Bangalore Summer & Its Festivity Memories

Summer is a season not relished by many. Hot weather with thirsty days and sweating body is not liked by many. But Students & Kids like Summer very much, as it brings in VACATION from school & studies. Lots of ice creams, soft drinks fresh fruit juice all make summer memorable.

For Bangloreans summer brings in lot of events in form of City Festival 'Karaga', Lord Rama's Birthday -'Ramanavami' and 'Ugadi'- Kannadigas' New year day.

Bangalore once upon a time known as garden city and air conditioned city is no more clinging on to these titles. This year SUMMER of 'Namma Bengaluru' has overtaken Chennai & Mangalore cities  with soaring mercury levels. We can attribute this to chopping of trees and digging of bore wells and exponential growth in vehicular traffic leading to pollution of all sorts. Leave aside summer, this year WINTER of Bengaluru was not chilly!

RAMANAVAMI- Real Treat for Hot Summer

The mercury levels of summer has been associated with two Festivals Bangalore Celebrates with utmost enthusiasm. Ramanavami & Karaga. As mentioned earlier Ramanavami Birth anniversary of Lord Rama is celebrated with Fruit juice prepared from MUSK-MELON & Jaggery combo- PANAKA, Butter milk and a salad called Kosambari. All three food are best suited for SUMMER appetite. Ramanavami also brings in festivity in form of cultural programmes organized across the city of Bengaluru for weeks together. When Bangalore was not GLOBALIZED with Malls and Multiplex, Summer evenings at Parks of Bangalore with music played by renowned musicians was treat to eyes and ears. Even Today Ramanavami is a Festival apt for SUMMER season, with temples, schools, colleges and shop vendors distributing NEERU-MAJJIGE (butter milk) and KOSAMBARI- Salad.

KARAGA- The Festival of Bangalore City

KARAGA is celebrated in the name of lord Dhramaraya swamy for entire night during summer and the route through which the procession goes will be celebrating it with PANAKA & KOSAMBARI salad! Food that is yummy for summer season. Though Bangalore KARAGA of dharmaraya swamy is the official one of the city, many God and Goddess also have their own customized KARAGA. The person who carries the 'FLOWER TOWER' on his head is surrounded by veerakumaras dancing with swords. The act of balancing Flower-Tower isn't an easy task and needs expertise to carry it throughout the processions.

KARAGA procession takes place in Old Bangalore Localities for entire night, with people thronging in from various districts to watch this unique procession of GOD.

Though current generation is losing its attachment with such festivities, these festivals along with Kadle Kayee Parshe, Avare kayee Parshe still reminds of unique culture Bangalore had and is having.

Personally as a school kid I used to enjoy ramanavami by taking lot of PANAKA & Majjige staying away from home and patrolling city temples and streets serving Rama's favorite food to public!

One more interesting fact about the day of KARAGA is it rains and today it is raining in Bangalore giving break to long and  hottest SUMMER witnessed for the past two and half months.

 Happy Karaga...................

Bangalore City has eateries of all size and shape. Today road side eat-outs have become more and  more popular in Bangalore. Let us look into the history of evolution of eateries of various size and shapes across the city. Eatouts of Road side, read on

The Restaurants serving food in a relaxed style to customers' table through bearers was the main category of food outlets for Pensioners Paradise Bangalore. These type of Hotels initially made way for Fast-Food Darshini outlets that catered to the needs of customers with affordable quality food at quicker delivery mode called 'self-service'. Further these Self-service hotels mushroomed across the city in name of 'DARSHINI' chains. The key reason for mushrooming of SELF-SERVICE DARSHINI hotels can be attributed to unavailability of sufficient space and human resource to supply food to tables in service based restaurants.

