views, bangalore mirror - monday june 11th
I’m certain that last night the ‘big boys’ (not to be confused with the ‘big boys’ in Vidhan Soudha, in spite of their godlike status) up in the heavens had a huge do. Buckets of imperial chicken kebabs, loads of women (mythology and Renukacharya affirms that there never was / is a dearth of those) and gallons of draught. So when they decided to empty their oversized bladders at just about the time Bangalore is forced to go to sleep, all heaven broke loose … quite literally. It took precisely 8 minutes and 32 seconds for all of bean town to look like a shot straight out of ‘Waterworld’. I really rued the fact that I didn’t have a movie camera with me, as I would’ve most certainly shot a sequel titled ‘Watermess’.
In the 10 min drive (it took much longer this time though, because my beaten and battered Ford Ikon just refused to be coaxed into being a speedboat) from Opus to home, I saw 2 trees who had decided they’d had enough … streetlights who were making the most of their rain holiday … 3 Kinetic Hondas, who like my faithful Ikon just wouldn’t be conned into being water scooters, as they lay there listlessly by the side of the road. Drains were having a severe and violent bout of bulimia, and a really pitiable family of 4 huddled under an awning soaked to the bone, whilst inconsiderate Ford Ikons like mine splashed water all over them, and the litter, after a speeding ‘Swift’ decided to bonk a call centre taxi, shamelessly in the middle of MG road.
But, as always, as in times like this, the best was yet to come.
As I neared the Gurudwara I saw this huge Godzilla of an excavator bang in the middle of the road who, after having gorged more tar than he could digest, was sitting back and chewing the cud. But not after he and his cronies had blocked all access for me to get home.
So there I was, windshield wipers slapping time, too stunned to even react to the fact that those morons, who are in actual fact a disgrace to the Moronic Bangalore Association (MBA) were telling people to leave their cars on the main road and wade home in the pouring rain through 2 feet of sewage water that Godzilla had unearthed.
But I was going to have none of it …. As the case with everything Bangalorean, there’s always a backdoor entry, and I had noticed a road that comes up from the Ulsoor shanties, but had never had the whachumaycallits to even think of attempting the expedition. But I guess there comes a time in ones life where one has to (as Russell Peters immortalized) ‘be a man’ and this was as good a time as any.
So I swung the car around, went through by-lanes so narrow, that they would give any of Bidappa’s anorexic fashion models a complex, saw people baling water out of their houses (and we are now talking 1 o’clock in the morning for chrissakes), and the already beaten and battered Ikon got a couple of more war scratches. But after another half hour through this maze, I finally got home.
There has been no electricity since last night, no cable television and no internet connectivity - all the basics that one would expect from a 24-hour metropolis that is namma Bengalooru. And all this because a couple of the ‘big boys’ (and this time, not to be confused with the ‘big boys’ in heaven) are having a party, and piddling on us tolerant taxpaying dimwits.
In the 10 min drive (it took much longer this time though, because my beaten and battered Ford Ikon just refused to be coaxed into being a speedboat) from Opus to home, I saw 2 trees who had decided they’d had enough … streetlights who were making the most of their rain holiday … 3 Kinetic Hondas, who like my faithful Ikon just wouldn’t be conned into being water scooters, as they lay there listlessly by the side of the road. Drains were having a severe and violent bout of bulimia, and a really pitiable family of 4 huddled under an awning soaked to the bone, whilst inconsiderate Ford Ikons like mine splashed water all over them, and the litter, after a speeding ‘Swift’ decided to bonk a call centre taxi, shamelessly in the middle of MG road.
But, as always, as in times like this, the best was yet to come.
As I neared the Gurudwara I saw this huge Godzilla of an excavator bang in the middle of the road who, after having gorged more tar than he could digest, was sitting back and chewing the cud. But not after he and his cronies had blocked all access for me to get home.
So there I was, windshield wipers slapping time, too stunned to even react to the fact that those morons, who are in actual fact a disgrace to the Moronic Bangalore Association (MBA) were telling people to leave their cars on the main road and wade home in the pouring rain through 2 feet of sewage water that Godzilla had unearthed.
But I was going to have none of it …. As the case with everything Bangalorean, there’s always a backdoor entry, and I had noticed a road that comes up from the Ulsoor shanties, but had never had the whachumaycallits to even think of attempting the expedition. But I guess there comes a time in ones life where one has to (as Russell Peters immortalized) ‘be a man’ and this was as good a time as any.
So I swung the car around, went through by-lanes so narrow, that they would give any of Bidappa’s anorexic fashion models a complex, saw people baling water out of their houses (and we are now talking 1 o’clock in the morning for chrissakes), and the already beaten and battered Ikon got a couple of more war scratches. But after another half hour through this maze, I finally got home.
There has been no electricity since last night, no cable television and no internet connectivity - all the basics that one would expect from a 24-hour metropolis that is namma Bengalooru. And all this because a couple of the ‘big boys’ (and this time, not to be confused with the ‘big boys’ in heaven) are having a party, and piddling on us tolerant taxpaying dimwits.
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