losing my school fees in bus. After this my mom used to make me go to the school principal's house, which was very close to my house, to pay the fees.
6. Involved in petty fights with class mates in bus.
7. Forgetting my unit test and happily going to school without getting prepared for the exam. Got very less marks in that subject

Switching off lights for earth hour

I had switched off all the electrical equipment at home for an hour between 8.30 p.m and 9.30 p.m on 27th March, 2010 to show my support for earth hour

I not only switched off all lights at home, but also messaged more than 50 friends and relatives to do the same. A few called back to say that they did the same. Some called up to say that they switched off everything but kept TV on and a few switched off everything except one light as they had small kids at home.

As it was quite hot inside the house (since all fans were off), we all went out for a walk. I was happy to see that a few people in my area were doing the same. Some had switched off all lights and were sitting on the front porch.

Interesting profile for BBMP elections

Dr Shankar Prasad is standing for BBMP elections from my area. He had come home for campaigning and distributed pamphlets. I was very impressed by reading the profile. Our country should be ruled by such educated class.

You can read about him at here

I am pasting the site contents here

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Dr. Shankara Prasad

Chairman & Managing Director
INKROMA E-Business Solutions
Bangalore 560041
Shankara.prasad@inkroma.com (P) Ltd

Dr. Shankara Prasad is the Chairman and Managing Director of Inkroma E-Business Solutions, in Bangalore. The company focuses on developing Enterprise Portal ERP Software and Knowledge Management solutions for Indian and Commonwealth Government organizations. Dr. Prasad’s educational background includes an M. Tech degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York. Dr. Prasad is an active e-governance evangelist and his passion is to bring Six Sigma process methodology and philosophy into the Indian government domain. He and his team at Inkroma are the architects of the ERP / BPM software solution for Indian Government organizations, which is specifically developed to make Indian government organizations e-enabled and paperless. The team has developed the first Indian ERP product to meet the requirements of the government vertical. The product has been developed completely based on Open Standards, international software and communication standards. Dr. Prasad has been involved in many standards organizations in the USA, Europe and India, between 1982 and 2004. He was the Chairman of the SEMI Standards committee in the US, Member of European Union Standards organization, Member of the Rosettanet E-Business Standards in the Semiconductor vertical and active participant in the ebXML standards group. He has been actively advocating initiating the e-gov standards group in India since 2002. Prior to starting the software product company in the e-governance domain, Dr. Prasad has spent more than 20 years working in the computer chip manufacturing industry working for major semiconductor companies including Intel, California, Cypress Semiconductor, California, Robert Bosch, Germany and most recently as Vice President of Engineering & Technology Development at CS2 in Belgium. Dr. Prasad has traveled and consulted with more than 30 companies in 17 countries including Brazil, Switzerland, Singapore, and Italy. Since 1983 and he has developed and taught computer technology courses to more than 3000 technicians, engineers and managers worldwide. Kluwer-Springer published the 700 page book on Advanced Chip Interconnection Technology by Dr. Prasad in 2004. It is sold world wide and is available on Amazon. He has developed and published more than 10 interactive e-learning CDROMs.

Dr. Prasad was awarded the 1998 IEEE award for “Major Educational Innovation” for innovation in the delivery methods of engineering education. He was adjunct professor at California State University, San Jose and Advisor to Center for Electronics Development & Technology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He has published more than 40 papers in major international technical and trade journals and conferences. He has been Chairman, Secretary and Member of many National and International Organizations in India, Europe and the USA. (1980 – 2005); Most recently he was the Member, Karnataka IT Task Force for Rural Advancement (2002).

