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| Friday, April 14, 2006 |
| Yesterday - An Eventful Day. |
Every one of you would have heard about the riots in Bangalore after the demise of the great Kandada film actor RajKumar. 4 buses were burnt, police jeeps were thrashed, quite a few private vehicles were also banged and the saddest of all, it cost the life of 5 human lives!! I would like to share my experience on this eventful day @ Bangalore with you guys...
At Wednesday night 10 PM, I was still slogging in my company. I got a mail that thursday was declared a public holiday and went back home happily. Next day, got up very late and went out to have breakfast. No shops were open. There were few medical shops that were half closed (It seemed that is to only aid the few who got minor scratches while bumping the buses and jeeps). I managed to sneak into a small tea shop opened by a rebel and finished my breakfast with a puffs and tea.
Then... went back home to while away the day. My only hope was TV and thought I could manage with Bangladesh-Australia test match highlights. Then came the real shock...Cable TV operators at many places in Bangalore stopped broadcasting the entertainment channels and broadcasted only the channels that showed the great actor's movie or at least his photos. The manthra being..."No fun for 2 days".... Anyway, I managed with "Dishum" VCD that my roommate hired it for 10 bucks last evening..(VCDs in Bangalore are damn cheap).
At 1 PM, I went to my kitchen to get some water and ended up finding that there was not even a drop of water available to drink. So, thought I have to sneak in somewhere to get some food + some water to drink. After 20 mins of walk, I found an All-In-One kinda shop. When I requested for a pepsi, the shop keeper was reluctant to give anything else apart from bread, rice, noodles and jam (Funny...I never asked him for free of cost). A guy standing beside me told that u will get the stuffs that are needed for survival and no other luxuries. Hmm, never knew that drinking pepsi in the hot sun is an entertainment. I virtually begged him to give me a can of water and atlast managed to get it.
Time was now 1:30PM, was feeling very hungry coz I haven't had enough in the morning. Then we (me + couple of my room mates) found an Andhra mess, which was half closed but the owner was willing to give us parceled meals. By the time I got the parcel, I realized that I had already walked for almost 2 Kms. So, thought we would do good for ourselves by hiring an auto. I found an auto that had a mini cutout of Rajkumar. I was so tired that I was willing him to pay 1.5 times the normal rent (10 + 5 = 15 bucks). The guy replied back in Tamil with a kanda tint that "1000 ruba koduthalum nanga yarum innaikku vara mattom." When I went back home walking all the way, I had severe headache (I was ill last week and wasn't fully fit). When I finished my lunch, I.... don't know what happened...not sure if I washed my hands. I got up only @ 5 PM.
I planned well enough for my dinner. Went to my friend's house who stays nearby, cooked some food in his home and finished my dinner. Meanwhile, watched "Ullam Ketkumae" in DVD player, played NFS 2 (after a long time) in his PC and came back home @ 9 PM.
When I reached my house, I Switched on the TV...now NDTV was on...(still no signs of Star Movies or Ten Sports)... the first sentence I heard was ... "It is a shame for the people of IT capital of India to behave in such a manner and this act doesn't show any respect to the greatness of the man who had passed away. One could imagine the state of the city when Veerapan kidnapped the legendary hero. If his death wasn't a natural one, it's hard to envisage the state of the city."
I turned the channel to NDTV Profit... "Heavy losses for BPOs and IT majors. The riot has definitely damaged the image of the IT city and this could prove devastating in the longer run."
Now, my manager (Australian by birth, stays in Bangalore for 2 years to write a book (his 3 rd book) on Bangalore's IT charm) called me if I would like to play tennis with him friday morning. Then, he asked me if it is quite regular in this part of the world for such riots to happen, for which I had no answer. He commented that "it seems like RajKumar has more influence in India than what James Bond has in US". I could imagine what he would write about Indians (For him...'Indians' is synonymous with 'Bangalore-ians') in his book.
Now...My house owner's son came into the house (a kanadiga by every right). I casually asked him about the happenings in the city. He replied back that "This shows the unity of Kanadigas and their power. People (north Indians?!!) will now realize the strength of the Kanadigas". May a times I get the impression that the native kanadigas feel that S/w engineers (north indians esp) are the looters of Bangalore's wealth?! I wasn't able to react to such a comment from him. I shut my mouth and started moving towards my bed wondering "when Shivaji died.....". |
posted by kart @ 3:28 AM   |
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| 2 Comments: |
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Hmm...
