Kodancha

ಪಳೆಯುಳಿಕೆಗಳು

kodancha — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:05:13 +0000

ಬೆಳೆಯುತಿರುವ ಮಹಾನಗರದಲ್ಲಿ ಬದಲಾವಣೆಯೊಂದೇ ಮಂತ್ರ..ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಹೊಂದಿಕೊಳ್ಳದ ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಂದು ವಸ್ತು, ಜನಗಳು, ಈ ಆಧುನಿಕ ಯುಗದಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾವುದೋ ಶಿಲಾಯುಗದ ಪಳೆಯುಳಿಕೆಗಳಂತೆ ಗೊಚರಿಸುತ್ತದೆ
..ಹೆಬ್ಬಾವಿನ೦ತೆ ಸಾಗುವ, 6 ಲೇನ್ ಹೊಸೂರ್ ರೋಡ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ವೇಗವಾಗಿ ಸಾಗುವ ಐಷಾರಾಮಿ ಕಾರ್ ಗೆ ಅಡ್ಡ ಬರುವ ಬಡ ಗಾರ್ಮೆಂಟ್ ಕೆಲಸಗಾರರು, 100ಕೀ ಮೀ ವೇಗದ ಗಾಡಿಗೆ ಅಡ್ಡ ಸಿಗುವ ಬಡ ಸೈಕಲ್ಲು ಸವಾರರು, ದೇಶದ ದೊಡ್ಡ ಸಾಫ್ಟ್‌ವೇರ್ ಕಂಪನಿಯ ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಸ್ಲಮ್, ತಡೆ ಎಲ್ಲದ ನೈಸ್ ರೋಡ್ ಹಾಗೂ ಮೇಲೆ ನಾಲ್ಕು, ಕೆಳಗೆ ಆರು “ಲೇನ್” ಗಳು ಇರುವ ಹೊಸೂರು ರಸ್ತೆ ಯ ಬದಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಳ್ಳಿಯೊಳಗೆ ಸಾಗುವ ಟಾರು ಎಲ್ಲದ ಮಣ್ಣಿನ ದಾರಿ ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಪ್ರಗತಿಯ ವೇಗವನ್ನು ಅಣಕಿಸುವ ಪಳೆಯುಳಿಕೆಗಳಂತೆ ಗೊಚರಿಸುತದೆ. ಹಳೆಯ ದೇವಾಲಯ, ಸ್ಮಶಾನ, ಮೂಲ ಬೆನ್ಗಳೂರಿನ ಮನೆಗಳು ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ಹೊಸ ಗ್ರನೈಟ್ ಹಾಕಿರುವ ಫಳ ಫಳ ಹೊಳೆಯುವ ದೇವಾಲಯ, ಮೈಸೂರು ಅರಮನೆಯನ್ನು ನಾಚಿಸುವ ಬ೦ಗ್ಲೆ ಗಳ ನಡುವೆ ಪಳೆಯುಳಿಕೆಗಳೆ. ಐದು ಬೆರಳಿಗೆ ಐದು ಉಂಗುರ, ಕೊರಳಿಗೆ ದಪ್ಪದ ಚೈನು ಹಾಕಿಕೊಂಡು ಸ್ಕಾರ್ಪಿಯೋ ಕಾರ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ಓಡಾಡೋ ರಿಯಲ್ ಎಸ್ಟೇಟ್ ಜನಗಳ ನಡುವೆ ಅವರಿಗೆ ಪಾಟ
ಕಳಿಸಿದ, ಎಂದಿಗೂ ಲೂನ ದಲ್ಲೇ ಓಡಾಡೋ ಮೇಸ್ಟ್ರು ಪಳೆಯುಳಿಕೆಯೇ.
ಆದರೆ ಇದೆಲ್ಲದರ ನಡುವೆ ನಿಜವಾಗಿಯೂ ಪಳೆಯುಳಿಕೆ ಯಾಗುತಿರುವ ವಸ್ತುವೆಂದರೆ ಮಾನವೀಯತೆ. ಪಕ್ಕದ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾರಿರುವರೆಂದು ಅರಿಯದ ಮಂದಿಗೆ ದಾರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೋಗುವಾಗ ಆಕ್ಕ್ಸಿಡೆಂಟ್ ಆಗಿ ಬಿದ್ದಿರುವ ಸೈಕಲ್ ಸವಾರ ಕಣ್ಣಿಗೆ ಕಾಣಿಸಿಯಾನೆ? ಅಥವಾ ಕೆಂಪುದೀಪ ಹಾಕಿಕೊಂಡು ಬರುವ ಆಂಬುಲೆನ್ಸೆ ಗೆ ದಾರಿ ಬಿಡುವ ಮನಸ್ಸು ಇದ್ದೀತೇ? ಸ್ಥಾವರಕ್ಕೆ ಅಳಿವಿರುವುದು ಕಾಲದ ಮಹಿಮೆ ಯಾದರು , ಮಾನವೀಯತೆಗೆ ಅಳಿವು ಬರುತಿರುವುದು ನಾವು ಅಬಿವೃಢಿಗೆ ತೆರುತಿರುವ ಬೆಲೆಯೇ?

