Namma Metro

Friday, 21 October 2011

October 20th 2011 marked the beginning of Bangalore Metro rail service, Namma Metro. Expecting the usual rush, I took a ride the following day. As I had to take BMTC bus to office, I opted for metro instead. Cousin dropped me at Vivekanand Station on Old Madras road at 8:15am. The helping metro staff directed me to the ticketing counter. After a baggage security check, I entered the ticketing counter. I took a contact less smart card. Rs.50 charge for the card and one can top-up upto Rs. 1500. Swiping the smart card, I entered the platform. The infrastructure is world class. Fully automated systems just excited my experience. Next trip was scheduled at 8:30am. It was great to see the school and college students started using the metro. The train arrived at dot of 8:30, and metro became part of my life. Metro chugged through Indiranagar-Ulsoor-Trinity-MGRoad stations within 10mins, an unimaginable thing in traffic clogged B'luru. I exited the station swiping the smart card and a 10 minute walk took me to office.

 ನಮ್ಮ ಮೆಟ್ರೊ, ಬೇಗ ಕಟ್ರೋ!!

Transport : Metro

Distance : 6.7km

ನಮ್ಮ ಮೆಟ್ರೊ (Namma Metro)

೧೯ ಜುಲೈ೨೦೧೦, ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು

ನಮ್ಮ ಮೆಟ್ರೋ ಎಂ. ಜಿ. ರಸ್ತೆಗೆ ಬಂದಾಗ.....



ಮೆಟ್ರೊ ರೈಲಿನ ಪ್ರತಿರೂಪವನ್ನು ಎಂ. ಜಿ. ರಸ್ತೆಯ ಅನಿಲ್ ಕುಂಬ್ಳೆ ವ್ರುತ್ತದ ಬಳಿ ಜನ ವೀಕ್ಷಣೆಗೆ ಇರಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಪ್ರವೇಶ ಉಚಿತ.

ಹಾಗೆ ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ..... ನಮ್ಮ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಲ್ಲಿ!

೧೮, ಎಪ್ರಿಲ್ ೨೦೧೦. ಜಯನಗರ ೯ ಬಡಾವಣೆಯ ಮಾರುಕಟ್ಟೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕಂಡ Alien

-----oooo0O0oooo-----

ಮುಂಗಾರು ಮಳೆ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿಗೆ ಕಾಲಿಟ್ಟಾಗ.. ಜಾಲಹಳ್ಳಿ ವ್ರುತ್ತದ ಬಳಿ..ಮೇ ೨೦೧೦

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The eat outs in B'lore

The famous few eat-outs that I visited in Bangalore.

SLV Coffee Bar at Banashankari II stage,
A small canteen opposite, Sree Varaprada Venkateswar Devagiri Temple, Famous for Idlis/ Dosas.

Vidyarthi bhavan
Gandhi Bazaar.
A famous udupi style hotel, with special Masala Dosa (The speciality also lies in the way they bring the dosa to serve!)

VV Puram, the chat lane.
A lane that has different chats, Dosa, Holige.

A2B Adyar Anand Bhavan
Near Udupi garden, BTM
Modern style south Indian hotel :)

Brahmins Cafe
Near Sringeri Mutt, ChamrajPet
Idli with chutni, and delicious coffee

Upahara Darshini
DVG Road, near Netta kallappa Circle

UD, Upahara Darshini
4th Block
Vegetable Roll Dosa and many more!

Barbecue Nation
Near Shankara Netralaya, JP Nagar
Buffet Lunch unlimited food! More of a non vegetarians heaven, but vegetarians too can have stomach full food!

The Treat
80 ft road, Indiranagar
Chinese restaurant

Nandhini
100 ft road, near airport road flyover, Domlur

Inchara - Family Restaurant
Puttenahalli Main Road, JP Nagar
One of the best Restaurant, but costwise, on the higher end.

Spice Curry
80Ft Road, Indiranagar
Our Company Backyard, most of the parties happen here. Pretty reasonable price, good food.

Tamarind Restaurent
Ramamurthy Nagar Outer Ring Road Junction
Friends b'day party with our team, okay kind of restaurent.

pick n move
Near East End Circle, Bannerghatta road.

Gandharva Sip and Dine
AttiGuppe, Vijaya Nagar

Parivar
Jayanagar 4th Block

Khansama, UB City, Vittal Malya Road
Our US managers threw a lunch buffet party to the whole team. The royal indian master chef as the tag line reads, the lunch was pretty nice and the royal ambience was the catch for the eye. Rs 300+ buffet lunch was very good considering the location.

Khandani Rajdhani, Ek khandani parampara
UB City - Canberra Block, Vittal Malya Road
Gujarathi, Marwari and Rajasthani style vegetarian lunch is the famous on the menu. Rajdhani Meal boxes are also very well known. The new company joining was the occasion, the development manager played the host. The meal costs Rs. 250+(lunch) Rs.325 (dinner)

Maiya's 4th block, Jayanagar
From the people who made the MTRs, the much organized south indian restaurant. We went for a special south Indian meals. Priced at Rs.135(as on 29 Sept 2010) it has menu that one can expect from a south indian marriage ooTa :) Starting with a honey kesar juice to poori koorma to pulav - white rice -sweet - ice cream - paan. A clean and a wonderful experience. Book in advance @ 9632411352
(Inconclusive)

Toscano, The italian restaurent
UB City - Canberra Block, Vittal Malya Road
With our senior manager the development team went to this Italian restaurent. On the upper side of the price, the menu had all the italian dishes like salads, macaroni, pizza, deserts. Nice for a try, but a bit costly (per head around Rs.550)

Samarkhand, the Afghani restaurant...

