Beauty of Bangalore - Unveiled

         After the temperature in Bangalore has risen to 35 degree Celsius yesterday, I was getting worried if I am going to have a scorching summer.. and as a relief came the rain. It had started raining yesterday evening (actually night).. was a heavy downpour. I had no mood to enjoy that rain as I was dying to sleep. Today morning, when I was tangled with my daily routine to set for the office, I casually went to the balcony at 7:30 a.m. Wow!!! What I saw was mind blowing scenery. There was no sun, drizzling sky, voice of the parrots, trees and flowers - all with drops of water adding more beauty to it, no sound of vehicles and the smell of mud (I love it). I was completely taken back at that instance. I was reminded of Munich (This is not to show-off. Munich is the place where I felt heaven. I would be very glad if I am just a tourist guide there :) I am very sure my own state Tamil Nadu will definitely have a place more beautiful than Munich, but still unexplored). I had suddenly become nostalgic. All memories about my previous hive (company) started flooding into me. The days in that company, the days we had spent on-site.. every memory. 

           I was not worried it was raining - I know I can't drive my 2 wheeler which means I need to struggle with the long bus rides. But never mind. I went down and was standing in the drizzle. Felt the cold breeze sweeping on my body. I had no regrets for wasting my time there. I cannot drive. I need to go by bus. It was already 8. When I had reached the main road, the only direct bus (which itself would take 1:30 hours to reach) was just crossing me. I wanted to run and catch the bus. My brain was telling me to run, my heart was telling me to walk. My legs obeyed my heart and refused to run. I just wanted to enjoy this weather. I did not want to run and get stuck inside the Volvo bus. I was not in a mood to care about the missed bus. I walked to the bus stop and had to take another bus. I could not believe what I was seeing - the bus which is usually flooded with people, was empty today. I had to find a seat which was not drenched with water. Took a window seat and opened the window. Rain has stopped now and it was lovely breeze. As the bus started moving, I could not resist enjoying the traffic free roads. What's happened to Bangalore -  crowd free bus, traffic free roads - was wondering if this hot sun has imparted a new life into Bangalore!!!

         Sitting in the window seat, I was seeing the world around me, which I haven't noticed all these days in Bangalore. Though I am in this city for 2 years and 3 months, this is the day I felt I should enjoy the window scenery. People standing in the bus stand waiting for their bus, people greeting each other in the morning, college students busy in chit-chat, beggars relaxing without the thought for the day, vegetable vendors happily talking, coconut vendor making his temporary tent, petrol pump guys starting their day with a happy chat, a person dressed in the most colorful way driving the most colorful cycle I have ever seen, people returning after morning work-out, play grounds busy with the future foot ball/ volley ball champions, small grocery shop owners opening their shop and cleaning it, wine shops waiting for the first customer of the day, all other shutters closed, the garbage van waiting to carry the garbage, men and women cleaning the garbage bin, a never smiling engineer in the bus, an ever smiling laborer near her - everyone was involved in their activity. Whether it is sitting idle or busy starting the day - everyone was so dedicated with their activity. I have never seen Bangalore so closely before. All I have seen is the traffic at 8 in the morning. But what I see today was completely different. Cool breeze, different people who are not engineers, green trees, colorful flowers, wet roads...... 

         As I reached the Main bus stand where I need to switch to another bus - I could see life was becoming busy. People running to catch their bus, the water filled bus stand, running between the buses to reach the next bus etc.... When I reached the platform for the next bus, I realized they had changed the platform. But I was not resentful about that. Any ordinary day, I would have been really pissed off, would have been complaining how in-efficient system is. But today was no ordinary day. I was enjoying the day. It was not 100 % the best scenery - there were stinking places, there were huge pits on the road, there were Raymond suit guys spitting on the road, road work every where... But all this doesn't matter when compared to the beauty I was enjoying.. :)

