The Early morning conundrum !!!!

Over these past few days, An algorithm to decide upon how to commute to office seems to run on my mind just as i get off the bed....No wonder, possessing a bike s driven me all the more slothful...Add to that the kind of frenzy that the soccer world cup seems to have stirred, I dont see myself hitting the sack before 1 o clock and that s the last thin that i would hav wanted to do in order to take the only office shuttle at 7.45 am in the morning.....

Now, wat s the problem in opting out of the shuttle service and deciding upon going by bike??? Not many, but there are a few gud enough reasons to refrain from commuting by bike..

Firstly, it s got to be the reluctance towards going through the pain of driving through the highly congested/ jam prone roads of bangalore city...With evey place seeming doubly farther than it actually is(thanks to the traffic jams and the resulting time loss), more and more people are thinking on the lines of either shifting to houses closer to office or atleast commute by office shuttle, which allows them to dilute the pain of jams by browsing through pages of their favourite books or by getting absorbed in the music of their choice, as a driver(shuttle) bears the brunt for having chosen a profession that sucks big time in Bangalore...

Be it Suchi of Radio mirchi fame in chennai or Vasanthi of Radio city in blr, their immense popularity is in no less way related to early morning jams across these cities..

I realised the biggest pain on account of traffic jam last week, when I rode home after having worked out heavily inthe Gym and the night turned out to be a nightmare to me...My knees failed to respond...My eyes were drooping....My back was inflexible and head was giddy....Cant attribute anything but the 1 hr drive from office as the foremost reason behind these aches.....

Secondly, Bangalore is a kind of city where it starts pouring cats and dogs from no where. Over these 3 years of mystay in Bangalore, I had realised that it doesnt necessarily need to be monsoon time to see rain in bangalore.Rain triggers total fiasco on the roads...My colleagues say they hav experienced 3 hour journeys from office on rainy days.Rain makes it even more difficult to ride a bike...Biting time by being inside the shuttle is anyday better than having to maneuver a bike on these water clogged roads...
It reminds me of the very funny thing that one of my ex colleagues used to do...He used to commute by bike to office.The time he used to leave office was neither governed by work in office nor by his personal commitments back home,but by his self assessment of the clouds at around 5'o clock in the evening..Over the years, he had probably acquired a very special talent of predicting the possibility of rains to precision, just by looking at the clouds. No wonder I am missing the services of such a Gentleman here :-)

Thirdly, Bangalore traffic may soon earn a dubious reputation of bettering the temperament of bangaloreans, just by having them toil hard on the road, highly watchful of the vehicles around and completely absorbed in the world of driving for hours together until reaching the destination....There have been countless occasions when My feet hav been so close to being run over by the adjacent vehicle...This morning, for over 20 minutes as I was crawling through a traffic plagued area in first gear, the"dupatta" of the female driving next to me was brushing my knees atleast a couple of times..That s how close are the vehicles near by....People here are craving for space, but the rate at which the human/vehicle density is growing, even breathing space seems unlikely in years to come :-)...

One of the most pleasant places to live in the whole of India is turning into a living hell...Climate s probably the onlything that s holding back the people here...If that were to change, I would not be here to write one more blog on this once lovely place called Bangalore !!!