Hard Pore Corn

Ever thought how it would be to take on a police officer because he jumped a signal? While most of us would cringe away and get on with our lives but Swaroop Srinath, a Bangalore resident has chased down an ACP (yes that’s right an ACP) and gave him the chills for breaking the law he was supposed to uphold. That’s not all. This guy, if you read till the end of the post, is a regular offender and a corrupt official.

Read all about Swaroop’s heroics here, on his blog My Bangalore. 

Rang de Basanti anyone? 

This claimer: This post is entirely written in jest and does not mean any offence to any one person or a group of people in particular .

Well the post has nothing do with the title. Just felt like squeezing in a Beatles’ number into one of my posts. The sun part however came because of the fact that I went to a restaurant on Saturday evening. Or was it Friday. But we shouldn’t really entrap ourselves in timelines so much. What is more important is the revelation that I had. Bangalore has a place for gays…erm or should I say the homosexually inclined…to hang out.

According to Pehelwan, who heard from a very reliable source, the place is run by and, as we realized slowly as the evening progressed, for gays. Should have guessed the moment I saw the bottle of Evian on each table. Every couple that walked in was horribly lop-sided as regards sex. Most of them were firangs. I kept eyeing the place in total enchantment after I was given to understand this little piece of information. It was very tastefully decorated. What’s more…they even had really nice music playing. I don’t wanna sound like a discriminating asshole, but gays clearly have the best taste in absolutely anything.

I kept waiting for the waiters to break into an impromptu "YMCA" performance but was left dissatisfied on that front. Had some red wine which made the evening a bit more fun than the usual teetotaller nights we have. Also it made the food, which wasn’t anything great…yes even the apple pie, easy to gulp.

All in all a fun evening. If you aren’t too hungry and are in the mood for some expensive fun…do try this place for sure. I hear their Philadelphia (another gay connection) Cheese Cake is the real thing.

In Bangalore, a lot of times one comes across these boards declaring the statistics on the accident scene. According to them the number of people dying of accidents has drastically gone down over the years. It seems they’re thankful to the road safety police for that. What else do you get from the huge red letters that read
“THANK YOU BANGALORE TRAFFIC POLICE”
But I think the real reason lies somewhere between the layers of bitumen. Or rather the spots where there is none. The multitude of potholes in Bangalore is, according to me, the real miracle worker behind the scenes. Well if you can’t take the tachometer beyond 20 kms/hr you can’t really hit someone fatally enough to kill them.
With there being a pothole every one meter on the roads , it suddenly feels a hell lot safer on the roads
Check out this one. Bangalore Pot Hole Directory.

Okay. So something interesting did happen during the day. Hence the second post.
I’m very pissed, terribly incensed thoroughly disgusted and extremely furious. All my plans for 31st seem well on their way down the drain. I’ve been disturbed, like many others in Bangalore, because of this fresh new threat that arrived some hours back. You can read all about it here and here. It seems 6 jihadis have already entered the city and are going to execute an extremely well devised plan tomorrow around 10:30 in the night. Hotel Grand Ashok and Chief Minister’s residence are the primary targets. However, I fear, most other happening party locations, and most probably high profile hotels, would be targets of these attacks. Also probable are attacks on various malls and pubs. One can never say what these people have in mind.
I am planning to shift my plans to somewhere else and I hope people take heed of the early warning and do the same.
More than happy, I would say have a safe new year.

The serene campus of IISc was set astir yesterday by an alleged terrorist attack. Prof. M C Puri, a retired Mathematics professor at IIT Delhi was shot when an unidentified person in army faitgues opened fire just outside the J N Tata auditorium. He was declared D.O.A by the doctors at MS Ramiah hospital. 4 others including two students were seriously injured. Dr. Vijay Chandru, co-inventor of the Simputer, has sustained severe injuries due to 3 bullets wounds. The assailant allegedly escaped in an ambassador car parked nearby.
What amazes me is the apparent negligence on the behalf of the city’s security agencies. A tibetan student had climbed on top of one of the buildings in IISc and shouted anti-China slogans when the Chinese premier had visited the city. Even after this, there was hardly any checking for identification cards at the various entrances to the institute. I have myself strolled in once, without any questions asked, walked about in the for about an hour and come out unscathed. But honestly, how could a man get in with an AK-47 rifle? Also there have been so many threats in the past, regarding plans of terror attacks on the IT centres in the city. There have been bomb scares galore in Electronic city and ITPL (all hoaxes but still) Isn’t this enough to ramp up security measures at least at key locations?
This incident, in the pensioners’ paradise, has left the residents of Malleswaram, Rajajinagar and Sadashivnagar shell shocked, since none of them expected any such incident in their area, far away from the bustling economic centres of the city. It is quite appalling. Well, the CM has ordered an urgent high profile meeting to review this incident and come up with a new security arrangements plan. Let’s see what good comes out of this.
More on this news in : ToI, Hindu and IndianExpress.