To celebrate our project completion, the company planned a lunch for our team at Samarkhand (7th March, 2008) Restaurant, on the infantry road. Our product line Manager from Beaverton was the host and the entire Quality team, one each from the documentation team, software and a manager accompanied us.

The ambiance of the restaurant had the touch and feel of Afghanistan, with low chairs/tables and paintings on the walls. Added to this are the Pathani style pajama outfits of the waiters/captains and the Afghani style utensils.

Much of the dishes were delights of non vegetarians, I had to be contended with few veggies ;( As it was a Afghani restaurant, dishes were a bit spicy and rest everything seemed to be a normal North Indian restaurant menu. We ordered for a Buffet Lunch(Rs. 750=00 per head) and ordered fruit juices (Fruit Punch Rs. 170, Lime Juice Rs. 120!!). The starters were so spicy, that the US manager started "sweating" (with face becoming red) with just two bites of Baby Corn Manchurian and Paneer Fry!!

As it was full buffet with unlimited food, there was more food than we could have consumed. The lunch ended one hour late at 3 pm and we were back to office by 3:30pm.

The Experience was multiplied, with half of the restaurant occupied with good looking chicks!!

A journey to welcome 2008...

As the chugging train came to a halt, I could hear the porters voice, "Happy New Year, luggage etthlikke jana beka, Sir?"... English speaking porters! Welcome to Bangalore, the IT capital..

With this, my year end-eve trip to Solapur and Shimoga came to an end.

The year 2007 had been a roller coaster ride, with visit to as many places, in as many months. I also moved from Manipal to Bangalore for my Internship. So to end the year in a journey spirit, planned a quick trip to Solapur.

First leg of the tour started off with a train journey to Shimoga, to attend my best friend Pradeep(N)'s (28th Dec 2007) marriage. The midnight train from Bangalore to Shimoga(Shimoga Express, Off B'lore 11:40pm Shimoga 6:15am), passed off in good sleep. Woke up to a chilly morning in Shimoga. With relatives in all the places, stay was planned in my brothers in-laws place. The whole day passed attending the marriage. I could not imagine we were together from the day, when we used to steal mangos from MGM ground till his marriage. After lunch, bid farewell to friend and I'm off to the next part of the journey.

MalenaDa Mussanjeyali: Caught the KSRTC Karnataka Sarige bus to Bijapur (Sakleshpura-Bijapur 6:45pm Off Shimoga-Honnali-Harihara-Hospet-Bijapur). The bus was speeding, as if, it is competition to overtake the evening setting SUN. The route was comparatively good. After the evening dinner in a roadside Daba, the journey was passed counting stars and looking at the night moon. Soon, sleep overcomes everything.

Finally reached Bijapur at 5:30am, a new full fledged KSRTC Bus Stand (even Udupi doesn't have one). The first bus to Solapur (Mangalore-Sholapur KSRTC), left very soon. The bus was running, piercing the morning chilly weather. In two hours, reached Solapur(29th Dec 2007), where Murali uncle was waiting for my arrival.

The following three days passed like anything. The highlight of the three days is obviously the delicious foods that were relentlessly prepared by Shobha aunt. So many different types of Rotis, curries and sweets that were beyond my counts. The evenings were reserved for visits to Uncles Dawakhana, relatives and other places with Pacchu. Night were again reserved for movies, after dinner with Sudeep. Watched Taare Zameen Par, Welcome, Superman, X-Men 3 The Last Stand.

The last day of 2007: The year which sent me back Bangalore, the year started with Semester exam!! the year that is very close to my heart, the year which made many people close to me, the year which saw me on top of Kumara Parvatha, The year that made me win interviews, the year which saw the arrival of a new member to our family, the year in which my dad celebrated his 60th birthday (Shashti Poorthi) with full family, the year which made my entire family NRI!! The year which saw my sister buy a house in US. To sum it all, the memorable moment of 2007 will be Vismay, my nephew.

(31th Dec 2007) With the clock ticking to 12:00 I was standing on the railway platform with Pacchu to board the Karnataka Express at 00:10am, how memorable it was to welcome New Year on a railway platform!! The train arrived 15 mins late. Bidding farewell to Pacchu, I was back to my upper berth seat, which will take me to my Karmabhumi (B'lore). Reached Bangalore next day 1:30 in afternoon.

At end, I would like to quote a sanna kavana from my friend Girish Shetty,

ಕಣ್ಣಂಚಿನಲೆ ಕೊಂದಳು ಹುಡುಗಿ ಕುಡಿ ನೋಟದ ಬಾಣವ ನನ್ನೆದೆಗೆ ಎಸೆದು

ಮತ್ತೆ ಜೀವ ಬರಿಸಿದಳು ಬೆಡಗಿ ತುಟಿಯಂಚಿನ ನಗುವಿನಮೃತವ ಎರೆದು