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IPL tickets buying spree

I watched RCB was Rajasthan Royals match on Thu, 18th march. I bought 19 tickets for RCB Vs DC on 8th April and 16 tickets for RCB Vs Mumbai on 17th Apr. All matches in Chinnaswamy stadium Bangalore.
Full family heading towards the stadium. I am planning to take my 3 year old son as well. Visited all the places where they sell tickets. Bought few from forum, few from RT Nagar cafe coffee day and a few from mobile. Did a lot of research and a lot of phone calls to find out where all tickets are available in Bangalore. Emptied the stock at both forum and at RT Nagar cafe coffee day outlet :)

where did the 25paise go

A couple of days ago, there was news that the price of milk is going up by Rs 2/- or Rs 4/-.
The same morning, I was at a fast food joint (Darshini) to have breakfast. At the counter, I started a casual chat with the cashier on what would be the result of price rise on the price of coffee. He told me that there will definitely be an increase in the price of coffee by atleast Re 1/-.

Hmmm, that made me think. Using my logical brain (hehe), I continued the conversation and put forth this argument. He would atleast make 25-30 glasses of coffee with 1 litre of milk, which means that his overhead is about 10 to 20 paise per glass, but he was going to increase the price by Re 1/- resulting him in an extra profit of 80 paise per glass. The price rise announced by the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) is a blessing in disguise for these guys. When I asked him why they couldn't absorb the extra cost of 10-20 paise themselves(as they were already making a huge profit on their sale), he replied, 'why should we'. When I complained that it was not right to raise the price that drastically, he asked he one question, for which I didn't have an answer. He aked me that if he increased the price only by 25 paise, but where the hell would he get the change from? People would only pay him a complete rupee and expect their 75 paise change back.

That gave raise to this blog. Where did the 25 paise and 50 paises go? why did the govt. stop minting these coins? I am not an economist nor a financial guru, and hence I am still looking for answers. Can someone explain to me, how and when does Govt (RBI or whoever) decide to decommission currency denominations?

maya architects

These were the guys who built my house. Visit the project section on their website to see some wonderful work they have done

http://www.mayaarchitects.com/

Nasty thing I did

Recently, we had been to a friends place for lunch. On the way back, we stopped at a traffic signal. I saw a few eunuchs (khojas, hijdas) coming towards the car.

Let me pause here and give you a peep in to why they were coming near the car. Eunuchs are a menace at Bangalore traffic signals. They go and pester all the people traveling on two wheelers , cars and autos for money. Unlike other beggars on the street, who just beg for money, these eunuchs, try to harass you (by touching you, or abusing you etc). It is difficult to wade them off. If you show them that you are uncomfortable with their presence, then they take the advantage of the situation and would not leave you unless you give them money. Atleast people in the cars are safer as they can roll up the windows and avoid them.

Now, lets get back to the nasty thing I did at the traffic signal. We were 5 of us in my car with the windows closed. When I noticed that these eunuchs were coming close, I decided to play a small prank on my friend sitting at the rear seat. He had not noticed these visitors. I lowered the window on his side. Before he could realized why I had lowered the window, he saw the eunuchs talking to him and asking for money. He tried to close the window and the eunuch put his hand obstructing the window. Then the fun (for the rest of us in the car) started, with the eunuch trying to touch my friend and calling him names. This dude was very uncomfortable and this made scene more funny as the khoja pestered him more. This went on for a minute. We were all laughing, when the traffic light turned green. We managed to get away from that place without giving any money.
I regret having done this (but it was fun). My friend vouches to take revenge on me some day.

what a victory

Superb semifinal victory for Royal Challengers Bangalore over Chennai Super Kings in the semi final of IPL2.
Good luck to RCB for the finals against Deccan Challengers

Changes noticed in Pizza Hut

After I wrote to Pizza Hut, about their Anti kannada Policy, I was wondering if they have taken any action. Last week, I had been to the same Pizza Hut again and spoke to the staff. There was a change in the staff's approach. They replied to me in Kannada when I spoke to them in Kannada. I called the same waiter, with whom, I had interacted the previous time. I asked him if anything had changed. He told me that the one of the senior guy from the management team had come down to the outlet and had instructed all the staff to talk to the customers in Kannada if they preferred. He told me that the manager mentioned about the complaint they had received about the outlet's Anti kannada policy.
I was happy about their change. I was more happy that I had influenced a Pizza Hut to adopt and honor the local language.

