Ramanagaram: A trip to see Bollywood history

If you ask someone about one of the most famous movie in Bollywood (film industry in Mumbai, India: Synonymous to Hollywood), you can't miss one movie in most of the lists: 'Sholay'.

Landscape of Ramanagaram

The place we visited recently has its relation to this legendry Bollywood movie. Ramanagaram is situated ~ 50 kms from Bangalore in the Bangalore-Mysore highway. Its a small town with lots of huge rocky outcrops. This place is also popular with rock climbers and adventure sports enthusists. The location was also selected for the village "Ramgarh" in the hindi movie Sholay.

I got my first car recently and my friends were anticipating a long ride (they are just scapegoats, I was actually wanting to have on long drive) in it. So one fine day decided to drive to Ramanagaram ans see the places around. 

On a fine Saturday morning called up my friends Pankaj and Kshitij (they are my college friends from Kanpur working in GM). They were still sleeping, the common time pass for Bangalore techies on a Saturday morning. 

from left: Me, Kshitij and Pankaj

"Hey Pankaj" --- "Kya hain" --- "Chalna hain kya Ramanagaram" --- "Chalna hain kya? chalte hain. Kab nikalna hain" --- "9:30 tak latest nikal chahltein hain" --- "Theek hain. Hey Kshitij, Phuki ka phone hain. Ramanagaram chalna hain. Chal uth jaa jaldi". And thus our trip to Ramanagaram was finalized. I quickly went to have my bath.

By the time I left home it was 10. Filled my fuel talk to full and picked up my friends. We hit the Bng-Mysore highway by ~ 11 and then started the smooth ride towards Ramanagaram. The highway is awesome for drive and you can test your vehicles performance. All said and done, there is something you should be careful of:

"I wan enjoying the nice empty roads and sudenly was intercepted by a traffic police vehicle. I was told I exceeded speed limit. I was given a ticket. The speed limit was 50 and I was driving at 70. 70, thats because its a new car dude, I sould have been driving over 100 at such roads. Anyway, I paid the fine (Rs. 300/-) and moved on. So don't get carried away and keep eyes on the speed limit boards."

We stopped over to have our meal in the middle. The day was extremely hot and we had some tough time. We were expecting similar weather even at Ramanagaram and had our second thoughts on going on a long trek.  We reached there at ~ 12:40, distance covered ~ 60 kms. At Ramanagaram, take a right turn after "Ghousia College of Engineering" to hit a small road away from the highway. The road will take you upto the base of a temple. Its also passes through a small ghat kind of area. Its approx. 4 kms from the highway. We parked our car there and looked around for the roads.

Me with Ramanagaram kids. Car parking

A guide hopped in and promised us to provide the trip of a lifetime :) He was asking for Rs. 50/- and we agreed. He guided us through a route through a very small village. He started showing us stuffs (most relates to the movie Sholay). He showed us the place where the bridge was made (relate to the movie), where Thakurs house was located. One funny claim: "You remember the goat Jaya Bacchan hugged in the movie, that was mine", the guide said. He finally lead us 

through to the place where Gabbar Singh had his "adda". Its was combination of some nice hillocks, spreaded uniformely around. Some small rocks are spread around and the place was surrounded by high rocks hills (looked like a ideal place for rock climbing and rappling).  His claim of this place as Gabbar's den was realistic, and the place looked very similar. We started clicking pictures of the place and also enacted a small movie of the Gabbar Singh's "Kitne aadmi thein" dialouges (Pankaj as Gabbar). 

Gabar's den

Its time to move on. We came back to the base of the temple and bid adieu to our guide. A set of around 400 steps lead us to the top of the hill where the temple is situated. Saw a water tap and quickly quenched our thirst. Saw the places around and took rest. The view from the top was amazing. We can get a good view od the landscape around, with small rocky hills surrounding the place.

Temple at hill top

It was around 4 pm by then and we decided to move back to Bangalore. Reached home at around 6 pm after beating the traffics inside Bangalore. Went out for dinner with Kh,Pnk and headed back home. It was tiring because of the extremely hot weather, but fun. Some new places to see, and just hang out at some places outside Bangalore (my idea of a perfect weekend).

Informations that migt help:

- Distance ~60 kms each way

- Water is available but nothing to eat. Carry eatables

- Roads are awesome, you will atleast enjoy the ride

- Turn right from the highway after "Ghousia College of Engineering" and drive until you see the entrance to the temple. There are enough parking space there for free

- Take a guide, its helps and its fun

My first experience with BIAL (Bangaluru International Airport Limited)

I had to travel to Mumbai for my personal work on 23^rd of May 2008. It had already been announced that BIAL will flag-off the same day. I had to catch a 3:30 pm flight. So I planned to work for the first half of the day in office. At the back of my mind, all the uncertainty involved with the travel time kept me worried as this was the first day of airport opening and there were no data to tell me the exact time it would take for me to reach the airport. The best I could do was to plan to leave office at the earliest.

Call it my luck, due to elections; the opening was postponed by a day to 24^th of May, and I comfortably spent the first half of my day in office. The HAL airport is just walking distance from my house, and I took my Kingfisher flight to land in Mumbai.

