These are what you may call a few jottings based on experiences of a jobless wanderlust. You've been in India's Garden City for nearly two months. You've driven around in your little Scooty Pep for which you're very very thankful to your brother-in-law. (You assume the gratitude is kinda mutual here, since your brother-in-law initially didn't have an idea of what to make of that brown scooter lying idle when his second sedan strolled into the portico). You're interning in the same company he's working in. You're excited for the major part, but this is where you believe things can work both ways. You know he sets very high standards for himself, and you really don't want him to throw lego blocks at you looking at the way you write a for-loop (of course, on top of that there's this running gag that you faced technical glitches while compiling your very first Hello World C program. If he ever learns of that.....). You turn on the scooter head-lights on your way back home after what you tell them has been a very long, hard, taxing day at work. Of course, they believe you. And you believe them.
Never mind work. It's your usual run-of-the-mill C program, your normal bug which you can never spot at NTP and your usual gmail where the number of times you scour your chat list for punny statuses and possible gossip-mongers is bettered only by the number of occasions you frantically turn around to ascertain the presence of unnecessary surveillance. You're glad it's not C++ because those damn pointers coupled with shapely objects and their incomprehensible behaviour is precisely what you wouldn't want to be working on. And of course, there's your group-mate, who shudders every time you remind him that you're in the project only to provide him moral support. You don't talk too much about work with your peers in the company, or your friends in other stations. To the former, you keep your project description as high profile as possible. To the latter, well, all that delving into company policy and confidentiality paints their faces with perplexity and irritation, while bringing a smirk onto yours.
Okay, so I take the vehicle on a drive every now and then, amidst the frenzy of Bangalore roads. You've to hand it to these motorcyclists and autowalas. The way these people use up road space, leaving hardly an inch between vehicles would leave the conceivers of the simplex optimization method speechless. Sure, your Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm would be rendered ineffective in such cases of jam-packed roads, but this is practical optimization at its best. Autos can squeeze their way through into the smallest available niche and get out without as much as a scratch. You observe. You learn. But you can't implement. You're no expert. Amidst all this hullabaloo, spare a thought for officers stuck with traffic as long as they're employed. Hapless traffic policemen.
Bangalore roads remind you of your strengths. I realize I have an excellent spinal cord that takes a mere 176th of a second to spot and react reflexively to a cleverly concealed speed breaker. You get worldly wise when a few rare autowalas drop you at precisely 200m from the location you asked him to at the beginning of the ride. See, he intends you to do a bit of map-reading (women - don't bother, he'll drop you where you want. Autowalas have read the book too ;) ), and figure your way out. If you're a guy and end up asking for directions to your destination after getting dropped, the joke's on you, sorry. Plus if you're slightly on the plumper side, autowalas have that fair bit of human concern and drop you, well, close to a few meters from your destination. And well, you think for a while, and realize you've mostly never been dropped where you've wanted to be ;) That explains the couple of maps you always carry around.
Like a lot of people, you enjoy the company of books. You remember your visit to this place called Blossoms in Brigade Road (for more than one reason) where you're a spectator to optimal techniques for book placement. Only, these people at Blossoms have taken it a touch too far. They assume humans can walk upwards on walls as well, and populate the whole room with books right up to the ceiling. Of course, there's a ladder, but finding it won't be all that easy given the space. Rather, the lack of it. And yes, there's this Crosswords outlet somewhere near 80 feet road where big books can be put to really good use (apart from reading). Erm, what I mean is short folks can reach the higher racks using these books as erm, props. The price of books is well on the higher side, but when you can sit down and read for however long you wish, that's not going to be an issue.
And yes, to illustrate why Bangalore's the in-place for technology, fare-meters in Bangalore autos pride themselves on their artificial intelligence capability. They function under er, natural intelligence until their built-in sundial indicates absence of solar rays. That's when the crisply written O(n) Java program takes over, does a few really awesome calculations, and returns original fare x kappa x phi (Kappa's your automatic factor and depends on that sundial thing. It's a complicated mechanism. And so much has been talked about the golden ratio lately...you now know why). For the sake of understanding of the non-academic, you'll find your fare can increment itself by up to well, 100%. If you're looking for cheaper means of transport, you always have these BMTC buses on which all routes are marked invariably in Kannada. You might learn a little something here if, inspired by your ignorance, you pay enough attention to the Learn Kannada in 21 days series of books. You don't know Kannada. But your Hindi is good enough to get you around. So you ask the BMTC bus conductor. He nods sagely.
Now, all the flip sides. You own a cell phone. And an Airtel prepaid mobile connection. It's decent. No worries about losing connectivity when you take a sudden unexpected trip to Bechuanaland. But what you can't take, is those damn automated callers enquiring after your state of unrest and announcing 'Hot Caller Tunes and Ringtones' at a monthly rental 8 times a day. Nevertheless, I take this opportunity to thank everyone who advised me against going for a Vodafone connection. When those buggers find out that you've hung up on yet another of their half-an-hourly customer calls (which to the disgust of many, begin with a female voice booming "Namaskaaraha!" followed by an extract from #include "KannadaSwearWords.h"), they're kind enough to make up for loss of conveyed information by way of a prompt SMS. Airtel's a boon considering this. They call me up from four different numbers which I've named as Don't Pick Up, Dont Pick Up, Don't Pickup and Dont Pickup. So much trouble to just cut the damn phone call.
Plenty of malls here. They overflow with upper-class fashion statements. You don't hear many vernacular languages being spoken. Kids scream for chocolates and fancy toys only in English. Their moms tell them off for wanting exorbitant stuff, again in English. You see a dozen CCD outlets and other hangouts every hundred meters. You can't make out if they're filled to capacity, but you're sure they are for wherever there's an Adam Iamcoolix, there's Eve Vitalstatistix as well. You observe them. You ponder. Back in your village, you're used to Adam Boreman, Adam Smalltalk and Adam Shutimup (no idea where the Eves Absenthemselves are) all huddling together in the corner of a potti-kadai (call it box-shop. No idea what you call those in English) proceeding to discuss panchayat tactics over tumblerfuls of kaapi. Here in the city these people don't talk about anything of utility. If anything, it usually retrogrades to the Who's-After-Who issues and the latest movie flicks. After experiences at both kinds of hangouts, I can tell you - there's no difference really, but for the anglicizing of kaapi to coffee, and the appending of zero(es) to your kaapi bill at Murugan tea-stall.
And oh yeah, almost forgot the vital statistics ;)
Credits: Code Composer Studio, for driving the nuts out of me and taking my mind off work a couple of hours back.
