Confessions of a sidewalker

All characters in the following work of art may not be fictitious and not only resemble but may have a lot to do with those alive or dead in accidents located specifically in Bangalore city only. © 2006. All rights resereved.

Barnie is exulted so much. He just managed to pull off a well-paid job at a new call center in Paranoid Valley, IT capital of Dinaufornia. In his joy, he first called up his protoceratop-genus girl friend (Different genus than Barney's, but he's confident his parents would agree!) who's working for SilverWoman Sucks, a global giant having BPO operations in Paranoid Valley. She was excited too. Barnie and his girl friend are among thousands of male and female Dinos who find themselves earning more than what they ever dreamed of in the dream valley. Economists say the surplus income among these young dinos has grown exponentially, spurring related ontogenies in thier endevours like shopping and leisuring.

Take the case of Barnie, a Albertosaurus by birth faced a lot of difficulties at his home land before he came to Paranoid Valley where the much hyped about IT boom was happening. Times of Dino, a popular newspaper in the country carries articles about the growth of Paranoid Valley everyday. As a result, it got much publicized across all classes. Jobless Dinos started thronging to the IT capital. Now the city is not anymore what it used to be. It has become crowded. So crowded that it started to have a counter effect on the potential of Paranoid Valley for being a futuristic, HighTech city for investors.

Barnie has been working for six Dino months now. He has plans of buying a new car but the city's troubled traffic system gave him second thoughts. He was tired of walking and travelling in buses where other poor Dinos pulled and pushed his well-ironed shirt and this used to frustrate him a lot.

He hated when arrogant two wheeler riders snapped him from the back when he was peacefully walking on the footpath. When reacted they snarled at him and he was speechless. He decided his life won't go forward peacefully until he buys a Dino Cycle. And he approached a bank, availed a loan and bought it in a week's time. It was as fast as he bought his Dockey underpants the previous week.

Now Barnie doesn't find it that difficult. Although, like hundreds of Dinos in Paranoid Valley, he doesn't know much about traffic rules. He has got driving licence through an agent who bribed the Motor Vehicle Department for Dinausers officials. But Barnie wasn't bothered because his girl friend told him that her friend's love interest Volcano X, another Albertosaurus-genus dino has got it the same way too. "the whole world does it. So why should I not?" Barnie thought. He was dead sure that he shared the same content of cognition with thousands of other ditizens who owned vehicles and not cared about traffic rules at that point of time.

Nowadays, he drives on the footpath during traffic jams without any guilt feelings. His ideology was "I-have-to-reach-office-the-hell-with-the-law-and -the-f***-with-pedestrians*!" Something pretty similar to that of most two wheeler owners in Paranoid Valley. One day, Barnie almost drove into the b*** of an old Maiasauras-genus Dino while he was frantically manoeuvring on his way to workplace. The poor old dino had to be taken to hospital since B*** was a very sensitive part for his kind of dinos. Relentless was Barnie, continued his adventurous drive through the footpath down the busy Mulholland Highway, Paranoid Valley.

Paranoid Valley has become swollen with Dinos like Barnie - Pedestrians* turned dino-cyclers - And noone could do anything about it. Poor dinos -like the old Maiasauras-genus Dino - suffered and tolerated this manace while others adapted Barnie, the super dino's route to relief.

One day the sad news struck, the old Maiasauras-genus Dino that Barnie hit from the back will not walk from now on. Barnie is feeling guilty now. He was depressed about the fact that it wasn't his fault at all. When someone can do certain things freely and when dino cops never found him guilty, doesn't that mean its legal? Poor Barnie, he thought due to popular breach, the law of pedestrianism** was removed from the Law & Order System. Can anyone blame Barnie? But then who's responsible for the poor old Maiasauras-genus Dino's ordeal then? No one knows. Paranoid Valley's rising, covering up its traffic and commuter problems. Its still going strong. And Barnie's still repentent of what he did.

*Pedestrian is a person traveling on foot; a walker.

** Law of Pedestrianism is an implied exclusive right of pedestrians to walk along the provided sidewalk along the road to get to reach his her destination or for any other purpose and NOT for dinocycles to ride on.

Disclaimer: Being a pedestrian ain't easy in Bangalore. In fact, that would be an understatement. Its frustration culminated to be a non-vehicle possessor and have to shuttle across the city. I guess that almost does the job.You either should own a 2-wheeler or stay near your workplace. That's one funda of living peacefully in Bangalore, an otherwise nice and warm city.

Lima beans and Mallu dynamics

What's so much about lima beans? Well its looks so yuck! but it is in fact are sweet tasting, rich, starchy, have a meaty texture and a creamy, distinctive flavor. Lima beans are nutrient-dense and their richness generates feelings of satiety (they make you feel full).

Have you been just reminded of something you have come across *so* often? Not Lima beans. Most of us may not even heard of these tiny pieces of gem. Not even in my home state, one of the southern most states of India called Kerala *Read with a tag line god's own country ** with god pronounced as gowd** like Nike and Just do it*.

Actually, its not about Lima beans. Its about the ignorance of the
dimunitives that some of ours' heart suffers from. A malayalee in his cryptic self carries with him an embarrassment of his highly rigid egoism and / or self-centeredness to wherever he goes. That is to any friggin' corner of the world. His DNA has deep engravements of skeptisism like.no.other. He's the fastest in the world to conclude on anything. If there was an Olympics for semantics, Keralites will make Indians a super winner in the medal tally. They interpret meanings just the wrong way and convince others that this is the fact.

In the nineties, there was a widespread hype about some simulation called Kerala model in the India economy. Later on, it was rightly interpreted as Kerala Paradox(thanks to people like Jairam Ramesh). Kerala has high literacy rate comparitively, good standard of living and good health index. But low infrastructure & investement, high on crimes, suicides and labor problems. How can that be possible? Well, That's why its called Kerala Paradox.

Lima beans taste bad, look bad but high on nutrition. Malayali psyche looks good, appears adept but tastes so souring. For reasons unknown to many but still there to be seen. I hope you had managed to trace Keralites' wit and lima beans on the graphic of human tolerance.

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