I had my return flight on Sunday, 25^th May. I knew BIAL has already started its service, and prepared myself mentally for the long trip back home. This is the first time I properly looked at the Mumbai airport. It looked beautiful. Lot of work is still going in one of the terminal and construction workers were spread around at the terminal with their machinery and equipments. I looked for the terminal from where the Kingfisher (KF) flights takes off. I figured out the auto dropped me at the first terminal and I had to walk down to other end of the airport. The KF terminal is at an unbelievable location and reaching there was a real adventure: passing under overhead construction workers, walking up staircases to the second floor and asking multiple peoples. The KF flight was delayed by 1 hour and finally reached Bangalore by 11:10 pm night.

I peeped out of the aircraft window to get a first glimpse at the new airport. To be honest it looked really impressive and huge, compared to its old HAL veteran. But soon all my enthusiasm vanished as we waited more then 10 minutes with the aircraft door still closed. This delay after reaching late to Bangalore was annoying. An naturally embarrassed flight captain announced “we no more control the disembark ladder. Its been controlled by BIAL and they has been informed about the requirement”. This was the sign that BIAL is still learning to manage its resources in the second day of its service. Finally the ladder came and we were out of the aircraft. The Volvo bus took us to the terminal building. I guess it was a rare mistake; the driver dropped us at the wrong door. Everything was closed and whole team was struggling to find their way out as everything was closed :-) We saw other busses dropping passengers further down, and we started walking to the other door. To be frank I was quite frustrated after all the delays and the mess, and others looked frustrated too..

After entering through the door, got the first glimpse of the new terminal building. The space is not that big, but naturally spacious compared to its veteran. There were LCD

panels all around displaying adds. The overhead LCD screens displayed the baggage claim details with belt no for each flight that landed at that time. I just had my hand baggage, so I won’t be able to comment on the efficiency of the baggage claim system. I directly walked towards the exit of the airport. The directions were nicely marked at all locations visibly illuminated. I followed the direction that said Bus, which lead me to the exit. There was a helpdesk right there where I enquired about the bus service. They guided me to the bus stop, which is located right outside the airport, and it can be seen even from inside. Walked down to the bus stop. When I looked back, got the full view of the illuminated BIAL terminal. It looked really great. Outside the airport there was sufficient space for parking for vehicles, each locations clearly marked. The bus conductors were calling for passengers for their respective routes. I enquired about the HAL airport route and I was guided to the route # 4 bus. It’s the same Volvo that plies in the city. The front seats were replaced with luggage compartments for ease of luggage transport. I paid rs. 150/- for the ticket. The bus started it journey at 12:00 at midnight with the bus filled with passengers.

The bus left the airport to hit the highway. The infrastructure outside looked awesome. The roads leading to the airport has been really well built, and may be because it being the second day of operation, the whole road leading to the airport is beautifully illuminated. Felt like moving out from a real international airport. The Volvo bus took to its full steam, and roads were quite empty at that hour at the night. Saw the cabs from the “Meru & Easy Cabs” the official taxi service for BIAL. It looked cool with its ash color and big taxi sign illuminated at its top. The cabs were mahindra logan vehicles. The bus traveled without any traffic interruption, something I have never experienced in Bangalore :-) It was funny that roads got worsened when it entered the city, and I got the feeling how bad Bangalore infrastructure is. The bus took the bellary road, old madrass road and finally hit Indiranagar and then airport road. When I was dropped at my place in front of erstwhile Kemp Fort, I quickly looked at my watch. It was 1:00 am at night. I believe this is the minimum time I would take to reach home, as there were hardly any traffic and the bus was at its full steam. I might have to get a more practical estimate of the travel time, as today travel was quite an ideal one. I guess, at least one and half hours looked practical. The same time will apply for reaching the airport also. I would ask people to keep 2 hours for airport travel to be on the safer side.

Things that worried me the most, the airport travel looked smooth: courtesy BMTC. Besides the operational hiccups in the new airport (they will improve that with some days of service), the overall experience was very satisfying. Only pain was the drastic increase in the travel time, but I guess I will start getting benefit of reduced traffic on the airport road from now on.

WEARING HELMET SAVED ME:

Driving bikes fast is one of my very BAD habits. But fortunately I try to make sure that I know what the safe limits are depending on the road and traffic condition. But according to my friends, I am in the dangerous driving regime according to their standards. I always make sure I wear my helmet when I drive my bike. The actual reason for wearing helmet is actually it helps me to drive fast, much better visibility than fast winds hitting my face, and it also saves me from the dust.

Once on a rainy night I had to come back home from J.P.Nagar (Bangalore). There was a dinner get-together at my friend's house. It was late, raining (actually drizzling) and I really wanted to hurry back before it starts pouring heavily. Once I hit the main road I put my bike under full throttle. Its late night and the road were empty. So speed was not a criterion for me. The road was not properly illuminated (my headlight also didn't seemed too bright). I was cruising at full speed and suddenly I saw a gigantic speed breaker. I was at a speed at which I could not really respond. I could hardly remember what happened next, all I remember was I was off the bike skidding through the tar road and my bike following me. People gathered on the place and took me to a nearby hospital.

