Country's pride or shame......??

Every blog I write, anyone come over to debate on it, I know I would be able to defend my ideas. But this is the first time im putting forth my idea to the world which might not be 100% the way it is and may just be a coincidence. If it is a coincidence, I’m not ashamed to apologise and if it is not then this is  matter of shame.

I, like almost every other Indian, am an ardent follower of cricket. Off late after the introduction of commercial format of club cricket like the IPL and Champions League, I have started to hate a few top cricketers. Without naming any of them, I have one big question? Players get injured during an international level tournament, but during IPL and CL all are fit???

Everyone played the world cup, played the IPL and then got injured, needed rest and so on…I’m afraid I have to take names now….Gautam Gambhir, who was at the risk of an injury played the IPL and skipped the next tour of India, did he not feel the strain while the last few matches of IPL? Sachin has the flexibility to choose the tours he will play in…understood he has been playing for long and maybe he needs rest, but when India were battered by England he gets an injury during the one dayers… and is now ready to play in the CL…. I mean WTF is all I can think. There may be reasons beyond my understanding but when Kumble can come out with a broken jaw with the bandage on and play why not give your best when the country needs you and rest when it comes to the club level?? Not only the players I have named there are others also but these being the prominent ones when the country is in need why can’t they skip the personal needs and look into the country’s pride.

The fun in making a fool of yourself....

I act according to the situation; many people say this and do so proudly.

But at the cost of your personality…?

I have been observing my close aids and people I interact with regularly in my life to understand this. Humans, atleast 95% of them are no less than chameleons, changing according to the situation, which is good. But I wonder why change your beliefs too? If you do not believe in something strongly they why even speak about it?  And if you do speak about something, go to the heights in proving it, why go against it some other time?

It this competitive world when all want to emerge out as winners, I wonder at times if we have forgotten that we have our own personality and some things, we believe are good. It’s a shame we have to compromise on who we are just to prove a point to someone. The urge of winning an argument by making a strong point drives us I guess.

My Work Place

A lot of people have been asking me to know where I work, how the place looks like. After I wrote about my work with the cops in the Traffic Management Center. You can read that blog by clicking here.

So here is a pictorial blog.

My work Station

My most important tool 

We hit pondy again…Day 2

Thinking that we did not party late night, I thought atleast I can go and catch the sunrise, but woke up well past sunrise at around 8 am. By the time we could do anyting, I had alcohol in my hands….

After a lazy process of getting ready, we went to have our breakfast and the bread onlets were literally yummy. We also had a cute pup in the restaurant who helped us pass time till we waited for our orders to arrive.

Heading back to the cottage, it was beer time for me and Rajeeth while the others sat and just spoke, giving us company. As this was going on one by one we all got ready to go to downtown Pondy. Lunch in a sea view restaurant, shopping on the streets of pondy and the time was up.

We hit pondy again…Day 1

Stresssseeedddd out……. was how I was till Friday noon. As always, last minute bookings, I had already booked for the cottages and return tickets, but Bangalore to Pondy was not yet booked and we were supposed to take the Friday night train :P

Well 1 thing that always kept me cool was the fact that more than 500 tickets were available and the train was not running full. However, it was done and after scampering helter skelter me, Rajeeth n Meghna finally reached the yeshvanthpur railway stn, where Bharath and his wife were waiting already, to board the train to Pondy. This was the first time I was travelling in an AC class and must say for hard core (train)traveler like me, I did miss the track sound L but its good to hear some nice music and not to mention the cooool bogies….

Slow and steady wins the race is what this train is all about….reaching as late as 930am on Saturday. Anyways, we took 2 ricks from there and headed towards the cottages booked. On the way I stopped over to pick up the first beer of the trip, yes an early morning beer. Once we hit the cottages and put our luggage in the respective rooms, few guys went to freshen up, but I was already fresh sipping on the beer.

What I do when I'm not freeeeee......

What do you do in the police station?

You work along with cops and regulate traffic in junctions?

Do you roam around the city searching for jams?

These are a few very common questions I have to answer off late after I took up the job of a traffic reporter. So I finally decided to write about my work. I would write about my experiences some other time. It has a few hilarious things to it….

So then, Nithin Pawar, Traffic Reporter with FM-94.3 Radio One. Yes the guy giving you the bad news about the traffic jams is me. But I do try and make the news not so bad by trying to give the listeners alternate routes to try and avoid the congestions. I also give the reason for the congestion if any.

