Long trip

And I am back to Bangalore, after having driven ~ 950 kms over the past 5 days.

It all started with a drive to Calicut with my parents on 1st May. The trip took longer than I planned because we took frequent breaks in between. Plus I no longer drive at the same peak speeds after an accident I had around an year back.

The road is in very good condition, except for a small section between Mysore and Nanjangud which is quite bumpy and uneven. Nanjangud to Bandipur forest is the best stretch of road. Sparse traffic, long straight sections with very good visibility. Do watch out for several unmarked humps. The forest section has its own charm due to the significant drop in temperature, we drove with our windows down at noon in the peak of summer. Still it was so cool !! All the more reason for Bangalore to actively look at increasing its tree cover.

The drive through Kerala is very scenic. Overtaking is a nightmare, owing to twisty nature of the roads. You can rarely see a 50m stretch of straight road, it always snakes around into blind corners :(

Then we went to Kuttiyadi for my cousin’s wedding on Monday. Again a 50 km drive that took me close to 1.5 hours due to the fact mentioned above !!

On the drive back on Tuesday, I had my wife, kid, sister, brother-in-law and niece for company. We took one day break in Mysore and did some sightseeing there.

The Mysore zoo is a must visit for folks with young kids. Be prepared to spend half a day there if you are planning to cover it by walking as we did. You have to walk close to 3 kms !!

My favs were the Hornbill, Sarus crane ( which is the world’s tallest flying bird, a fact that I did not know till now) and the Royal Bengal Tiger. I don’t know who named the Lion as the king of animals, for me it has to be Tiger without a shadow of doubt !!.

Reached back in Bangalore yesterday evening. And I am sick of the sight of my car already :-( Driving in peak summer is not too much fun.

Good one

Seen on the rear glass of a Reva car “Emission Impossible”

Who says creativity is dying ? :-)

Extended service mode of PV cabs

Current and past users of PV cabs would be delighted to know that pickup from Railway station and drop to hotel is an additional service being offered at no cost.

Under special circumstances, PV cabs driver can also double up as porter. Service currently on offer only for below cubicle height population :-))

Stay tuned for further enhancements in services

CEO
PV Cabs

Definitely Dicor

If the earlier post was not proof enough, see this ad too.

I love these ads. Tremendous tagline and a very haunting, philosophical sort of theme ..

Parallel parking

From now on, I think I will just park like this …

The humble passenger blog

How would you commute to work if your car were out for repairs for close to a week ?
(a) Walk to office
(b) Take an auto
(c) Take a cab
(d) Take a bus
(e) Take a lift from your friend

Asthma rules out ‘a’ & ‘b’, depleted condition of wallet rules out ‘c’ and the desire not to lose wallet via pickpocket rules out ‘d’. So pretty much option ‘e’ is the only one left .

Well, what’s so bad about ‘e’ ??

Nothing, apart from that fact that a few nightmares from the past need to be relived. Beggars cannot be choosers, they say. And so the beggar began his adventures again :-)

Pickup happens on outer ring road at around 8 am. First thing that I notice is 400% increase in driving aggression level of my former mentee. Lanes are being switched needlessly and at high speeds. Couple of deep breaths and I calm down. Pulse rate around 95 / min

A sharp switch from left to right lane at 80 kms /hr , narrowly missing the back of a van ahead. A cold sweat begins to run down the back of my neck. Heart rate approaching 150 per min

A poor two wheeler guy is slowing down in front of us to get over a speed breaker. We are approaching him at 60km/hr. My driver has not seen the hump.

“What ?????? wait !!!! slowdown !!! there is a hump !!!! you’ll hit him ……. oh my god , i’m still too young to die !! “ pulse is at 280 per min

Sharp 90 degree twist to right, missing the two wheeler guy by the merest whisker, flying over the hump violently, and somehow managing to escape the traffic on our right. We were pretty close to hitting escape velocity and going into a geo-stationary orbit around the earth too.

A quote reads : “A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice”. Hmmm, the next time around, I shall stick to the advice.

PS : As usual, a few creative liberties have been taken in the description of some of the incidents ;-)

Daddy, I wanna be ………

I am sitting in my living room, reading the morning newspaper when my little princess strolls right up to me and declares 

Princess : “Daddy, I want to act in a TV serial”
Daddy : …………………………………………………………………
Princess : You know, I want to do something else also
Daddy Thinks : ( Finally she is going to say what she really wants)
Princess : “I want to become a reality TV judge”
Daddy : !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess you can figure out what my daughter watches on TV by now !!

Wonder what she wants to do next ??

I remember that I had clear ambitions of becoming a bus driver. Sort of satisfied,  don’t you think , from the following evidence ? link-1, link-2 and link-3 :)

Chicken curry

Though the weekend was spent mostly on my fight with asthma and chest congestion, I did manage to get out of slumber and make chicken curry !!

