Thirty Six and Counting ...

Okay... I am talking about my ever growing waist size here :-)
The other day, I was just going through some of the old photographs of mine (about a year old when I was newly married) and today I asked my wife to click another photograph of mine.... I was shocked to see the results.....!!

Since I had nothing beter to do today, I quickly made this image, featuring me before and after marriage....
Huh...! What all can a happy married life do to your waist.....!! My waist size was 32 before marriage and just under a year later.... it is 36 and still counting......:-))

All thanks to my wonderful wife who absolutely pampers me all the time.....!!!

Once Bitten, Twice Shy...

It is always a fascinating experience to visit one of these Government Organizations... The aura surrounding them is very nostalgic. The world might be making advances by leaps and bounds but these organizations move at their own comfortable pace...

The other day, I went to The State Bank of Mysore in Indiranagar to inquire about the possibility of opening a joint account with them, their procedures etc and found this notice on one of their windows.

These days, you will only find these crude methods of writing a notice only in govt. banks... Note the creative use of State Bank of Mysore stickers, originally supposed to be used on currency note bundles...!! This immediately brought back memories of my school days... You could tell which kid's dad or mom are working in State Bank by looking at his notebook/text book... The state bank labels used to be a rather bold replacement to the otherwise used 'Cello Tape' to stick the brown covers on text books/notebooks....!! Huh! Those were the days...

In the age of Inkjet and Laserjet printers, these people still use this crude looking handwritten notice that too with mistakes....made not once... but twice! I mean, what was he/she thinking??

A quick look into a pocket dictionary (if he needs one) would have given him an idea of what the spelling of 'ONLY' is..... Or better still, use a word processing software to just print it out....

That they didn't bother to even correct the mistakes finally, just gives a glimpse of which age they are still living in.....

" Once bitten, twice shy...... Twice bitten ?..... No Need to Try ! "

RJ Neethi's Show Jingle

Here is the latest jingle I have composed for RJ Neethi 's Show on Fever 104 FM.

Credits:

Music Composed, Programmed, Produced and Performed by : Satish Kolluru

Lyrics and Addnl Vocals: Manojav Galgali

Voiceovers: Shraddha Gautam & Rohit Jayakaran

The Road Often Travelled

While english literature has no word to describe a highly dilapidated land mass of this form, for the sake of simplicity, lets call this - A Road. Since this road (?), once taken with great guts, eventually leads to a place called Doddanekkundi, lets call it - The Doddanekkundi Road.

People who live in the area can instantly relate to this road and know what I am talking about...

This road probably sees scores of people (if not hundereds and thousands) using it regularly for a painful daily commute. People from all walks of life use it or are rather forced to use it to eventually reach their destination. School children, college students, working men, working women, young men, old men....dogs, buffalloes, cows.... etc (Oops... I got carried away...)..the list goes on..

Well, the point is, this is quite an important road for thousands of people like me who live in Doddanekkundi.

Rain is one of the most beautiful shades of nature. Thousands of Bollywood/Tollywood/Kollywood/Sandalwood/Pollywood (Oh... There is no such word yet.... Sorry, I got carried away again :-)) songs are based around the theme of Rain.
But, in Bangalore, rain brings with it, a situation which is almost as close to being in hell.. Thanks to the increased traffic jams coupled with large pot holes and extremely bad roads.. Needless to say, this road is no exception.

It is amazing what a 15 min spell of moderately heavy rain can do to this road. Travelling by this road after raining is an experience which reality shows like 'Fear Factor' can only dream to simulate! Only parts of this road are actually usable for travel with a majority of it turning into a large, muddy and ugly water pool.

As I am forced to take this road to reach the old airport road everyday, I wonder if I made the right choice in buying a bike for commuting in Bangalore or should I rather have bought a 2 seater boat instead.

Well, its too late now so I just curse my fate and move on.... I guess others in the locality also share my opinion. They too have cursed their fate and moved on. They have now got accustomed to the situation and find travelling on this road perfectly normal. I could never understand what 'Adaptation' meant when it was taught in school.... Now, I know it thoroughly.

Is this the spirit of us Bangaloreans...? If it is, I am sure this is a very shameful display of the 'Spirit of Bangalore'.

As a tax payer, I believe that I deserve better amenities by the government. The government is sure making a lot of money through taxes by the residents of Doddanekkundi. It is only its duty to keep revenue generating citizens like us happy so that we feel our hard earned money is being put to good use. I don't want hi tech facilities, underground metro rails ar any fancy techno parks. All I am asking for is a road.... So that I can travel comfortably to work and earn more money for the government to keep....