When I finally reached home, I was in a state of shock. But after I saw my helmet I really knew how lucky I was. The scratch marks in the helmet was too scary. I imagined those scares in my head, man I was lucky. If I wasn't wearing my helmet that night, I wouldn't have been alive talking to you in my blog today.

All said and done, little advice I want to give you friends (it's your personal decision if you want to take it :-)
- ALWAYS WEAR HELMET
- Don't drive fast on the roads you are not familiar with
- Overconfidence kills, know your limits
- Empty roads are more dangerous then with traffic, you get more careless

Company Transport

I take my company bus to go office in place of my bike. Its actually the best thing to do in the Bangalore traffic. Well I am not so good at waking up early, so I miss my bus quite a time. Then I have to beat the traffic with my bike.

When I take the bus in the morning, there are many other peoples taking their respective company busses. One thing I observe is to try to benchmark the company facilities (bus service), to see if my company gives me bus-servive that is good :-)

Honestly, its just make me pass my time waiting for the bus. I really can't differentiate between all the company bus services, all looks equally good (or I say bad, ha ha). But one thing that really surprised me was looking into one of the company bus (I won't name the company). The bus looks like as if they are involved in human trafficking. By the time it reaches our stop, it is packed with peoples until the door. Few peoples get in the bus from our stop even under such condition, and it feels as if the last guy is hanging from the bus. Man it's surprising.

It takes hell lot of time reaching office; I even get tired sitting in the bus. It gives me time to sleep or think over something I want to do in office. But I just wonder about the peoples (those being human trafficked), they go standing to office, THEN WORK. How can you expect someone to work after such an tiring journey?

ITS MY SINCERE REQUEST TO ALL THE COMPANIES OPERATING IN BANGALORE, EMPLOYEES ARE ALREADY SUFFERING IN THE TRAFFIC JAMS, DON'T MAKE THEIR LIFE MORE MISERABLE BY PROVIDING SUCH A WORSE TRANSPORT TILL OFFICE.

Bangalore traffic & MY DREAM BRIDGE:

I am probably the millionth guy writing or talking about it. But its something one can't stop talking about.

I first came to Bangalore in 2000 for my summer internship in NAL. Bangalore was new to me and I had tough time initially figuring out directions to roam about. I stayed in CV Raman Nagar and take to take the early morning bus down to NAL in Airport road. We then take the NAL shuttle bus through wind tunnel road to the NAL R&D campus.

Now my first impression when I saw the wind tunnel road was, probably the places beyond it when we go by the airport road is city outskirts and nothing really existed. (I really didn’t know about the existence of Marathalli at that time). This impression mainly came because of the lean traffic I saw on that road. After almost a month I knew about the existence of Kemp Fort, which is just walking distance away from wind tunnel road. In my last days I started exploring places near Kemp Fort. One of my fellow trainee told me about a place called Marathalli he stays, which is a good small place. I went back with a very good impression, awesome weather, easy going peoples and fun place to be in. I wanted to be back here for my job, if given a chance.

Come 2003, I finished my Master’s and got a job in Bangalore. Really felt good to be back, with older memories coming back. This was quite a different place what I have seen when I left last time. More peoples, looked more developed, many more peoples probably working. Being posted in Whitefield, I got a chance to explore places beyond Marathalli J. I stayed in Indiranagar and it took me around 25 minutes to reach office, sometimes later. Comfortably took my 8:30 am bus to reach office before 9:00 am. Things were quite normal for a year when things changed. It started to take more time to get to office (courtesy the famous Marathalli bridge). My house owner in Indiranagar wanted me to move out, as it seems the house rent has suddenly increased quite a bit. We had to move to Airport road. It suddenly became common to reach office at 9:15 and later. Before I can really adjust “psychologically” traffic has started becoming unbearable in the bridge. I actually started getting headache by the time I reach office. It might be road rage, but all the vehicles just SHOUT’S WITH THEIR HORN for just no reasons.

Time passed by, traffic torture continues, every day MORNING as well as EVENING. Nobody cares, cars shout, bus shout, everyone just drives rash, no traffic rules, no lanes, WELL JUST NOTHING.

One fine day, I was just so happy to see a board. A bridge is planned to build in place of the current TORTURE bridge at Marathalli. In just 4 months (as per as I remember it was supposed to be over by 2006 September), we will be having a 6-lane road. I felt like I was daydreaming. But anyway traffic was diverted via the inner ring road, touching down the old-Madras road. The distance was longer (but believe me, it took less time to reach office). I wasn’t complaining, as its just some months of compromise and we will cruise through a highway, WOW.

OK, too much daydreaming J, today is September of 2007, and I am still awaiting my dream bridge. I just don’t know how much more time it would take. Traffic woes still continues, car’s still SHOUTS. And when it rains, it takes me 2 hours to cover the 12 kms distance from my office to home.

Added on 8th April 2008:

Today I saw the marathalli bridge opened. May be it was opened over the weekend.