As Bangalore evolved from Pensioner's Pardise to Information Technology Hub in 1990-2000, small cafe and chat centers began to mushroom outside I.T parks to provide affordable and tastier food for tongues that would have frozen eating same kind of Hi-Fi FOOD-COURT stuff within campuses. Now the trend is to set up small eat-outs called MOBILE-CANTEENS on road side thanks to whooping costs of realty and rents for commercial space in city limits. Now we have CHINESE, NORTH-INDIAN, SOUTH-INDIAN, SEA-FOOD, WESTERN-INDIA Chat centers, ANDRA-STYLE, HYDERABADI-STYLE, MANDYA-STYLE, DAVANAGERE-STYLE, HUBLI-STYLE food outlets on wheels and small canteens with self-service mode of operation doing hot-business in food and catering sector of Bangalore. Few outlets which are well known to me in areas of Rajajinagar, Malleshwaram, Peenya Industrial Hub and Hesaraghatta Main road are shared with you all here:

Bhattru Hotel (opposite Manipal North-Side Hospitals), Malleshwaram West

Bhattru Hotel or Raghavendra Hotel is a small eat-out joint next to Malleshwaram railway station that serves vegetarian food of great taste starting from IDLI, VADA to various kinds UPAMA akka UPPITTU at affordable hygienic style. It is an outlet people visiting Manipal Hospitals or Railway station will definitely drop in to satisfy their appetite.


One More Bhattru Hotel in Peenya Industrial Hub

This outlet always burgeons with customers from the industries of Peenya Industrial estate. The Open Masala Dosa and a type of BHEL-PURI called 'SANGEETA' are patented food items of this BHATTRU Hotel. This hotel utilizes footpath to its optimum extent. Here Service is also available to customers but at affordable price!

Gowdru Hotel in Chikkabanvara, Hesaraghatta Road

This is out and out Non-Vegetarian hotel that serves delicious Mutton Curry and Ragi Balls with Liver Fry and other parts of Goats and Sheep to customers in a home-cum-hotel environment.

Veena Stores, Malleshwaram

The name sounds like a Book stall! But it is a small store that caters to needs of Morning Joggers and Walkers of Malleshwaram with tasty IDLY and VADA. Also in Malleshwaram we have Bhagyalakshmi BUTTER-GULKAND store that prepares innovative food items using butter and gulkand. This outlet is in Malleshwaram circle (5th Cross). Those who often visit t Chickpet and Avenue road always talk about yummy DHONNE-BIRYANI of this locality. In addition mushrooming of mobile-eat outs selling Chinese to North Indian are doing good business in this city where commercial space is not affordable to all class of society to do business.

Bangalore Mob, Riots & Provident Funds Chaos

Dear Friends, The outer ring road of Bangalore is housing small scale industries and garment industries in huge number. Peenya Industrial Area in Tumkur Road is regarded as biggest Asian Hub for small scale industries. The workers in these garment industries lack basic facilities and often commute in goods-carriers to work and home. This Huge population which has migrated from various parts of state of Karnataka and even neighboring states in search of two times meal a day are in FIX for many reasons.

If you commute in Jalhalli Cross and Peenya-Yeshwantpur corridor in evening peak hour traffic you can witness the HUGE-Population of unorganized workers residing and commuting in this locality.

The other corridor of Hosur Road witnessed Mob trying to torch Police station to avenge the Lathi-Charge faced by women on 18th April 2016. This also led to police opening fire and two innocent people getting injured.Latest news read on

According to various workers & labor association leaders, all these employees are under UNORGANIZED sector of workers burgeoning in outskirts of Bangalore aka Bengaluru city. The last two days Rioting and Chaos witnessed by Bengaluru is amalgamation of restlessness filled among these workers particularly WOMEN labourers of garment sector.

According to one of the Workers Leader, who participated in TV9 (channel) live-show, these labourers are paid less than HALF DOLLAR salary a day while counterparts in CHINA and other countries have a better package. Though the central Govt. decision to stall payment of Employers share in Provident Fund until retirement age was the trigger point for this FIGHT! overall the living conditions of these workers in SALARY-DISPARITY METRO SOCIETY has to be blamed first. 

The other angle given by few media persons is that Employers running these garments triggered the riots by spreading rumors of UNFAIR-PROVIDENT SCHEME, as they had to pay huge sum of Rupees as Employer's Contribution under the newly formulated policy.

The Union Govt. which makes hasty one sided decisions in many issues like Pornography BAN on net to New Provident  scheme and withdrawing it hastily shows they lack planning and are unable to foresee the repercussions.