Pizza Hut's response

After posting Pizza Hut's Anti Kannada policy blog, I even left a feedback at their website. One day later, I received a call from Pizza Hut. The representative apologized for their actions. However, he denied that they had any policy, which says that the staff cannot speak in Kannada. When I told him the whole story, about how the staff was afraid to speak in Kannada, he kept repeating that there was some confusion and mistake from the staff, but never admitted the fact that they have a Anti Kannada Policy. He also told me that he will talk to the staff to clear the confusion (if they have any) regarding their policy towards speaking in Kannada.
Some of the people whom I have to spoken to and some people who have read my blog have told me that they have had similar bad experiences with Pizza Hut.
All I can do is probably go to one of Pizza Hut outlets some time and verify.

Pizza hut's Anti Kannada Policy

Recently I had been to Pizza Hut in Ring road near Kamakya theater in Bangalore. As we were placing our orders, I noticed that the waiter replied to everything that I asked in English. When I asked him if he was not familiar with the language, he told me that he was a Kannadiga, but he was not allowed to talk in Kannada. When I inquired more he told me that, it was the Pizza Hut policy that the staff was strictly instructed not to speak in Kannada. I was furious at their racial policy. How can Pizza Hut not respect the the local language. They want to do business in Karnataka and make money, but don't want to encourage the local language. Forget encouragement, they were discouraging it. This is a highly racial attitude. I condemn their policy.
I even left a feed back about this at their drop box.

As I was in the middle of voicing my opinion with the staff, I noticed two elderly ladies in their sixties, enter the outlet. I could hear them speak as they were quite loud. They called the waiter and told them that they were coming to their 'Hotel' for the first time and wanted some help in ordering the food. It was very evident, that both the ladies were not able to talk in English. The waiter helped them smilingly with their questions - All in Kannada. If the waiter had strictly followed their anti Kannada policy, then Pizza Hut would have lost the business and would have left 2 more unhappy customers (apart from me).
Later, my wife told me that she and her cousin too have voiced their opinion at a different outlet about the policy.
I would request every reader to go the pizza hut website http://www.crm.pizzahut.co.in/index.php and give a feedback about their policy

avarekai mela

I had been to the 'Avarekai Mela' last Sunday. I heard about it from my sister and went there with my family to feast on various snacks made out of Avarekai (lilva beans).
Out of the many dishes available, I tasted the Avarekai Dosa, Avarekai Obbattu, Avarekai Masala Vade and Avarekai Churumuri and Avarekai Uppit. I was tempted to taste the Avarekai Paayasa and Avarekai Chitranna, but didn't have any space left in my tummy.



Avarekai mela happens every winter at 'Vasavi condiments' at Sajjan Rao circle in Bangalore. This is at the beginning of the eat street (a.k.a Shettara Paalya or Tindi Beedi) opposite VB Bakery. Go there to try some mouthwatering authentic Karnataka food.

Rajarajeshwarinagar - a pilgrimage

Rajarajeshwarinagar in Bangalore is more like a temple town. If anyone visits Rajareshwarinagar, they can check out a few temples


1. Rajarajeshwari temple - Something I myself didn't know until I read the wikipedia, is that the temple was built in the late 1960s. This temple has Jnanakshi Shri Rajarajeshwari as its deity, and is maintained by the Kailasa Ashrama Trust.
















2. Nimishamba temple - The Temple contains the shrines of Devi Nimishamba, Moukthikeswara (Isvara), Siddhi Vinayaka, Saraswathi and Lakshmi Narayana. Chandika Homa is performed everyday in a specially designed Yajna Shala.






