Traffic rules!!! - Bangalore style

All of us would have got ourselves stuck in the midst of Bangalore's horrendous traffic at one point or the other. And at these times, we would more often than not rave and rant that this city has gone to the dogs. (Well, if its not the dogs (menace), then its the rains (or the lack of it) or the moral briagde or.... this would just end up being another rant).

But being in the passenger seat (despite having a license, I am yet to muster the courage to commandeer my own car), I have come across some situations in the potboiler we call traffic that are worth a few laughs. Take for instance, this one time, I took out a friend's bike with my daughter standing on the footboard and my husband riding pillion. To start with we were a sight, it was like David taking Goliath out for a bike ride with the neighbour's kid just piling on. We just crossed a signal and I had a cop jump out in front of me. He took one look at our baby, drew the conclusion that I was her mother and before I could take of my helmet, asked me to carry on. While doing so, he smiles widely saying that he thought I was the kid. For the sake of formality he asked if I did have a license, I said I did and he took it for face value.

So many times when we are driving you will find pedestrians choose to cross the road just when you decide to accelerate a bit. And out comes that hand to indicate that you should slow down. Sudhakar was so fed up of this happening, that one day when a not so gentlemanly gentleman stuck out his hand, Sudhakar did the same. It got the guy so confused for a second, that he stood rooted to the spot. Then he took it that Sudhakar was waving at him and with child like enthusiasm waved back. So much for tit for tat.

There is a little dance routine that the night beat cops do. Especially on a Saturday night (they would not want to miss out on partying now would they). Picture this, a cop standing in the middle of the road, stops your car, asks you to roll down the window, then glides in sideways and asks you "Nim hesaru heli.. tell me your name." You do, he determines that your breath has only the remnants of lunch on it and shimmies out the same way only to repeat the step with the next car he sees. A little drum roll there and he could even end the dance with a split. I pity these guys though, the kind of breaths they have to smell. Whither the breath analyzer?

Yet another funny one to wrap this post. We were driving one day and this car moves in from the side to the front of us... As he was doing so, the driver stuck his hand out and was giving the sign you give someone when their bike headlights are on in the day time. It took a few seconds to register since there were only cars around. HIS tail light was non-existent and the driver was using his hand as a tail light substitute!!!!

So how bout it... when in traffic next time, look about for these funny situation. It will help keep you BP in control.

Whither wholesome family entertainment?

Ok am sorry. I have been ignoring my first baby (aka thinking aloud blog) for the "glamour" and fun of my food blog. But that doesn't mean I have totally forsaken it. The fact that I am writing this with the mother-of-all-colds at 11.30 at night stands testimony to this fact.

I have this deal with Anoushka - its called the my TV time and your TV time. Early evenings is when she is allowed to watch cartoons and a little later - 8 pm onwards is when I watch my TV. I don't cut into her time and she knows not to cut into mine. I largely watch serials on Star World and AXN. Of this what I really enjoy are the family based serials on Star World - My Wife and Kids, Everybody loves Raymond, Two and Half Men, Hope and Faith, According to Jim and many more.

What I truly love about these serials is how in a span of half hour they present a situation that is so common in family life. There is always a solution shown to a everyday problem and all of this is done with a dash of humour. These are the same situations that people like me and you face - falling sick and having no one to look after the kids, in laws dropping unexpectedly, a clash of opinions on how to deal with kids, lying to the spouse to get out boring functions, the works.

All of us have encountered one or more this in our lives. Many a times the solution is almost the same we have seen on TV. Why then, we as a nation obsessed with reality TV don't have a single serial that revolves around true family values. All of our prime time soap operas are about evil stepmothers, even scarier mothers-in-law, sisters in law who traverse generations to kill your reincarnations and a whole other crock of excrement. Of course the defence has always been that "we have surveyed the audience and we know what they want." But tell me wouldn't you want to see how parents elsewhere deal with the issues of talking to their children of the bees and birds, how a dad has to cope with the mood swings of his PMS teenager, how you deal with kids experimenting with drugs or cigarettes or even the opposite sex, what to tell your spouse who has just been laid off.

These are questions that you can't always go running to the elders for. So if you have a counterpart on TV with a solution that forms part of your daily entertainment, why not? Yes! there are evil, conniving members in every family, but eventually in all families they are found out and they suffer the consequences and it generally happens in one lifetime itself.

What ever happened to the concept of wholesome family entertainment. Whatever hard hitting serials we do have deal with issues like child marriage and is meant to educate the masses that don't have access to cable TV, let alone the DTH luxury. Ironic, if you ask me.