Shifting the house..Along with the memories

kodancha — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 05:58:19 +0000

House shifting! Yes.. It is one of the most painful, tedious and interesting event that happens in the life. I experienced one such mixed bag of feelings recently when we shifted to our new own home in Bangalore. As a software engineer I can say it involves all the phases of software engineering : Requirement Gathering, Planning, design, execution and testing. Well since its a new and our own new home, we just had to skip the requiremnt gathering phase. But we had to plan our shifting, plan the where – and how of all our articles we bought in old house etc and then shift. And I can compare the testing phase to get use to new house!

Before I started packing my things previous night of shifting, I assumed it may take hardly 2 hours, but you know it took almost 6 hours. And most of the time out of this 6 hours, I went into hiostory. While cleaning I got a lot of old things which would have created a lot of feelings in me in the past…happiness, a sad feeling, angry everything. I got a lot of memorable letters I wrote to my mom and father intially when I came to Bangalore (Well I really wonder, I had that much of patience to go to postoffice, get the in-land letters, write everything in detail and post it! Hmm, a tedious process now compared to dial the stored number in cell phone and talk or SMS..), a lot of greeting cards various people gave me during various occasions like birthday, changing the company etc, some old photos, some memories of my father etc etc.. So my packing was actually like looking back my 8 years of stay in Bangalore.

The other major pain was to dimantle all the things we set up at home. The house we shifted was the one we setup immediately after my marriage. Also, my mom moved with us from hometown, so we all setup our areas in a way we thought “wonderful”! Mom : Her bedroom and kitchen, my wife : our bedroom and living area, well me : Just the sitout! (Actually it was just arranging the chairs there and making some room to keep my shoes. But yea none of the work is small , all carries its own value -:) ). Removing each photo or someother item from its place forced us to remember how much “thought process” was put in “installing it”.

Hmm..I should say Software engineers’s life is much easier than a packer & mover’s job..

Smile Tax

kodancha — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 05:40:25 +0000

Smile Tax

Looking at the innovations ways our Finance minister is finding ways to tax people, I am sure one day a paragraph in our budget will read like this:

"The Goverement has decided to tax people on the smile, if they get at a bank counter. Till now we were collecting only service tax for the service banks provide.Service could be provided with smile or without smile. A column will be added in all the request forms like DD form, etc to tick whether you need a smile with the service. And as usual, education cess is charged this smile tax as well"

I am wondering what would be the effect of this taxing in the day to day life of people. lets just take a bank for example.

A customer walks in. A beutiful lady at the reception with a board "May I help You" with a grim face.As soon as you enter, a form will be given to you asking whether you need service with smile or without.

All banks will carry additional boards: "No jokes here please". And during office hours, bankers cant crack a joke with their customers. If somebody else does and a banker laughs at it, tax will be deducted from custmor's account.

Banks will start recruiting young beutiful girls with Colgate smile. But customers, beware, dont fall into this trap. This is just to collect smile tax from you!!

Banks can also request Aishwarya Rai Or Rani Mukherji to be guest employee one day and her job would be only to smile at the customers. Customers get the service at one counter and smile at the other! (Ofcouse with the tax burden)

Ha..too much. Just thought this point as I have to pay huge service tax everywhere, including banks, hotels etc. But that doesnt gives us the right to get the good service!! Goto bank, wait for getting your money out of the bank listening to all craps from them and pay tax! Goto register office, pay hefty registration charge, pay hefty bribe and pay service charge again. Also FM of India can think about making collecting a service tax on the bribe we pay! Though they dont have a bone to collect the tax on the bribe governament babus collect!

Morning Journey to office : In Bangalore traffic

kodancha — Tue, 09 May 2006 10:22:52 +0000

My office is around 30KMs (19miles)from my home.For people outside India it may be a small distance which can be travelled in 20 minutes. (Infact it is a distance which could be covered in 30-40 minutes for people who are not 'lucky enough' to stay and enjoy the big city life of cities like Bangalore, Mumbai etc.) I stay in the southern part of bangalore and my ofifce in the ouskirts of Bangalore. We spend average 3.5 hours per day on traffic. Now who says we are not road kings? Passing the time in the BMTC bus provided to us from company to commute is the big challenge. One can suggest sleeping in the bus. But in my experience sleeping in the bus is worst than sleeping in the road. You have the carbon attacking from all sides plus jerks of breaks every two minutes. I tried various options of passing time in the bus: Right from reading my M.S. text books to type SMS to my wife. But none of them lost long. Often I get the company of my colleague Guru who is a stock market wizard. We often start our discusion with stock market then get into realestate market and general topics like Bangalore roads, new CM etc. After all these discussions when I see the time, alas its still 8.10 and we are still in dairy circle flyover! Lucky chap, Guru gets a good sleep in the bus and starts sleeping. People do various things in the bus to pass the time.I have developed a new time pass tool: Watching people in the bus how one passes time! This gives me lots of fun. I should mention some of them here. The first one would be to see how people get into the bus! Some people by a walk, some people by jog (Not sure intentional or to catch the bus), some people being dropped by others(I belong to this catagory, my wife drops me till busstop ) and most funny would be people hanging outside an auto and waving hand to stop the bus and the autodriver with a heroism stopping the auto right infront of the bus in a cop style!! Then inside the bus people start their morning activities: Though I havent seen people brushing their teeth, but they start right from taking coffee to having breakfast (Aha my nose gives constant input to my watering mouth!) These all activities happen for the first 15 mins then most of the people starts sleeping..some yawning ..some reading..some listening music..and few people like me looking everywhere.. Now a sudden break and everybody gets awake from their business and starts cursing driver. Poor driver what he can do if a buffalo or a autowala comes in between the road.The same action-reactions continue till we reach our office after 2 hours. Its really fun watching people's reactions each time a small change happens in their level of comfort..May be it is driver applying break or one sitting next to him leaning his head over other's shoulder. All will getup in a hurry when the office comes and time to go to work!