3. Shanmuga temple A beautiful temple of shanmuga on top of a small hill. It is started by the sringeri mutt. The temple has a magnificent Gopuram with the six faces of lord subramanya.














4. Omkar hills - Omkar Hills is the tallest glorious and devotional spots in Bangalore with the avowed objective of propagating. The Ashrama has a Goshala, a Sanskrit Pathashala and arrangements for training in Vedagamas. A magnificient Tower Clock, bigger than the reputed Big Ben of London, with provision to bring out Shankanada and Omkaranada along with the striking of each hourly gong, has been installed on the Hill.
5. Shridhara Gudda

Experience at Indi Joe Restaurant

It was my colleagues Bharadwaj's birthday and we decided to go out for lunch to celebrate. After some discussion, we decided to go to Indi Joe Restaurant (from BJN group) in Airport road. We entered the place and were comfortably seated for a while before proceeding for the Buffet. Firstly, I saw a dead mosquito on the plates kept and a while later a moth flying around. When I pointed this to the person in charge, he quickly removed the plate. Then, after picking up the soup, we proceeded further to pick up the starters. I, being a vegetarian was looking for vegetarian stuff. At that point, I saw a dish which looked delicious but looked like a non-veg dish. I mentioned that to my friend, who pointed me to the menu card placed next to it which said 'veg kabab'. So, picked it up. As I was heading back to my seat, I heard a friend of mine who said that there board which said veg-shrimps. How could shrimp be classified as veg? Without giving much thought to it, I proceeded back to my seat and started eating. I tasted the 'veg kabab' and didn't like it and kept it aside. At that point, a friend noticed that the 'veg kabab' we were eating had some meat in that. Then quickly a couple of others noticed it too. That was too much for my veggie friends. This being the dussera season, many of my colleages had given up non-veg food. The host himself was a staunch vegetarian. He doesn't even taste egg. He was very upset as he too had tasted a portion of the same dish. We called the people in charge and told them about what had happened. By now, they had even removed the board next to the dish which said 'veg kabab'. They had realized their blunder.
We decided to walk out of the place. When the manager of the place came to us and apologized for their mistake. But by now all of has had decided not to stay back. But the manager insisted that he stay back and accept their hospitality. He said that he would serve us 'A la carte'. He pleaded us to give him a chance to make up for their mistake. I think that was the least he could do for us. Our lunch which was taken care by the hotel.
What was different about this restaurant and others was that these people were polite enough to accept their mistake and make up for it. Many other restaurants would have probably just apologized and would have probably let us walk out. I have been to many restaurants where they hardly care for your feelings and their negative publicity. I really liked the manager's attitude who assigned a person to take care of our table to see that nothing else went wrong. They even gave a complementary birthday cake.
These small gestures from the hotel staff seemed to calm down the birthday boy a little, who could not eat anything after the incident. He was good enough not to spoil the occasion for others even thought he felt really bad about the whole incident.
But still this was a big act of negligence from such a big group like BJN.

After the Bangalore bomb blast

On the day when Bangalore Blasts happened, I left office by 5.00 pm. I was expecting that the roads would be crowded and it would take me 2-3 hours to reach home. But to my surprise, the roads were all empty. There are lots of IT companies around Koramangala, Airport road, Bannerghatta road etc. I was thinking that people will panic and go rush home causing traffic jams. But people thought that staying in office was safer (just like me) and hence roads were very clear. As I entered the Madivala where the bomb blast had happened, I saw a huge crowd causing traffic jam. The reason was that there a few TV channels covering the news and people were interested in coming on the TV. People didn't care about the drizzle as well. I reached home very quickly.

On monday morning, bangalore is back to business. We started with Traffic jams. Bombs and other threats does not scare people. Life must go on and so does work. Leaving the bomb threats for police to solve, people are getting back to their busy normal schedule. No one has time. People once said the same about Bombay - that no one has time and the city is always on the move. Bombay was back in business the next day after the serial bomb blasts in train stations. Now it is the same about Bangalore. Time is money. And people don't have time. You can't give the little time you have to think about these scares.

