Development vs Environment

There's always been a debate on how much of environment can and should be sacrificed for the sake of development. In a way, its a question without an answer and if there's an answer, its a never ending loop of arguments and counter arguments.
Coming from Bangalore, where I've lived all my life, I've seen it go from a garden city to something that is totally contrary to it.
I remember the time when I would travel from Lalbagh West Gate to J.P.Nagar and there'd hardly be a couple of patches on the road where it'd be sunny. But today, with the Metro being constructed, these rows are in such a sad state that its only the hot sun, dust and sand everywhere on the road. On a road where there were hardly an traffic, nowadays, there's hardly any space for any vehicles to pass through. It takes almost 15 minutes to clear this one road on the best day and the root cause of this is the construction of the metro rail. One may say that the metro rail is leading to heavy levels of pollution by increasing the traffic pile ups, dust, etc., but looking into the future, it is going to be a major pollution killer. Just imagine the number of vehicles that'll go off the road, at least in the immediate vicinity of the metro rail.
Although it is causing a bit of inconvenience during the construction, there is no doubt that we're going to save a bunch of trees and a lot of asthma cases. But is it worth losing so many trees that they're planning to chop off for this? I don't know about the trees, but having the metro will definitely improve the air quality here and definitely reduce the traffic pile ups.
Having said this, being someone who thinks that protection of trees and thus, of our environment is one of the most important thing ever, it is also important that the other form of protecting the environment, that is reducing pollution by reducing the vehicles and usage of fossil fuels.
There definitely will come a day when we have a balance of both, until then, just grin it, bear with it, plant more trees if possible and pollute less :)

We held protests... We held candle light vigils... We went on peace marches... we wore white clothes and black arm bands... we came on television and expressed our anguish and disappointment about the politicial machinery. But... what after this?
What are we going to do to make this world save for ourselves and the people around us?
Are we going to take steps to ensure that such a situation doesn't occur in the future.

A small instance of what happens..
Very often, when we go to malls, theatres, etc, we really hate being frisked. "What can i possibly carry that you're frisking me?" is what some people ask the security guards. Consequently, few days later the guard becomes a little lax and thinks "What could these people possibly carry?"
And here begins the lax security and leads to the terrorists taking advantage of it.
Look at what happened in Mumbai... a few loopholes in the system led the terrorists bring so much arms and ammunitions into the city with the entire administration caught with their pants down... actually they were caught naked!!

What I'm getting at is... these things have to be weeded out from the roots... as citizens, its not enough that we show solidarity by wearing white and shouting slogans... what needs to be done is for the citizens to follow the law even better now... make sure that the number of loopholes that exist in the system are plugged as much as possible. If corruption is weeded out from the roots, the cleaning up of the system will begin in the right earnest.

All the protests, marches, etc etc that we just undertook will only gain some value if we, as citizens do a bit to make our surroundings a little bit safer for ourselves... otherwise, they all end up being mere media exercises with the media czars raking in more money and us just wasting a few hours of our day.

How many more times?

How many more times are we going to face it?
How many more times are we going to bounce back and move on with our lives?
How many more times are we going to elect the same jokers who could not want to save anything in this country but the seats on which they rest their fat asses?
How many more times are we going to are we going to let the irresponsible and insensitive tv channels trouble the people affected by the tragedies?
How many more times are we going to let a family lose a father, a son, a husband and a bw marother because of our responsibility?
How many more times are we going to let our brave commandos give up their lives to protect the calamity that has befallen us because of the jokers' stupidity?
How many more times are we going to let another her Hemant Karkare die for us?
How many more times are we going to give Pakistan the benefit of doubt?
How many more times are we going to let our cities burn?

:( :(

the first few days in BMSCE..

Have u ever heard of getting ragged in college even before u joined it?!? well... it happened to me...
There i was... in my to-be college... the great, the one and only BMSCE. Being new there, i didn't know my way around the college... so, not knowing the place where i had to pay the fees, i just happened to go and ask a bunch of guys sitting in the football field... now, for a bunch of guys sitting in a football ground of a college, a confused fresher asking for directions is like a perfect victim for their entertainment for at least about half an hour... so, according to instructions, i came back to the place where they were sitting like an obedient junior... and it was like a barrage... questions thrown at me left, right and center... but the one thing that i remember from that time is the college anthem... basically this is what we used to ask our seniors their name... goes something like this... may be a little inaccurate...

Oh my mighty mighty senior
i'm your f***ing f***ing junior
With single erection
Double
Triple ecstacy
and multiple orgasm
I request you to tell me your name

The problem was that, there were 7 guys sitting there and i had to tell this to every one of them :D Anyways, at the end of the day, after i'd done everything that they asked me to do, i was happy that they welcomed me to their college... and so that was my entry into one of the best ones around...
Day 1 on college, another screw up... but it was because of this screw up that i found one of my closest friends ever... a guy who found out that i was in the same class as he was, asked me about the next day's time-table... the ever confused guy that i was, i gave him the time-table for tuesday instead of that for monday! anyways, we were the only 2 guys to turn up in the class at 8 in the morning and then realised the folly... BD hasn't forgiven me for this mistake till today... but having been on time for a non-existent class turned out to be a beginning of the formation of a great group of friends... more about them and about the best college in the city and a bunch of great friends soon...

the wonder years...