Recipe of course was provided by my off shore consultant. Since I did not have many of the ingredients, I had to resort to a bit of improvisation. [ Typically I have very little stock of any green stuff like coriander leaves, mint leaves etc. ]  Also since the original recipe was for Biriyani, I had to use a bit of imagination :-))

Turned out well, had it twice already. Once with chapathi and once with rice. By the way, i bought rice again this weekend after what must have been nearly 1.5 years. That time I had bought 1 kg, this time I bought 5 kgs, so I am set for the next 7.5 years . I really don’t see what the fuss is about the rising food grain prices :-)

Chest is really bad today, I hear full polyphonic sounds. Sleeping will be a challenge tonight :(( Need to get some shuteye though, I have to be up for my co-passenger duty tomorrow morning again.

While we are on the topic, as I mentioned earlier it is really hard to think of a more thankless job. You get up early in the morning [really challenging for me], you risk your life [not kidding], give up your freedom of work timings [on occasions waiting outside hungrily as the co-passenger thulps down dinner in fancy restaurants] and then get criticized & commented on every day for arriving ON time. That's right, not late, ON time !!!!

And yet the humble driver continues to report for work . Because only he knows the ultimate truth :That is why he is a driver, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is [ from The manual of the humble driver ] :-))

Hope you have a healthy week, mine is pretty much shot to pieces right now :(

Not a good day

I'm hungry, dead tired from lack of sleep, my tooth ache is bothering me incessantly and Asthma has been sniping at my heels all day .

It's 8 pm in night , I am in office and there is no sight of my passenger yet. Life of a driver is indeed tough and without many rewards :-((

Manual of the humble driver

Heavily inspired by Paulo Coelho’s Manual of the Warrior of Light :-)), original passage can be found at this link

Every driver has felt afraid of his passenger canceling a booking
Every driver has, at some time in the past, been late to arrive
Every driver has trodden a road that is filled with potholes
Every driver has suffered the whims of his passengers
Every driver has, at least once, believed that he was not a driver
Every driver has failed in his duties
Every driver has said 'yes' when he wanted to say 'no'
Every driver has hurt some of his passengers
That is why he is a driver, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is

Creativity is tough, Plagiarism is easy

Sleep backlog

Hoping to clear up on some piled up sleep back log this weekend. In case you are wondering why, this article should give you a fair indication :-)

To be fair, my trainee driver is improving quite well. Apart from one occasion, when she nearly put me in a coffin, that is. We both survived and here I am tapping away happily on my keyboard

Reading should also be interesting with John Grisham and Muhammed Yunus beckoning me.

Asthma is knocking on my doors again, this time I am hoping to somehow keep lids on it.

Hope is very deceitful , isn’t it ? Yet many people seem to think without hope there is no life …

Well I don’t seem to have a life now, so does the converse hold true ? Am I a hopeless case ? ;-))

Hope you have a good weekend ;) Adios …

Chief Driving Mentor

Got a slight promotion from my driver role. I am elevated to a driving mentor / co-passenger now. That is someone who just sits helplessly in front seat, seeing his life flash right in front of his eyes as his friend wrestles with the controls of a Maruti Suzuki Swift.

Stall , jump and jerk, stall, near miss on a 2 wheeler, pedestrian crossing , brake , brake , brake , BRAAAAKKKKKEEEEEEE ... Sweat pouring off me as if I am running a marathon in 40 deg C heat. Even 30 minutes of intense cardio workout won't push up your heart rate as high as this !!

Why do you do this, did I hear you ask ?

Research is my career, high risk-low return projects are my bread and butter :-))

Read the following excerpt from A few good men, the conversation would not be entirely out of place between me and my friend.

Jessep: Have you ever put your life in another mans hands, and in return, asked him to put his life in yours?
Kaffee: No Sir.
Jessep: We follow orders, we follow orders or people die, it's that simple. Are we clear?
Kaffee: Yes, Sir.
Jessep: Are we clear!
Kaffee: Crystal.

The orders here would of course my commands to stop, turn, brake etc which are almost always ignored. As you can guess, I do not get the responses that Kaffee gives above :-((

According to historical Indian traditions, Indian females never drove Maruti Swifts, maybe there is an opportunity for Sriram Sena to step in and do their bit and save me !!  [ One point troubles me about the entire Sriram Sena episode. Traditionally Indian men too never visited pubs, because there were no pubs back then !! How come no one wants to bash up the pub going men ? I guess that argument is futile. They say never fight with a pig, you will get more and more dirty and pig will just keep loving it ]

Will I survive this shock treatment ? Stay tuned to find out :-)