When it rains, it pours!

Bangalore has been getting some really good rains of late. It has been pouring long and hard. If you are home, it is wonderful of course - sipping tea, enjoying the rains from within the comforts of your home, music in the background, etc.

But what happens to the roads - public's best friend? The city's main roads are in very good condition and the rains don't seem to be harming those too much. However, the way the rains have been pouring, the roads are almost always flooded. See pic.

Flooded

The minute you take a turn away from the main roads, and into the secondary main roads, the bumpy journey begins. Typically the prime main roads like the one in the pic above are also those that have some decent pavements for the pedestrians. From the secondary main road onwards the road is the only place for the traffic, pedestrians, animals, vendors, bus-stops, auto-stands, repair-works (road repair, cable, telephone, water supply) , parking lots .... well you get the picture. And when it rains, not only is all the chaos quadrupled, but the roads also acquire new damages. It is as if the rains are eating away the roads. See below.

Potholes
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These pics were taken after the rains, not during. You can only imagine these during the rains. Also these pics do not reflect the worst case!

So when it rains, with the potholes, the mud water splashing, the honks, and the infamous traffic jams getting worse, you are in for one heck of a joy ride. Of course, you learn to take it all in, take a deep breath and "inch" forward. And if you are not frustrated, well then at least you are learning to be patient and accepting!

R2I - Bangalore: Everyday commute options

Before coming to the conclusion that cars are your only option for everyday commute after R2Iing, let us assess all the other available options. The only public transport that Bangalore has right now is the bus. There are a few kinds of buses for public transport; the absolutely basic blue-colored BMTC buses that you see in the pic below, the slightly better Pushpak buses, and the luxury Volvo buses. Unfortunately, the frequency of these buses and the rush of people in them will make you want to turn the other way when it comes to relying on them on a day-to-day basis. If you are a concerned citizen of the globe and want to really use public transport, you may have to wait for the Namma Metro project to complete. The Metro is made to seem like an all-in-all problem solver to our woes. Like always, I will wait and watch before getting too excited! Also, this project has recently kick-started, so we do have a long way to go.

Since there is almost no public transport option for now, you can consider relying on company provided transport for your commute to work. A lot of the companies provide real nice, comfy buses/vans for pick-up and drop-off. The only downside is that you will have to stick to their timings. But, I do know of people who are able to make this option work for them.

The next option would be a 2-wheeler. If you have been away from India for a while, riding a 2-wheeler may or may not be possible for you. Now, if you are going to be the dare-devil to try a 2-wheeler amidst this traffic, then the next deterrent is going to be the pollution levels, especially at peak hours. The smog will make you squirm on your 2-wheeler seat. My husband was one of those that considered a 2 wheeler for his regular office commute, mostly because he was going to be saving a little bit of time. Obviously, your ability to maneuver is far better on a narrow vehicle. Also you occupy much less space on an already crowded/narrow road, and in turn will help the insane traffic in your own small way. But after the initial few days of observing the traffic patterns, he just gave up the idea! :)
When I see all the bike guys halting at the red-light and balancing their 2-wheelers with their feet on the ground, I worry for the safety of their feet. One of my cousins was at the red light with her feet on the ground, and an auto just went over her right foot. Thankfully, the damage was minimal. Since all the vehicles are just inches away from you or your vehicle, the thought is scary. What if it was a bus that had gone over her foot? And of course, there are still others who have had many a fall from their 2-wheelers. Not to mention the inconvenience during the rains.

If you want to use the autos for your everyday commute, you will have to again cover your nose for the entire to and fro journey because of the vehicular exhausts. Whenever I take an auto, after a few kilometres I notice a fairly distinct smell in my hair; all the exhaust fumes taking their toll! The exhaust fumes also make me feel squeamish. The other factor of course is the meters - you may not want to see the auto meter reading all kinds of numbers, since most of the meters are rigged.

A sea of autos. Notice how our rear-view mirror is broken (bottom left corner of the pic).
A simple mishap when one of the other cars was very close to ours!

Your final option is the car. And because of the unbelievable traffic on the roads, owning a small sized car becomes a necessity as compared to owning a bigger one; your ability to maneuver on the already clogged Bangalore roads is a little better with a smaller one. And of course, you have the option of owning a 2nd, bigger, nicer, family car for your weekends and out-of-town drives since the freeways are quite good. Wouldn't you agree about the small sized car? Or is there any other way to look at everyday commute? Would love to hear your thoughts, more so because I like to encourage a more public friendly commute.

On R2Iing, buying a car will be one of your crucial decisions. The good thing is, there is a fair amount of choice for cars in the market, and definitely so for small sized cars. 'Cars' is an exhaustive topic and I will cover all the options available, over a period of time. I will write about the available small cars in the market when I write about cars next. I will also write about the available cars based on their sizes and their prices subsequently.