My Dream Home in Bangalore

kodancha — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:34:33 +0000

Buying a house in Bangalore was the dream of every person staying in Bangalore. Why I am telling this as "was" the dream of Bangalorean because now a days a bangalorean cannot even dream a small house..Now you can buy a house in bangalore only if you earn in Dollars or Pounds. Not sure whom to blame for this situation.. Good old bangaloreans blame software engineers for this..but as a software enginner i disagree. Defently the prices are beyopund our reach. The flat criteria for buying an independent house in Bangalore is either you should have stayed in US for more than 10 years or both husband and wife should be working in software industry. Yet, it drains all your lifetime saving and your future salary as well (As EMI)

Now lets assume you get into one of those two catagories (Yes, there are two more catagories of people who can afford properties in Bangalore: One working in "rich" govt departments, other who inherit properties. But we will leave them away from this discussion). Now one fine day after facing all problems from your house owner about water usage, Cauvery water vs borewell water, electricty usage (Though you pay your bill, the house owners have a condition : Dont burn lights after 11..I dont know why) you will decide : Its better to own a house better than listening to this owner. Now the trap begins…

Well, if you are from some big city like Mumbai or Delhi, you dont have any issue in deciding whether to go for a flat or and independent house as the natural choice would be a flat. But if you are from a small time place or a hardcore bangalorean, then you start with an independent house in the area where currently you are staying. You approach the broker whom has got yo the rented accomodation you are currently there. "Saar enu keLtheera eega bhoomi bele..yee jaagada ownergaLu heLidde rate" (Sir dont ask the price of the land. These owners are asking fancy prices). But in reality, they would have shown a greed to the owners that they will get the land/house sold to some bakara at much higher value than the owner would have dreamt! The first disappointment!! With your permissible budget you wanted to buy a house in Jayanagr 9th block if not in 4th block Or in Banashanakari 2nd stage now you will think its OK for me if I go little further, say Bannerghatta Road or BSK 3rd stage!! After a lot of strugle between your budget, the distance to your workplace, best schools around and nearest available market, you choose an area you want to live. Say BSK 3rd stage!

Now you approach the real estate brokers in the area (Now a days you can see minumum 2 real estate broker shops in each street in Bangalore. The "Real estate Agency" boom is much bigger in Bangalore than even Tech boom! I will write about them some other time). This would be a typical first conversation with your broker: "Saar I need a house in this area".

Broker: "For rent or buy?"

"To Buy. Best thing would be a land so that I can construct myself"

Broker : "There are no site available in this area saar. One or two are there but they are quoting very high price!"

"How much?"

Broker :" But saar I get you good new houses in the area adjoining to this"

All your homework about the area, prices in that area and your dream about commuting to office , kid's school everything vanish here. You think 'o.k., what difference it makes in another 2 KMs..anyway I am staying away from City..' So now you start calculating how far you are staying from jayanagar Or Basavanagudi from your original dream of a house in jayanagar. Although you havent seen, you start convincing yourself and your family about the new area on broker's words. He says "Saar the ring road passes very next to that layout and there is a praposed 100ft road passing between this layout' God knows!! In bangalore if you take broker's words ring road has to pass via every alternative layouts!!

Oops..too much about finalizing a place. With alll hurdles passed , all problems and issues traded off, you zeroed in some property. And give some "token advance" to the builder/owner of the plot. Now starts the second phase of this : Achieving the dream.

First thing you make is to get an agreement with the current owner after giving some advance amount. Then get the copies of all the papers, find a lawyer, verify all the papers. This process of "verifying the papers" is really puzzling for me. Some lawyers ask 1% of total cost of the property for the entire process. (Can I calll it end-to-end legal solution?) Other lawyers ask only for required task : verification of papers or preparing the legal documents for registration or "handling" the govt authorities! The charges vary acccording to the service they do and according to the price of the property you are buying. Also get the paper verified from 2-3 lawyers as there are lot of frauds going around.