      On the way, I was crossing the bamboo trees of the Cubbon park - it had taken an extra-ordinary beauty today. Though I did not get place to sit in the second bus, though I had to keep my bag on the watery floor of the bus, though I was sweating in that crowd - I was not feeling sorry for taking this route. This bus was reminding me of Chennai in September. The rain flooded Chennai, flock (sorry crowd) of people jammed inside one bus - all this was typical Chennai. Though I have stayed in many towns/ cities - Chennai is the one which had always attracted me. The busy life of Chennai was always making me happy. But today I was enjoying the bliss of Bangalore - the laziness. The lazy city was back today morning. I was wondering if Bangalore has been hiding all its beauty all these days or was I closing my eyes refusing to see Bangalore? I was crossing the Central "Jail" and saw there was something called "Freedom" park next to it (Had to Google and find that they have revamped the whole area were Central Jail was there). I came to know "Old Madras Road" is actually "Swami Vivekananda Road". I had been missing all this all these years - just driving to reach my "far far" destination called the "office". 

        I felt I could have been unemployed. In such days, I would have happily found a nice wall to sit and watch all this. Curse me for being employed ;-). It was 10 a.m., when my mom called; I realized I had been in the bus for 2 hours :). I don't know how my entire day would be, but these 2 hours made my day. This entire journey, I missed something - the kids - Kids who can cast the stunning spell on me at anytime, anywhere. May be they are busy writing their Annual exams eagerly waiting for the summer vacation :-). 

        As I was enjoying this travel, suddenly I noticed the bus was turning to that road which I don't want to go!!! Oh no, no.. Stop... Oh NO, at last I have reached my office. I need to get down. The minute I stepped into the campus, I realized my hands and legs were losing flexibility. My X-ray eyes were scanning the destination - my office building. Yes, I am turning into a robot - IT robot. I was crossing many such robots - robots waiting in queue at the food court, robots smoking, robots arguing with auto-walas, robots paying hundreds of money to Taxi wala because it is company money, robots cursing the security for checking their cars every day, robots overtaking in the no-overtake zone, robots having no patience to wait for the lift and finally I reached my cubicle - to become one of the robots which stares at its monitors with no time even to blink and here goes the rest of my day.

(Whatever I have written is only my thoughts and nothing against engineers :-))

Buying a property - Beware!!

I am writing this post as an alert mail to anyone who is planning to buy a property. This is something which I saw, and I feel I should warn others too.

I am staying at "X" apartment in "Y" Area (am not revealing any names due to moral and legal reasons) in Bangalore. The apartment was developed by "Z" builder 20 years ago. This apartment has nearly 125 houses and it has 6 blocks (A to F). This is one of the modern apartment concept where the apartment includes kids play area, badminton court and so on. One fine day, when returning from the office, I was shocked to see the nearby building (individual house next to the apartment) demolished half. Nearly 10 feet of the house has been demolished. And the bulldozer was standing inside our apartment. Completely confused we started asking what is happening. And this was the shocking news. There had been an encroachment. Encroachment of the BBMP(Bangalore blah.. blah.. some government organization) land - unauthorized building constructed over the drainage canal (called as Raja Kaluve in Kannada). Don't know how BBMP started digging this problem - all of sudden we came to know BBMP has marked 40 houses constructed over the drainage canal. The marking was done fortnight before and now they have started demolishing the houses. They have already demolished 10 houses - some houses completely and some houses partly. So what's the next problem. A whole block of this apartment has been marked for demolition. This goes the story of the apartment -- there was a garden --> grape vine in the area surrounded by coconut trees. This garden was completely destroyed and the apartment was built (there is no written proof for this story. All stories spread by words). This apartment is one of the old apartments (first constructed) in that area. So how did this apartment face this encroachment problem?? No one knows - there are 16 houses in that particular block and BBMP is going to demolish this block. Was this encroachment done by the "Z" builder? Was this encroachment known to the owners of the 16 apartments? How were all the documents modified to hide the encroachment? Who played the game - of course with money - but who did it? No one knows that. When the people of the apartment questioned the BBMP, they straight away asked the document approval - which nobody in that block had. The owners of the block tried to get stay order for this - which triggered even more problem. The people who lost 10 houses (near our apartment) contacted the Lokayukta (this is one of the best schemes of the Karnataka government - anybody can file complaint against injustice). The Lokayukta people visited the apartment and they questioned the BBMP about the map for the drainage. BBMP took a day's time to produce the map - but they finally produced the map. The map was so clear --> clearly showing the original path of the drainage and the existing drainage. There was a clear encroachment. Now the BBMP has dug in the apartment and we could see the canal flowing below the apartment road. They have demolished the compound wall - and yes, we could see the drainage flowing outside. No one had ever seen beyond the compound wall. Only when they demolished the compound wall - we could see nearby houses - one house built exactly before the canal and one house built after the canal. So there is a very clear encroachment. There is another story too - when it rains our apartment will be flooded with water only in from of that particular block which has been marked as encroachment- and rest will have no problem. Looks like the apartment people complained to the BBMP to look into this water stagnation problem. They say when BBMP probed into this all these problems started. This is again a story heard from different people. No strong evidence for that.