An R2I Tip: The traffic is really bad; can't stress enough. See pic below. If you are sure about your R2I plans, then the one thing you can already do is to slowly start losing your attachment to your cars/roads there. Things will not be the same here and preparing yourself for it in advance helps. And when you do get stuck in traffic here, you will have the choice of not letting it affect you. That way, YOU still have the power! And you can take that time to think about your true reasons for coming back. :)

Clogged traffic on Bangalore roads - A common sight

PS: If I sounded preachy in the last para, please excuse me. I hate sounding preachy!

6 months later - An R2I look back

We recently completed 6 months of stay in Bangalore. Overall, I don't think there were any major surprises. But for a person planning on an R2I, I think what would be of more interest are the things that we missed the most on returning. I expected to miss and do miss all of the following:

1. Roads and regulated traffic - The city traffic situation and the road conditions are so bad that going out is not in the least bit pleasant, unlike in the US. No amount of writing about it will paint a picture of how the traffic situation actually is. Whenever I have to step out, I try to almost always do it in the non-peak hours. Luckily, I have the freedom. Unfortunately, my husband who works outside of home has no choice but to navigate the traffic at peak hours. He is actually a very good driver and almost always has driven in India whenever we came here for our vacations. However, these days he is considering getting a driver to help him out. Lets see. Here's a pic from Wikipedia of a city road in SF bay area.
2. I terribly miss the sidewalks and the lovely walks I enjoyed when we were there. The pic on the right shows a typical sidewalk in the SF bay area. Here, unless you live in a huge community that offers some kind of walking/jogging track, it really is no fun! Sidewalks are non-existent or illegally used leaving the pedestrians to use the roads for walking. The traffic situation is so bad that you have to think twice before stepping on the roads. Add 2 little kids to the equation! Gosh! I am glad we will be moving into a community that promises some of these facilities, because the city doesn't offer the pedestrian any infrastructure. You are really on your own out there in the cramped, jostling city jungle.
   
3. Pictures of beautiful parks in Cali is all I have left here. There are some parks in a few neighborhoods here. However, after having enjoyed the lush manicured lawns, the ponds and the ducks, the children's play area, picnic tables, rest-rooms of the parks in the US, it is difficult not to miss 'em. The park you see in the pic below, well we lived right opposite to it.
4. The entire family misses the public libraries that you find in the US and in almost every city in the SF bay area. I often find myself salivating at the thought of those libraries. The innumerable number of books on every subject, DVDs, CDs, videos, children's books, children's learning material, the quiet, the rest-rooms, the views from the reading areas. Sigh! I would take the kids every week, and we would pick loads of age-appropriate books for both the kids. The kids enjoyed picking them out themselves. The easy use of the online library sites that helped us put things on hold, search the library catalog, etc. And to think that the whole thing was for free! How can anybody not miss it? (I do not have a pic of the Santa Clara city library. If you have one, and if you don't mind me using it for this post, please send it to me.)
   
5. Lastly, I definitely miss the doctors back in the US. Yes, I did write here about how cheap the medical care facility was, which I still think is the case. For regular everyday issues, it is still alright to go to the neighborhood doc and quickly get a prescription for our illness. However, the experience of a visit to the doc's office in the US is not available here. We had an exceptional pediatrician when we were there. He was good at his job and was wonderful with the kids. We were so pumped with general knowledge of how a child must be doing at every well-baby check! It was almost a disaster here, when we went for our second kid's 2 year well baby check, because of how little the doctor spoke to us about how our child was doing overall, and if he was meeting all the 2 year milestones.
   

Adding a few more points from my comments, about the docs there: (Apr 18th 5:15pm) Docs there are easily accessible over the phone whenever you have a question. During both my pregnancies, I was able to talk to my Ob/Gyn whenever I wanted. With both our kids, the pediatrician was so good about returning my calls whenever I called in with a question, that I always felt comfortable about their reliable service. There really is no such procedure in place here for our calls etc. Nurses there are available 24/7 via phones. And when you have 2 young children, you almost always have a question to run by them! All our docs talked to us and acknowledged that we were educated adults who could understand what they were talking about. Their bedside manners is commendable. And my childbirths, well I cannot thank the hospital and the nursing staff enough for my wonderful experiences both the times. The nurses are so dedicated, and the hospitals so clean.

Also, the use of computers in all doctors' offices. Your 'case' is always stored away and nothing will ever be forgotten, either with your prescriptions or your diagnosis. Especially helpful when it comes to the kids, since their growth charts and general progress are all so well maintained. It is the insurance procedures that are a pain, but the docs themselves are wonderful. We have had to go to a few specialists, and we have had good experiences there too.

So, in all these 6 months, what has been worth coming back to?

1. Family. It has been wonderful to meet our folks as often as we have. Nothing to beat the closeness, and it is so light on our nerves being physically near and not worrying about their health problems from half a globe away.
2. Hub and I also think that India offers multiple work/business opportunities to do anything that we may want to. Whether we will make use of the opportunities or not remains to be seen, but at least we are in a happening place. :) And to think that the happening place is in our own country is exciting, to say the least!
   