so that was the first time i was out with a friend for a movie... movie outings were pretty stereotypical then... pick a bus to MG Road, watch the movie and then head to Wimpy's.
Wimpy's burgers are some of the best i've ever had... don't know why it closed down though... the burgers there were among the best... on par with the Zinger burger or the Jumbo Chicken Burger at Indiana or the Crispy Chicken at Ice n Spice... aaah... those wimpy's burger times. The first time i had Wimpy's burger was coz i'd scored really well in school... no it wasn't a reward from my folks... it was because Wimpy's had an offer which said that every kid who got more than 85% gets a free burger!!! Imagine my joy when i actually scored well!! I'd get a reason to make my dad take me to Wimpy's :D :D and that too without coaxing him too much because Wimpy's was far off from home in 'Cantonment'.
I remember those times when we went out with friends for a meal... it was exciting not only because of the great food places that we went to but also because they were also so few and far in between... i mean... for 13-14 year olds pizza and burger meals were as good as they get... and with friends... that was like finding kryptonite! Those were the days when hormones were kicking in and guys were actively looking to 'find' girlfriends... and when u went out for a meal, rest assured, the friends would 'set-up' a couple... it was amazing how long some of those couples stayed together too :)
Years passed by quite eventfully... then came 11th standard... the turning point in most people's life... turning point not academically... but otherwise... this was the time when i was gifted with something that would be my man friday for the next 7 years... my first possession that would cost more than 10 bucks a month to maintain... yep.. it was my Kine or for the uninitiated, the Kinetic Honda... what a beauty it was and it was the latest model too!! was amazing , being the first guy to have a two wheeler on which another person could sit without having pain in his rear, it made one thing easier, the thing all 15 yr old guys tried to do... get a girl go out with him. When you're the one of the very few guys with a kine, it doesn't take too much for a girl to opt to go with you in the bike than another guy in the bus or rick. Instant move to superstardom in my small world of school kids :)
But one thing is for sure... the friend's i made during this time are the closest of my friends ever... I don't know what it was... friends came and went but the ones that i made during the six years starting then were the best i've ever had... it was such a great thing that all of our thought processes, interests, likes n dislikes matched so well and we connected so well that time that now, i feel like i've known these guys forever. Karthik, Nikhilesh, Honey (is a guy if anybody is wondering), Tava, Soup, Ani and Varsh... these were the first batch of my 'friends for life'.
These were the kind of people that i'd talk about when i say 'South Bangalore' kind... our kind of hanging out would be at friend's houses, pizza places, etc mostly in and around Jayanagar barring the occasional trip to some place in far off Cantonment... clubbing almost nil and i don't think any of us had our first drinks until we'd passed 12th... those were the time i tell u... less than 30 bucks for a liter of petrol and a movie in Balcony class for less than 50 bucks and a burger for 25-30 bucks (not the cookie sized ones that McDonalds likes to call Burgers... the actual big ones)
I wish i was in 11th forever... Growing older changed loads of things... or so i thought... coz the last year at college had me working overtime on studying and a gadzillion entrance exams... the outcome of one of these exams was something that changed my life so drastically that the life i saw in school all this while was not even a trailer... the next bit of my time getting educated was nothing like i'd ever experienced before....

intro-the humble beginnings.....

The title of this blog pretty much sums up what it's all about.
Having lived all my life in Bangalore, barring a year during which i had to go to Mysore to work... so i've seen Bangalore change so much during the last 20+ years that i've been here... Bangalore has changed a lot and Bangaloreans, even more than that.
My circle of friends was as diverse as one's friends group can get
Having lived in an 'old Bangalore' area, all my childhood friends were 'old Bangalore' types who watched Kannada movies, listened to Kannada music, spoke pretty much in Kannada all the time and our favourite past time when we were kids was playing, watching or talking cricket. Movie watching was mostly Kannada and the occasional Bollywood flick. Most of them were them vegetarians whose parents would sometimes get violent if they ever spoke about non-vegetarian food!! This was my how my friends' circle was until i was about 8.
But then I joined a school which had people from almost every place in the country and some of them had lived abroad for a while. Obviously this was sort of a new thing... having come from a school where talking in Kannada was a norm, having to compulsorily speak English all of a sudden and being punished for not doing so was kinda hard to adjust to... but what the hell! I was 8... i had shit loads of time to adjust to this... this is when i actually found people who could speak impeccable english and watched movies and listened music other than Kannada and Hindi... this was my intro to western music, movies, etc in all their glory. Though my dad did enjoy western music/movie occasionally, i was never exposed to them until then. However, my school being situated in south Bangalore and all these people living close by in South Bangalore, most of my friends were what u'd call typical south Bangaloreans, pretty much people like the ones i've described above.
At this point, before I move on to the people on the other side of the city, let me describe what i think a typical kid from South Bangalore would be like... most of them would be studying in schools in and around Jayanagar, Basavanagudi, etc... evenings would mostly be spent playing cricket in the neighborhood playground and late evenings spent with mom's pushing the kids to study and study until they're hungry and sleepy... weekends would mostly be spent watching movies with parents in Urvashi, Swagath or the likes, or if you were lucky you'd get to goto Cubbon Park!! When it came to shopping Jayanagar 4th block or Gandhi Bazaar were the default destinations or if parents were in an adventurous mood, they'd take us to Cantonment (what we call Brigade Road/M.G.Road, etc). Outings with friends were strict no-nos until u were atleast 14.
So, imagine my excitement when i was first allowed to go watch a movie with a friend when i was in the 9th standard and that too, as far as Plaza on M.G.Road! I had to take a bus and all... and the movie i watched was Grease... John Trovolta's movie about a bunch of boisterous school/college kids... this outing was almost like my folks had cut me loose :D