The Rolex of Mosque road!

                Mosque road, Frazer town: a road buzzing with traffic under the cool canopy of huge trees that stand like lined up soldiers. Trees that were planted decades ago, doing what they were meant to – provide shade & a good cool place for people to rest & walk. On a Friday, this road sees more human traffic than vehicles & during the month of Ramzan a whole lot more human souls. In the evening, On the last Friday of the month of Ramzan – it reaches the pinnacle, more heads than 10 times the traffic.

                With thousands of souls craving to break their fast after the prayers, the street is a galore of food. It’s a paradise for meat lovers and for the others it’s a feast for the eyes just to see, in such abundance, people diving into their plates & chewing off bits from the bones, the food varieties, colors & lights. While people are relishing on the chickens, lambs, fish, prawns etc in the never ending street side food stalls, camps and restaurants, there sits a silent tripper playing with people's time: Rolex.

This Rolex, unlike the watch, doesn't remind you of time but makes you lose track of it completely! The thick, white & green colored Avocado milkshake served at a silent restaurant ‘Savory’ is aptly named Rolex (or at least, I was introduced to it by that name). Its thick milk beautifully blended with Avocado is carefully sweetened & pleasantly chilled that makes you dive into a new high and lose track of time. Though made with milk it doesn’t boast of a luxury creamy flavor making it a welcome choice even for milk haters. Generally, the avocado has a blunt nose cutting cross taste which makes it uninteresting. But, At Savory they have ensured to blend it carefully without making it an overdose of the avocado flavor yet keeping the tinge to hit the tongue. This impeccable combo is run thru a slice of sweetening & is chilled, making it Absolutely trippy!

It’s undoubtedly a must try, if you are in Mosque road. Even if you are a milk hater.

Tags : Rolex, Mosque Road, Frazer Town, Bangalore, Avocado MilkShake, Avocado Smoothie, Must try in Bangalore.

Kannada Gothilva?

         You might have read in the newspapers yesterday about the Volvo bus ride that led to jail for a lady! Apparently the tussle started when neither the passenger nor the conductor had the right change & that ended up ugly.

                One point of view, for a solution to this could be to tackle the ‘Currency Change’ problem either by using credit cards, sufficient coins etc. But is that all? Similar issues occur every day & outside of the Volvo buses too. What could solve all those problems? Lets first take another look at what happened in that bus. After the initial ‘No Change’ – ‘No Change’ talk, apparently the conductor asked her to get off at the next stop. Well, that’s off topic for out context here. More important is what happened next. He is said to have spoken something in Kannada (to himself? To other passengers?), which agitated the lady & slapped him thinking he was abusing her in Kannada. 

The Bus Conductor who got slapped

                      Did he? May be, May be not, but that’s secondary. First things first, slapping / physically abusing someone if you THINK he cursed you – a No No.

                Secondly, let’s say if he did curse, whose fault is it? Whose fault is it for not knowing if he did curse or not? And if he did, what did he say? This doesn’t just apply for that conductor alone, for all the many many service segment workers in the city, be it bus conductors, auto drivers, shop keepers etc. Just because they spoke in Kannada, is it fair to assume they abused you? If you take pride in saying “I have been in Bangalore for 5 years & the only line I know is ‘Kannada Gothilla’” then don’t you think you should take the same pride in knowing that someone is possibly abusing you in a language you haven’t learnt? Or do you expect everyone to learn & know the languages you know? Please understand that if they could speak as good English as you do, they probably wouldn’t have been bus conductors or auto drivers or tiny shop vendors. Do remember they are still much better behaved than many others in the country who might speak ‘YOUR’ language. So stop cribbing that people around you don’t speak English or Hindi & instead make an effort to learn Kannada or take what comes your way : be it abuses or casual talk which would just sound gibberish to you anyway.