So, what I am trying to tell :

  - Please be very careful when you buy any property.

  - Please check any documents properly before buying a property

(Everyone in this block is well educated - but what happened? How did they end up with this problem?)

      - When you check for documents, please ensure what are the approvals required in a city/ state where you want to purchase the property (for e.g. In bangalore, when you want to have a high raised building more than 4 storey (now extended to 8 storey limit), we should get BBMP approval in consent with the fire service department. I have not heard this rule anywhere.) So please collect details of all the approvals required in a city where you are planning to buy property.

      - People going for loan will get lawyers apporval. Please get a proper check done by the lawyer. Don't get the documents signed by the lawyer just for name sake. The terms used in law are so exhaustive that we will not be able to find the loop holes in the document. A thorough check should be done by the lawyer - not only in terms of land sizes but many other terms like land owner names, power of attorney usage etc.

  - When you find something fishy about a property

      - Like that is the only property not sold out in the area - then better be careful

      - When you find the land in some unimaginable dimensions (looking like a hexagon, pentagon, trapezium.. :-p etc) then pay more attention towards the near by land dimensions.

      - When you find some government constructions on the land - like an Electricity board poll, be careful.

      - Try to find the reason why the owner is selling out the land

      - When approached by brokers pay double attention to it

      - When buying from builders be careful because they have acquired a big part of land and it would be difficult to really find if encroachments had happened.

      - When someone projects land rate would appraise in the near future because of some SEZ, airport coming nearby, then make sure there is no goverment acquisition plans.

There are so many many things to take care before you decide to buy a property - I am not an expert to tell that - but I would like to warn people. Remember "Stitch in Time saves nine" :-)

People buy property - for some it is dream, for some it is just tax saving (especially IT people who resort to properties with the assumption that it is the best method), for some it is the best way to avoid shifting houses because of the pestering owners... What ever it is - no one would invest lakhs of money just for fun. It is our money and it our right to check the authenticity of the property.

I am only a tenant here - I am just seeing the owners tears. But the agony of the owners cannot be shared by anyone. It is easy to tell "All is fate. Who expected all this would happen" - but it is our duty to be safe.

I would like to remind that, the history of the apartment, the reason why BBMP digged the canal, who would have started this encroachment is all stories heard from people. There is no proof for that. But there is one fact that is definietly true - there are 40 families who are going to lose their hard earned money in the name of property. Encroachment - whether you are involved directly/ indirectly or even unknowingly; is a sin. Government will not care how you earned it, they will not care what is your current status, they are not bothered if you are innocent or not - all they know is to label that as encroachment and take the land away from you - even if it is 1 feet. So better be careful - no use crying over the spilt milk. :-)

What I am going to do now is to check all the documents of the house I own... ;-)