Hope we can leave all the threats behind. Hope peace returns to Bangalore soon

why blame IT for traffic

Today, being Shivarathri, most of the Central Govt,State Govt offices along with a few other private offices are closed. Even Education institutes are closed. So, the working people in Bangalore today include the IT professionals and employees of other private firms. Today the traffic during the peak hour was minimal. It was lesser than the day when we had Auto strike in Bangalore.
People blame the IT industry which employs a lot of people to cause traffic jam. But thats not true. As seen today, the traffic was nearly 1/3rd of what it is every day. The only place where I saw traffic today was the Koramangala Inner ring where there are atleast 2 dozen software companies. In other places, traffic was very smooth. What I am trying to say is that the bulk of the traffic comes from Non-IT companies.

Beggars make Rs 500 a day in Bangalore

This morning, I read (In Indian Express) that beggars earn(??) Rs 500 a day in a city like Bangalore. Beggars in Bangalore make the highest money in India. Rs. 500 a day, sums up to Rs 15,000 a month and that is a huge Rs. 1.8 lakhs (tax free) a year.

I read another article which said that beggars in mumbai earn as much as Rs 180 crore annually.
Read the article on http://www.indianexpress.com/story/9154.html

Another article on rediff says that 1 out of 5 Indians can't spend Rs 12 a day!
Read more : http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/mar/10poor.htm

India is truly a land of diversity

Buying mobile phone in Bangalore

Buying a mobile in Bangalore

In the last one week, I went out with friends and family to buy 2 different handsets. This is what I realized ...
The major players selling mobiles in Bangalore are Nokia priority dealer, ezone, Univercell, sangeetha, Mobile store etc. The guys at ezone are careless. They just don't pay attention to customers. I didn't like their attitude. I have had such expereince in two different ezone stores in Bangalore. On the contrary, you get very good experience at Univercell. Each customer is taken to a separate table, where a a reperesentative displays all the mobile phones from all the companies, and, explains and compares the features of each phone. If you are trying to decide on which model to buy, you can go to Univercell and they will help you identify the phone that fits your budget.

There are some places where all these different stores are located walkable distance from each other. So, what I did was to go to each of these shops and enquire the price of a particular model. What I did to get the best deal was get the quote from one guy, then go to the next one and say that the first guy was offering the same handset at Rs 100 or 200 less. Then this guy would quote the best deal he can offer. Take this price and go the third guy and get a further discount. What I realized was, by doing this, the price of a basic phone (under Rs 2500), the price could be reduced by Rs 200 and for a phone in the range of Rs 6000 to Rs. 10,000, the price could be brought down by Rs 400 - Rs. 500. One of the handset, we bought was Nokia 6300, which was quoted at Rs 7800 in the first shop, was finally purchased at Rs 7450.
Just 2 days after buying the phone, out of curiosity, I walked in to a Subhiksha store and en quire the prices. Subhiksha is a chain of retail stores, which advertises on TV that they give the best deal in the market. When I started enquiring the prices of the phones I had purchased, I realized that the price these guys quoted were less than the best deal that the other stores could offer (and that too without bargaining). The price of the basic phone was less by Rs 50/- and higher models had bigger discount. Nokia 6300 was costing Rs 7350/- which was Rs 100 less than the best deal we could get in the market (for which we had spent 2.5 hours for running from store to store for comparing and bargaining the rates).

From Subhiksha website
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Call "60607777" for enquiries in Delhi & NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Baroda, Ludiana, Surrat, Jullundur Patlala, Ambala, Merut and many other towns.
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Atleast till now, I feel that Subhiksha gives the best deal in Bangalore for buying a mobile. Checkout their price before you buy your handset. Use the price quoted by Subhiksha to get further discounts at the stores mentioned above.