3. All the manual help that we can get very easily here. A maid, or a driver, a cleaner, a painter, a carpenter are all very easy to find and very affordable. Since, you tend to do most of the chores in the US by yourself, sometimes it is so hard to have a life what with the kids needing your attention too amidst it all.
4. No extra effort to get the kids to talk in their mother tongue. We have neighbors who talk the same mother tongue as us, and then the grand-parents and all the relatives. Helps with their sense of belonging too.
5. Access to a whole range of alternative medical sciences. There's ayurveda, homeopathy, siddha, unani, and tons more. This works for somebody like me who doesn't believe in popping a pill for most anything. I am glad we have access to so many more treatment options, and not worry about insurance coverage to heal ourselves!
   
6. For me personally, the temples! Not all, just those that truly matter to me. In the US, I could not relate to the temples at all, just the knowing that they were fairly new and didn't have a "history". Yes, some of the temples there are about 25+ years old, but really nothing like a thousand year old temple. I can relate better to the 'Gods' in such old temples. Yes, if you believe in God, you also know that God is probably everywhere and without form, but the visit to some of these temples does make a difference in the way I feel. And for not an overtly spiritual person like myself, the 'extras' definitely help. And to think that I do not have to cram up all those visits in a month long visit is wonderful. As an added bonus, the kids love meeting the elephants in these old temples! :)

As a concluion, I think coming back has been good. Though I do miss the things that I have listed, and will most likely continue to miss them, I definitely enjoy the pluses. Also, I think I am happier(?)! There, so that's what it is after 6 months! :) Your comments/reactions please.

Why not to choose Bangalore

Before the 'why not to', let me briefly say why we chose Bangalore. Actually, there really wasn't a choice. Being from Bangalore, having family and property here, and with all the job opportunities here, we wouldn't have moved back to any other city in India.

However, if we didn't have family here, we may have thought long about moving to Bangalore. Simply because it is unnecessarily expensive and very very clogged. Going anywhere in the city is such a task! The roads are clogged almost all the time of the week. Just a few wee hours and a few hours on Sunday is all the break you get from the bumper-to-bumper chaotic traffic.

The real estate is a whole different story. The prices go up every day!! A 3 bedroom apartment will cost you about 60+ (everything inclusive, not just the basic cost) lakhs today to buy, if its cost was about 50+ lakhs 6 months ago!!! Unbelievable! and the typical finishes given are just vitrified tiles and flush doors! I was told by some property developers that there are two reasons for the prices to be soaring high:

1. The government put a clamp on converting agricultural lands. So, the land that is already available is all there is for development.
2. Apparently, a lot of Mumbai based developers/business people are investing in properties in and around Bangalore, solely for the sake of investment. So, there is an artificial demand of sorts that is hiking the price.

The 60+ lakhs properties are pretty much from the tier 2 developers. If you want quality 3 bedroom apartments from tier 1 developers like Adarsh, Sobha , Total-environment, Prestige, you will not get one for less than 75 lakhs (everything inclusive, not just the basic cost). The prices go upto as much as 1 crore+ for 3 bedroom apartments, depending on the floor number, luxury/super luxury, size of the apartment etc. Now, isn't that atrocious by all standards? And since there really is no land for mass development within city limits, all these developments are happening on the city periphery. So, please also account for the commute to and from work if you reside in these places.

All this said, there isn't much logic trying to set up a place here from scratch if you have no family or property here. Personally, I don't see the point. Yes, the job opportunities, and the weather are pretty good. But, the traffic, real estate prices, lack of immediate family, school costs (another post) are all huge deterrents for non-Bangaloreans trying to re-locate to Bangalore from elsewhere.

PS: If you are reading this and want any kind of additional info, pl let me know.

Traffic! Less said the better!

OK, to begin with I must confess that I am a Bangalorean and love Bangalore, always have and always will. So, I am not going to do any 'Bangalore bashing'. However, it is really hard not to be frustrated with the traffic.

I am alright, in the sense, I am home most of the time and try and work/do stuff from home. But my hub needs to go to work on all weekdays. And by gosh, it sucks! His work place is a mere 12 kms from home, or 7.5 miles. And it takes him 45 mins one way on a good day. And it has taken him 2 hrs sometimes to commute 7.5 miles!!!! On most days, my hub is pretty tired coming home in the traffic. Then alone, he really is almost keen to move back to the SF bay area, where the commute and traffic are supposed to be "bad". We were about 10 miles away from his work and it took him anywhere between 15-25 mins to commute.

My cousin who lives in Nagarbhavi must commute to Whitefield on an everyday basis for work. Nagarbhavi is on the extreme west and Whitefield on the extreme east, but the distance is no more than 30 kms or about 19 miles! And he has a company provided van that picks up/drops off a bunch of people from his neighborhood to and from work. They leave really early to beat the traffic and it takes him about an hour in the morning, and about 2.5 hrs in the evening!!! Averaging about 3-4 hrs everyday on commute.

Work around for hub: Work from home on broadband. Leave home at 11.00 am and leave work at 4.00 pm. He is yet to put this plan into action. When he does, I will keep the blog updatted.

Familiar road sights ...

Can you imagine the plight of the patient in that ambulance?