                And if you are thinking of blaming that no one taught you or gave an opportunity I am not going to buy that. If you were any willing at all, you would have by now been on the links below which are the top search results if you look for ‘learn Kannada’.

http://www.kannadabaruthe.com/

https://www.bangaloreone.gov.in/public/learnkannada.aspx

http://www.languageshome.com/English-Kannada.htm

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/kannada/

Nevertheless it isn’t too late yet. These links are awesome & makes learning super easy, the only thing it needs is a will :)

MLA Fund!

              Yesterday in the budget session in the assembly, our beloved Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced to double up the MLAs fund. Many legislators have been apparently asking for the raise since long, stating that the current Rs.1Cr wasn’t sufficient. This fund is purposed to infrastructure development activities within the legislator’s respective wards.

                Well, if the current budget wasn’t sufficient to take up the development activities and need more to do the job right, then the raise can be justified. But is that all? Is, just a gut feel of the sufficiency enough to double up the budget? Shouldn’t there (or was there?) a thought be given to the usage & tracking of those funds? What all has been done with the existing 1Cr? What do you intend to do with the additional 1Cr? How do you say that an additional 1Cr is needed? Is there a plan or proposal & an estimate for it?

                Or is the MLA development fund for development OF MLAs instead of development BY MLAs? J

Honey, I shrunk the garbage!

                Every city would always have a set of problems to deal with. Be it crime or infrastructure or terror targets etc. But the major one for Bangalore is quite a bizarre one though. Since the last many months one of the biggest problems in the city is its Garbage! Of everything else that can be controlled, garbage? Is it the fault of the Government or we the citizens?

                I would say both. Yes, it is the Government who should have made a scientific, fool proof processes for efficient collection & disposal. Not rely on age old methods or come up with methods that can fall useless on the scale needed for the city. And US? When was the last time you carried an empty cola can with you to ensure its thrown in the right place? How many times have you seen or you yourself have thrown empty candy wrappers or plastic bags in the open? Don’t we , amongst us, have people who throw away their domestic waste in the empty plot at the street corner? Well it certainly helps get rid of trash from your hand/house but is it helping the city any better?

The Chief minister & Mayor launching the program

                There must be a start somewhere & with this problem reaching the city’s throat there are many initiatives being taken now. An NGO started the “Kasa Rasa” program in Koramangala. A great initiative to take care of the waste locally, given that there are so many restaurants around. The Government, a couple of days ago, launched “No Garbage on Road” campaign in 22 wards. The idea is to have the garbage segregated right at the source making it easy for disposal/treatment. It doesn’t take a scientist’s brain to say this isn’t going to solve it all. Nevertheless, shouldn’t we be supporting it? I urge that all of support it, for it is OUR city that needs be made better and it will be US benefiting from it.

                Even school kids know dirty places are breeding grounds for mosquitoes. And with the number of Dengue cases rising in the city, it needs nothing more to explain how bad the problem is. We shouldn’t only HOPE that things get better, we should ACT.

Lord of the bumpy roads : The return of pot holes!

Rainy days are here and the legendary pot holes of Bangalore are back in action. After a brief break in many areas, the spine breaking pot holes have made a come back and how! I am confident everyone would agree that it's getting increasingly difficult to find roads in between the tears and pot holes of all shapes, sizes and formats. Has it even been a year since tar was laid across the city? The life of it says all about the quality. And no prizes for guessing if and who made money from that. Yeah, who cares about the quality of the roads, all that matters is if someone became rich.
                    With the government's nod for BBMP budget lets hope we get to see usable roads again - at least, since good quality roads is too much a ask.
                    My 2 piece of suggestions : 1. Avoid driving during rain, coz you ll never know if that water clog you are driving into is a pothole or the entrance to a basement :) 2. Bangalore Mirror is running a campaign (Holes of Shame?) i have also seen that action has been taken up on a few & filled up. So lets not let go of that little hope  and send them as many as we can.

Hoping for a less bumpy ride

Mangoz here !