This is an appeal on behalf of the thousands of residents of Doddanekkundi....
Please make the Doddanekkundi road at least remotely worth its name !

My Complete Indian Fountain Pens Collection

I wanted to add a * fine print to the title but it seems blogger doesn't allow me to.... so... Ahem...!

This is my 'up to date' collection of Indian Fountain Pens ...

As I have maintained always, I am only interested in using Fountain Pens ( Ink Pens...) made in my own country..... India

I get very interesting reactions from people who come to know of my secret passion of owning all kinds of hand made fountain pens in India... Some are genuinely fascinated, some act fascinated and if somebody is a father/ wouldbe father, he thinks.... " Oh God...! Isn't this guy weird enough....?"

Okay... So these are the Ebonite Fountain pens I have collected till date.... The brands in order of appearance are:

1. Ratnam Jumbo ED
2. 2 Advocate Ebonite Pens
3. 1 Un Named Ebonite Pen
4. 2 Guider Ebonite Fountain Pens
5. 1 Prasad Fountain Pen ( Ground by myself to write as a stub nib pen...)
6. 2 Ratnamson Ebonite Fountain Pens
7. 2 Wality Pens Manufactured by the Airmail Pen Company (These pens are courtesy Mr. Rushabh Shah who was very generous of gifting them to me....)

Now, You might be thinking, Do I really need so many pens....????

Humm.... I have no answer to that.

Just like you don't have answers to questions like....

1. Do I really need the car which I own ( or I think that I own)....??
2. Do I really need the house which I own ( or I think that I own)....??
3. Do I really need the Refredgirator which I own...??

Oops.... Sorry.... Wrong examples.... The aforementioned are not the things you do for your own need.... Those are designed for the society...

Okay...

I just wanted to showcase my completed collection of Indian Fountain Pens.....*

* Huh....! I can now hear my wife saying.... " That's what you have been saying for the last 7 months........!!!!"

My Ratnamson Pens

Huh.... Finally, I have my two new Ratnam fountain pens (Size 302) in myhands...!

This is a pen company founded in 1932 and its first fountain pen was gifted to Mahatma Gandhi... As I am a strict fountain pen user/maniac, I decided to get hold of a few of these pens and add them to my collection ofother ebonite fountain pens (Advocate and Prasad Pens).

I don't believe in using any foreign made fancy fountain pens (Parker, Waterman, Sheaffer etc...... There has to be an interesting history behind them....These Ratnam pens write sooooo smoothly.... ! I am absolutely in love with them....As they say, "Once you hold a Ratnam pen, you will never hold anything else....!". For all of you fellow fountain pen fans/freaks, here is the address of Ratnam Pen Works... You can call Mr. K.V.Ramanamurthy on the number specified and order the pens you like....

Mr. K.V.Ramanamurthy
Ratnam Ball Pen Works,
10-7-18, Fort Gate,
Rajahmundry
Andhra Pradesh
India
533101
Ph: 0883 - 2498782

Which is this road in Bangalore....??

Those who live in this area will surely know the road I am talking about.This is the Doddanekkundi Main Road near Marathalli.

As a resident of thearea I am used to seeing the good old, battered Doddanekkundi Main Roadeveryday. In fact I don't even think it qualifies to be called a road atall...because... There is no road.!

I am one of those hundreds of people whouse this road (?) everyday to travel to work... The 7 minute bumpy ride tomy office is still a lot better than the 30 minutes of traffic jam I have to go through if try and avoid going through this road.I am very emotionally attached to this road.... I have seen it serving its purpose through the summer, monsoon, winter, spring..... and the cycle goeson and on... It is a visual treat to watch people trying to wade through thelarge pools of water that accumulate on this road during the monsoon...
The danger part aside, I think people using this road have grown so used to itthat they have now actually started enjoying the experience...!! Nobody iscomplaining....So, I was taken aback when one day I noticed that somebody has actually madeit qualified enough to be called a road by asphalting it...!! That's it...all those joy rides, water pool adventures etc are gone...!!

I decided to go through this transformed Dodanekkundi road on my BajajPulsar 150 DTSi bike.... As I started going through it and traveled about afew hundred meters on it... I reached the other end of this newly done roadand was in for a pleasant surprise.....!!