Sunday evening saw me having the most fun time I’ve had till date, in Bangalore. For those who are still unaware of how boring Bangalore can be for a person in his/her early twenties, I would really suggest spending a weekend here with no friends around. That apart, I’m very lucky to have a few really good people who never turn down an offer to go hunting for good times.
Initial PoA was to pick up Pehelwan at her house and catch Chicken Little at Inox. But it had a sort of intraovarian abortion, when we discovered that all shows were priced at a flat 200 bucks, it being Christmas day. The party soon moved to Som’s place (feeling extremely cheated by the blokes at Casa del Sol) where we decided to go bowling. My experience at the game has been limited to viewership of the frequent (and oh so boring) telecasts of the game on ESPN. So we land up at Amoeba, the one at Leela Palace, which supposedly is less crowded compared to its other counterparts. After whiling about our time, we finally managed to get a lane to ourselves around 8pm (which is almost snooze hour by Bangalore standards)
The next 45 minutes or so went by quickly as we felled ten-pins and guzzled beer at an amazing rate. I realized I wasn’t too bad at the game, since I got a gutter-ball only twice in the 10 frames that we played. Ended up with a pathetic score of 96 which according to Pehelwaan was ‘Not bad!’ for a beginner. By the time we cleared out of our lane the pool table was free. So we quickly grabbed the cues and set up a game. Must say it was great playing after an extended hiatus of 4-5 years. Lack of practice showed up, as I could NOT manage to pot some really easy ones. Finally lost the game to Pehelwaan as I scratched on the 8-ball.
But why all this drivel, you say? Well, just wanted to point out how utterly necessary it is to do such things that make you realize your true age. The age of the mind or more importantly of the soul. Just because you grow older by a year every time you drive a knife through some baker’s creation, doesn’t mean you have to shed your youthful nature like old skin. Life is something that one must cherish. And when you look back a few decades later, it must evoke a smile full of satisfaction and accomplishment. Not a sinking feeling resulting from a late realization that the sands of time have slipped out of one’s hand. Thankfully so far as I’ve come on the path of life, I think I’m well on my way to a future that’ll see me grinning from ear-to-ear.
Hasta luego, amigos.

I’ve been in Bangalore for a little over a year now. Many of my friends had greeted me for having landed a job in the Silicon Valley of India. My brothers-in-law had given me gyaan on how to keep switching jobs until I landed a lucrative one and how it is a nice place to do so. To say the least, Bangalore is the most disappointing city ever. It’s overly hyped. It’s all talk and no walk. It’s emotionally a very wrung-out city. One would hardly call it a city looking at the infra-structure. But what is more disturbing, is something that has started recently.
A section of Kannadigas is against the city being so outsider-friendly and is demanding a change. “Bangalore hardly looks like a Kannada city. We want our city back.”, says the Karunada Sene, a jingoistic pro-Kannada group.
It is not uncommon to see hoardings displaying products manufactured by MNC’s, blackened out. There were violent protests and mass vandalism when theatre owners didn’t follow the moratorium sought by the Kannada film industry. The Karunada Sene has big plans for the ‘We want Bangalore back’ movement. Their demands are simple (yeah, right):

Locals should be given preference in jobs
Kannada should be spoken in public places
Hoardings should be in Kannada
Kannada should be made compulsory in school
Roads should have Kannada names

Out of these only the one about Kannada being made compulsory in schools sounds cogent.

A retired central government official recently sought help for his educated, unemployed, 27-year-old son at a counselling centre. His son had been participating in an anti-outsider demonstration and was arrested by the cops according to the director of the counselling centre. His frustration was obvious. Outsiders hogging all the attention. MNCs not beign fair to local kids and not offering them the lion’s share of the job pool. Not only that. They have a problem with non-Kannadas dominating Bangalore’s economic and cultural life. Azim Premji and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw being the richest business people in the city is a matter of concern for them.

My only intention behind this post was to warn people of an impending threat. To uncover Bangalore’s true image to most people who have a highly roseate picture of this city. It may have been a peach a few years back, but it’s no longer so. It’s a very expensive city with very little to offer in the form of housing facilities and public infrastructure. Transportation is darned expensive and the traffic police make life a living hell for the outsiders. Accidents are commonplace due to bad roads and even more non-sensical drivers who mistake city roads for drag racing strips. It is highly unsafe after 10 pm, which is pretty much a safe time in most major cities.

I don’t see any reason why any person in his right mind should not stay away from this place.

Pecos, off Brigade Road, is one helluva place. It is a very “Beer n Smokes”, basically college kids kinda joint. But the main attraction isn’t the cheap booze, the succulent bites-to-eat or the laid back feeling. It’s the music. It’s one of the few places in Bangalore that have remained loyal to good ol’ Retro/Classic Rock. The posters inside are a proof of that. As soon as you enter and the smoke clears your path, you see the one declaring a 1990 Europe tour by the Grateful Dead. If you sit downstairs you’ll be treated to a little loud, though excellent music. Not to mention being surrounded by these posters:

1. Jerry Garcia’s mugshot followed by “Probably the only pub that would feel honored if you call it a “Dead” place.”
2. Bob Marley’s pic smoking a cigar with “Mostly we play music by the Dead … and sometimes the immortal”
3. Frank Zappa sitting on the dumpster saying “Frank Zappa said ‘There is no hell…there’s only Paris’ But then Zappa never went to pubs that played trance”
4. Clapton belting out a lick under “What’s Beer without a little Cream?”
5. One cheekily says “Upstairs to the loo, down for the cigarettes. No wonder our patrons are so fit.”

The second level is something else, with murals of Elvis, Garcia, Marley, Van Morrison and other greats. The ceiling has a large abstract outliney sketch of The Beatles in their cardigans. The walls are again full of posters ranging from The Rollingstones to The Allman Brothers Band to Led Zeppelin.

A definite must-visit for every Beer & Retro Rock lover.