                         
                              The sun is making new friends!  Friends with the human flesh after burning through the skin. No doubt the summer is here and clearly one of the hottest summers for Bangalore since more than a decade. But there is a great bright side of summer, its the Mango season!! :)
                              The golden yellowed, juicy, sweetly sour, tangy "Aamra phal" has arrived for the season. Yeah who would now want to care for Katrina's seducing unreal 'All season Aam'. I was at a fruit stall late last evening when I saw this just arrived item on the shelf. I wish I had carried my wallet.
         

                    Nevertheless, to let you all know "Raspuri" was priced at ₹100 a kilo and "Alphonso" at ₹120. This being the early lot of the season I am not too sure how good these are, will share after i get my hands on it today. Meanwhile, If you have already had a chance to treat your soul this season, please share :)

Mathikere: Know the Area series

                                   We all have super busy lives. Weekdays in office & weekends at shopping malls or temples or pubs or friends place leaving less time to explore what is around our house. I can bet you can’t call out what is the best place to eat in your area, or what the area name means or something unique in your area or hangout places for that matter. You need not drive out to the malls, MG Road, Cubbon Park etc all the time, there might just be awesome places right next door. I am starting a new series in an attempt to bring some insight about each area. I want to keep it short & so will have one/few liners on a few categories that I think will interest most of us. You will know about the categories as you read thru. For the first I am starting with MY area : Mathikere J

What’s in the name:

        From what my Great Grandmother had told me long ago. Mathi stands for trees and Kere means lake. Apparently the name had been given after a lake was drained & trees were cut to make way for the residential area. Atleast one lake existed until very recent & even now borewells find water pretty quickly, owing to the lakes that existed here.

One super Highlight of the area:

The Jogging track inside J.P.Park

        J.P.Park or JayaPrakash Narayana Park. The 85-acre multi feature park is the biggest built by BBMP & the third largest park in Bengaluru (after Cubbon Park & lal Bagh). It has a 2KM Jogging track, a nursery, amphitheater, swimming pool among many other things.

A little on government relation:

        One of the high profile former MLAs M.R.Seetharam lives in the area, in the super large bungalow of M.S.Ramaiah. Located on the MSR Main road near the railway fly over. The BBMP office is located next to the Chowdeshwari Bus Stop where Voter IDs can be applied and taxes be paid, it also houses the office of the BBMP corporator.

For Entertainment:

        There aren’t significantly large movie halls in the area. The small movie ‘Tents’ – Krishna tent & Murali tent caters to a niche audience. JP Park, however, has a large amphitheater as well as Musical Fountain show. The Musical fountain show is open only on weekends & public holidays & runs mostly houseful.

For eating:

        There are plenty of quick bite places for chat & snacks, however not very known fine-dine places. ‘Guru Darshan’ in the yeshwanthpura-mathikere main road is a great place for chats & hot Jilebis. The 108 types of Dosa at P.V.Palace, opp to Mathikere Bus Stop, is another crown puller.

For Worshipping/Temples:

        Like most places in the city, Mathikere too isn’t any short of temples. Chowdeshwari Temple near Chowdeshwari bus stop, Shiva Temple near the market and Venkateshwara temple at Gokul are the most populous.

For Education:

        The area has no shortage of educational institutions, owing to the Ramaiah empire, which spreads from school to Medical, Engineering to Dental to MBA to Nursing & a whole lot more. Apart from these, the oldest & moderately large schools in the area are St.Lourdes and Gnana Teja.

For Hobbies:

        There are quite many options for hobby pursuits. A few know ones are : Guitar, drums & Musical instrument classes at ‘Rhythm’s’  right near the Mathikere Bus Stop, a dance & art school near SBM – about 100 Mts from Guru Darshan.  A small circulating library near Ganesha temple/post office, A Govt. mobile library in Double Road near the Bus Stop & for need of a larger book collection, there is a Just Books branch in RMV opposite to Ramaiah hospital.

Real estate price level:

        Rs.4500 – Rs.8000 Per Sqft.

PS : All data above is from my own memory & research from undisclosed, unconfirmed sources. These are just a top few & I could have missed many places/info J