Height of advertising

That will be thirty thousand feet above sea level when Air Deccan does it. A story going around was that these ad images on Air Deccan planes inspired Vijay Mallya. He couldn’t advertise his beer on TV, in newspapers or magazines. But nobody would be able to stop him from painting ‘Kingfisher’ logo on aeroplanes [...]

Wings of steel!

Trucks carrying dangerously dangling cargo are fairly common on Outer Ring Road. But looked to me as if this one had wings of steel. Only thing, it wasn’t able to use those metal feathers to fly. But if one rod from the bunch had slipped and fallen down on the road, my car and I [...]

Just mind your own business

Bangalore airport. 9:20 am. They make a departure call for the flight to Pune. Passengers walk towards the gate. A healthy queue is formed, and I get lucky to be 5th from the departure gate.
2 minutes later, I see a tall young chap, must be in his late twenties, rushing towards the same gate. Our [...]

Bangalore takes a real step to decongest itself

If you read the newspapers today, you may have marked out that “Greater Bangalore bit” as ‘headline of the week’. But I found this “tender” on page 5 of TOI to be the most exciting piece.
It is a tender floated by BMRDA (Bangalore Metro Region Development Authority). Wish I could provide a link for you [...]

‘Original’ DVD video

This metblogs post from Shadow reminds me of my struggle to get hands on an original DVD at nearby rental stores.
When it comes to renting video here in Whitefield, we don’t have much choice anyway. One day I set out, drove around and found this store on the main road itself.
I asked him, “do you [...]

Tributes from a fan …

While regular and esteemed columnists do a detailed filmography and tell you all about his life, I got to take a moment here to pay my tributes to the greatest filmmaker of yesteryear’s – Hrishikesh Mukherjee.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee certainly made the best films of 1970s. The man gave us arguably the best tragedy (Anand) and the [...]

Bangalore: Traffic in pictures

Been a while since I posted my last set of traffic pics. Here are some new ones, with focus on ‘big guys’ – the “Ghatothkachas” of our roads.

“If things drop down, please honk so that I can stop to pickup. And I hope you dont die in the resulting accident.”

This BMTC driver was loud and [...]

The Vande Mataram controversy – III

My last post on the subject, though I am yet to finish reading Ananda Math.
That book is a description of a Hindu revolt against the British and Muslim ‘invasions’. It can be argued that it tends to suggest that submitting to the British was only option available to ‘counter’ Muslims of the Nawab era.
So, the [...]

Bangalore not to be the capital of Karnataka!

No, that is not happening right now, I just made that headline up. Actually, no one is even thinking about it. But, at the risk of being renamed silkboard-bin-tughlak, I say that is a good long term solution for de-congesting Bangalore.
Given the rotten state of our cities, and amount of political will it will take [...]

Landmark music: Hum Dono

Imagine an album where three of most popular playback singers of the time, all sang songs that would make it to top5/top10 playlists of most fans. When I think of Hindi movies with landmark music, of the few that readily come to mind, “Hum Dono” stands out for this particular reason.
When music critics do a [...]