I'd start my post with something like ur last line - "when MGR died"?!?!? I really dunno what happened - but heard of things like bandh and violence.
I've followed this Rajkumar thing, coz I was pissed off when I bro had to run away straight from work, hitch a ride in a van along with a few colleagues to Hosur and then take some ad hoc trip to Chennai to escape the whole thing. All because someone, aged 78, passed away, in a very natural way!!! Why on earth??? I still cannot comprehend this. Sitting so far away in Chennai, the whole thing looked stupid to me. Really - I’ve got no other word.
Day 2 (Friday) - By now I was thinking on the lines of "okay!!! The fans could not take this sudden demise of this demigod. So in a spurt of emotional outburst, they did all this". My bro was back home safe and that kind of settled it to me. Here's the twist - I now start to get more news about the happenings in Bangalore. And a few of those disturbed me really.
News 1: Fans (so called?!?!) burn vehicles in places, including public transport vehicles. What the Fuck!?!? What harm did the common public do??? Why would "fans" wanna burn down public transport vehicles??? Anyone - any answers??? I cud not think of any???
News 2: This was near the ground where he was cremated. The "fans" again - they supposedly got angry on not being able to see Rajkumar. So they went on rampage, attacked a hotel nearby, set it on fire, molested foreign travelers and looted their bags. Sorrow?!?!? Doesn’t seem to be right!?!?
I was all the more puzzled by the inefficiency of the Karnataka police. Day 1, the whole thing happened all of a sudden. So the police was unprepared - okay!!! What about day 2??? There were agitations in only a few places. Are the Karnataka police so inept???
Overall - one more black mark on the fast declining reputation of Bangalore. Even those who shot at every man with a beard after 9/11 or 7/7 will call this insane. Or perhaps they will understand - who else can :)
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My dad asked a question, when I told about these riots, "I've seen (of course in news) people rioting as a protest to globalisation, at WTO conferences. I'm seeing riots in Nepal for democracy. Labor laws protest in France. Why do we keep silent the real issues and burn buses for Rajkumar?"
"Easy appa. How many people do you think, know about the issues you are talking about. They want to show, we can also do riots and Rajkumar was the only thing they felt like doing."
"Sari adha vidu. Romba naatta pathi yosikka venaam, nee paathu iru. Veliya pona Hindila Englishla pesi samaali. Idhaan saakunu thamizhana pottu adikka poraanga." (My father believes I'm fluent in Hindi, forgive me.)
(I'ld rather won't comment on kannadigas. Namma aalungalum chance kedacha kerala kaarana pottu pinni irukkaanganu kelvi pattu iruken.)
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Hmm...
I'd start my post with something like ur last line - "when MGR died"?!?!? I really dunno what happened - but heard of things like bandh and violence.
I've followed this Rajkumar thing, coz I was pissed off when I bro had to run away straight from work, hitch a ride in a van along with a few colleagues to Hosur and then take some ad hoc trip to Chennai to escape the whole thing. All because someone, aged 78, passed away, in a very natural way!!! Why on earth??? I still cannot comprehend this. Sitting so far away in Chennai, the whole thing looked stupid to me. Really - I’ve got no other word.
Day 2 (Friday) - By now I was thinking on the lines of "okay!!! The fans could not take this sudden demise of this demigod. So in a spurt of emotional outburst, they did all this". My bro was back home safe and that kind of settled it to me. Here's the twist - I now start to get more news about the happenings in Bangalore. And a few of those disturbed me really.
News 1: Fans (so called?!?!) burn vehicles in places, including public transport vehicles. What the Fuck!?!? What harm did the common public do??? Why would "fans" wanna burn down public transport vehicles??? Anyone - any answers??? I cud not think of any???
News 2: This was near the ground where he was cremated. The "fans" again - they supposedly got angry on not being able to see Rajkumar. So they went on rampage, attacked a hotel nearby, set it on fire, molested foreign travelers and looted their bags. Sorrow?!?!? Doesn’t seem to be right!?!?
I was all the more puzzled by the inefficiency of the Karnataka police. Day 1, the whole thing happened all of a sudden. So the police was unprepared - okay!!! What about day 2??? There were agitations in only a few places. Are the Karnataka police so inept???
Overall - one more black mark on the fast declining reputation of Bangalore. Even those who shot at every man with a beard after 9/11 or 7/7 will call this insane. Or perhaps they will understand - who else can :)