Asses on Bangalore Roads

There was a time when asses were considered to be a dumb creature. They were never considered fast or reliable. Horses enjoyed all the privileges of being favorite. If I remember my grand-ma's stories, asses were only used as a goods carrier across the ponds. But Grand ma has gone. And gone are the dumb asses. This is the era of cool and smart asses. Not to mention, modern asses are rich enough to afford big big cars. If you do not trust my words, try stepping out of your house after 10 pm. You can spot them on almost any road. Easy identity - They will be driving with high beams. They will honk all the time, validating the fact they are not dumb any more. Smart people are not always rich. It takes more than the plain smartness (probably hard work, good luck and may be much more) for a smart human to become rich. So is true with asses. There are poor (but smart) asses, who really can not afford buying a car. But nothing can beat their determination to put up the smartness-show. Most of them have taken cab-driving jobs on call-center vehicles. Their ass-power combined with the cab's horse-power can probably beat the smartest horse on earth.
In the not-so-lucky category of asses, there is another distinct breed, which is known as pedestrian-asses. You can see them blocking half the roads (on a red pedestrian signal) in effort to cross the road. This causes some trivial troubles to the traffic (which already suffers because of extra-ordinary width of city roads). But I believe that standing in middle of the road, amidst fast moving traffic, is a great show of courage by asses. I really admire it. By the way, today I met two most courageous asses of my life time. I was returning back home, late in the night, and I saw them standing in middle of the road, on IndiraNagar fly-over. Initially I had some trouble recognizing them and I mistook them as human beings (Wish asses had horns). But later I remembered that humans are not allowed to walk on fly-overs.
....
Have you ever met any smarter asses? If so, please post your experience on this blog.
....
I have posted this blog, with a hope that one day the smart-ass community will read my blog and realize that how their presence in a civilized society is being appreciated. It might also give me some political mileage, as asses have a great chance of coming to power in Indian Democracy.

How to Fix Traffic Chaos

In 1913 Henry Ford invented "moving assembly line". In assembly line, a product is built cumulatively, passing from one unit to other unit, sequentially. Since the product flow is sequential, the over-all production rate of an assembly line depends on its slowest unit. To optimally use the production facility, more effort should be spent to increase the production rate of the slowest production unit. Same is true with moving traffic on a road. The slowest vehicle (on a given lane), can slow down the traffic speed of all the vehicles. Hence, in order to improve the travel time, one needs to fix the slowest vehicles on the road.

There needs to be a two-fold effort to fix this up:

• Improve the overall travel speed
  
• Provide different driving lanes
  

In this post I suggest a few steps to implement this two fold situation.

• No Pot-holes: Improve the road quality fix all broken roads.
  
• Free left turns: combined with strict lane discipline - Vehicles on Left Lane must turn left.
  
• No Parking on Busy Roads: Building owners must provide parking facilites for the visitors in their premises.
  
• No Vehicle Halt within 50 mtrs range of a traffic signal: Which should also mean moving all the BMTC bus-stops slightly away from traffic signals.
  
• No-Pedestrian-Zones: Provide over-pass and under-pass for the pedestrians on busy roads. No pedestrians shall be allowed to cross/walk-on these busy roads¹.
  
• Enforce heavy penalties on law violations. Penalty should also include include temporary/permanent suspension of driving license on repeated negligense.
  
• Transparent Law Enforcement: Law enforcement should be made transparent².
  
• No multi-story buildings on narrow roads.
  
• Increase the number of buses in BMTC fleet. Provide more frequent services. Provide different luxury grades. Provide women special buses.
  
• Encourage³ organization to provide group transport for employees.
  
• Widen the roads
  

NOTES:

[1] No insurance claim must be provided for pedestrian hit by traffic on "no-pedestrian-zones". No criminal offense shall be registered against vehicles, which hit the pedestrians on these "no-pedestrian-zones".

[2] There need to be a public participation in the law enforcement. There should be complaint booths/web-site where public complaints (with sufficient proofs) can be registered against erring vehicles. All the complaints and their resolution shall be made public on regular basis. With every other citizen carrying a cell-phone, and with every cell-phone having a camera, it should be easy to collect proofs against traffic law violations.

[3] Encouragment could involve tax benefits and subsidies on vehicle and fuel.

Restaurants in Bangalore

...
Sahib Sindh Sultan
If you are craving for a royal treatment, "Sahib-Sindh-Sultan" @ Forum_Koramangla is the right place to be. You will need to make a reservation before you go.
It is a place with wonderful food and ambiance. You will surely get a feeling that you spent your money right.
....
Indi-Joe
Is as wonderful as it was when it just started
...

Oh God. Why is it a Friday?

A Sad Friday
................
Bangalore has been going through a bad phase for last few years. I think most part of its body are sick. If you are planning to step out of your home or office, you are going to go through a painful experience, and most likely you are going to loose your temper on some thing or other. Any road which you take home, will be packed with traffic. Any product or service which you buy will have "no-value-for-money".
Today I went to a restaurant on airport road (opposite DD) with one of my friend and I had a horrible experience.
(1) Bad Service: Waiters at this place seemed to have forgotten why a waiter is paid for. They were arrogant and they seemed to be very bugged with any non-white-skinned creature (I am not very sure if they were nice to those white-skinned either) and they behaved as if they were on a social service for us. We completely felt unwanted. I think the waiter's attitude had also to do something with the fact that we were not dressed like a friday.
(2) Too expensive: A 30 ml tequila shot costed around 10 USD (most places in USA I had been to, aree cheaper than this). Cocktails tasted more like mock-tails (I could not smell or feel any alcohol in their ultimates). I used to admire their drinks till a few months back, but now they serve shit. I doubt if some one now will be really happy paying a load for this even during the so called happy hours.
(3) They don't care: They do not even provide a free parking to their customers, for the fat money they charge.
....
I hope that will be no more Fridays.
.....