The day begins at around 7am (I work in 2 shifts, 7am to 11am and evening 5pm to 9pm) when I enter Traffic Management Center (TMC) gate and tackle Rambo (one of the dogs in the TMC campus, dunno wat his actual name is)…he does not like the sound of my bike I guess. Walking straight into my cabin, yes I do have a separate place to sit, the “Traffic Information Dissemination Cell” in adjacent cabins to my left are the four zonal control room cops, front of me is a huge hall with lot of huge flat screen TVs and many work stations, behind me is the cabin of ACP Traffic and to my right is a wall with a huge Bangalore map on it. So tats my co-ordinates of work. Oh I forgot to mention….all the partitions are of glass, so no sound but clear vision of traffic scenes.

Skandagiri Conquered

Late noon of a lazy Saturday with no plans of what should be done to kill the weekend, life was supposed to be sad for the next 36hrs. suddenly a thought struck to my mind, and I thought lets go trekking. Picked up the phone, and conferenced Parmesh(Parmi) n Bharath. Coincidentally we had Parmesh speaking to Manjunath(Manju) and the instant plan worked out. We also contacted another friend but he was already out of city with family.

So we were supposed to leave at around 2am. Parmi n Manju camped in my room and Bharath was supposed to wake us up at 2. It took some extra time to get our lazy asses out of the bed(I being the main culprit) but finally around 245am we left towards Skandagiri, zooming in the Alto. I was not yet fully awake so I decided to take the wheels (driving gets the blood pumping in me) so by the time we hit the highways I was wide awake and all the old college stories were coming out. (yes…we all studied together and it has been 8+ yrs since those jolly days).

One pit stop for tea and burning some tobacco, we reaced the foot hills of Nandi Hills, I knew we had to take a right (left goes to Nandi Hills) so I followed the road and after taking directions from a few early bird oldies, reached the foot hills. Parked the car near the ashram (I had done my research on the place on net before hand). We were approached by a school going kid, maybe 10yr old and offered us to guide the climb for 500/- and when rejected he offered 300/- I saw Parmi, he said the target is there, showing the peak and said all roads lead to it…. That was an indication enough, we made sure car was locked properly and then started.

Auto Drivers of Bangalore….

80% of them are bad…I knew this very well, but had a technique to handle them, or maybe coincidence that I did not meet the ones I met in the last week before. 20+ years of travelling on the roads of Bangalore, many a times in autorickshaws, never did I have such pathetic experience. It has been a series of bad auto drivers making me irritated… to angry….to frustrated… to swearing at them too. Which is very much unlike me. Now that I work closely with the Bangalore Traffic Cops, I have decided to take these offenders head on. I will create awareness amongst public, create a platform for people to complain and make sure the complaints reach the respective authorities.

I feel it is high time something like this is up and running. Knowing our people’s mentality, they do not bother to complain as they have to take the pains of going to the Police Station. If this issue is addressed I think, there will be more and more people willing to complain and the offenders will have some respect for the rules.

New Feeling....

Being in sales and marketing, I just love to get into arguments just for the fun of winning it. I have lost many arguments before just for the sake of letting it go and felt good. But I have never felt very good after being defeated in an argument. YES obviously I have been defeated many times too…

But something new just happened…I lost an argument. Infact two, at a stretch and strangely felt good about it…Some gals I just realized have the cuteness to make you feel good even while doing things you do not like (if not hate it). I strongly believe gals are made to be pampered but the male instinct always does not let you feel good when you lose….

A NEW FEELING…. and Im willing to experience it more but will this cute gal stay back in my life and let me experience it or is she just another passing acquaintance. Lets see wats in store…

Ok let me get back to work now :P

Back now....

Its been long since I wrote anything, although Im not a regular blogger, I think I should make it a habit to do so.

So I come back with some stuff again. All I have been doing these days is getting trained on bettering my voice. Yes I have now taken up a job as Traffic reporter in Radio One. Nothing much but its only 30seconds on air 8times a day.

It was a challenging thing for me specially as I was never even close to something like this before. I jumped into the well without ABC of swimming and now I can proudly say I know rough swimming. Being the self I am (a lil slow in mastering) I think I will be a smooth swimmer in a few weeks from now.

So that was about why tin was not blogging....(sounds like a regular blogger, swalpa over.... :P) will get back to blogging from now.