The state Govt. has to be blamed for poor handling of the mob particularly mishandling women workers, who form the major chunk of Garment Industry Laborers.

Finally paramilitary forces have been deployed to control any further untoward incidences. "AACH Din ABHI AANA HAIN"!

Dr. Rajkumar's WAX Model to be Ready soon

F.M channel Radio city-91.1 is celebrating legendary Dr. Rajkumar's Birth anniversary through a tribute of Biggest ever wax model (15 Feet) of the actor. Already the thespian has numerous statutes throughout the state of Karnataka and this venture by Radio City through wax artist Mr. JaQ is an unique one. According to R J Pradeep of radio city, until now all the wax models including that of Sachin Tendulkar and our P.M Narendra Modi are life size ones. This model of Dr. Rajkumar will be 15 Feet and tallest ever made in Indian wax model making history.

Thespian Dr. Rajkumar is a renowned name for we Kannadigas. His statutes and pictures inspired from his evergreen movies of yester-years are present across our state. April 24th is unique day I believe with two celebrities Dr. Rajkumar and Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar had arrived on Mother Earth on same date.

Namma Metro Train Runs Underground

Bengaluru Metro train has started operating underground from Magadi Road to Vidhana Soudha. Soon Namma Metro Train Phase-1 will be completely ready by November 1st 2016, with even the tunnel from Mantri Mall to Majestic being ready to take passengers by May end. The complete functionality of Metro Trains should reduce the pollution level and traffic congestion in Bengaluru by some extent. Namma Metro is first ever underground Metro train of India.

COMED-K Entrance Exams for Engineering Seats to go ONLINE 

The COMED-K entrance exams for professional courses like Engineering  will be held on May 8th, Sunday with exams switching over to ONLINE mode from regular paper-pen based mode.

IPL Watch: RCB-Royal Challengers Bangalore Continues their Losing streak

RCB is known to host a huge total and get defeated inspite of huge total, in this Vivo-IPL T-20 Tournament. This trend continued this week too. The Karnataka players in other teams like Delhi and Kolkata are ruining chances of Bangalore winning matches as they are playing small little cameo innings for their franchise in home turf aka K.S.C.A Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Campus Humor: From Teacher's & Student's Angle

Friends 'Campus' & 'Buzz' are synonyms isn't it? The academic calendar has Lecture Classes, Assignments, Internal Assessment Tests, Semester Exams and Cultural Fests plus Sports activities. While the students have their own 'Parallel Calendar' running throughout the semester with Class Bunks, First-Day First Shows, Gala Party, Love Affairs so on.....

Enjoyment in campus has no generation barriers. While past generations had their bit of entertainment with Mad-Ads, Comedy-Shows etc. Today's 'Gadget Savvy' generation come out with many Short-Movies uploaded on YouTube and use Apps like Dub-Smash to create neo-entertainment stuff in campus.

It is hard to imagine a single college campus whose students haven't contributed to YouTube Videos. Thus is the craze for'Short-Movie' making on campus issues.

My generation was pre-globalization one! Talking to opposite gender classmate and having intimacy was a big achievement for majority of student crowd. In such an era, A girl wishing you by shaking hands had potential to become NEWS! If you get such an accomplishment, your peers would create 'Hulla-Gulla' in campus, taunting you with quotes like "You will never Wash your Hands, after that intimate Hand shake!"

But Today's Campus has embraced Western outlook seamlessly. Other day I was in campus going for coffee, A bunch of girls were screaming from inside college bus. Another peer of that crew who was heading towards the bus from class, screamed loudly 'Hey, Why are you screaming as if someone is RAPING you?'

whereas for my generation this was really a TABOO issue.

While College fests are meant for merry making by students, Faculty have additional responsibility of policing the crowd to avoid bad incidences. So as a teacher you will play role of POLICE/SECURITY PERSONNEL (sometimes even Walkie-Talkie wireless phones will be given too).

My best memories are of Viva-Voce conducted in Practical examinations. As a student 'Philosopher' within me used to give answer to the questions instead of  'techie' within me. One such incidence is worth mentioning here. It was Microprocessor lab examination, I completed my experiments successfully, Teacher summoned me for Viva-Voce. Her question was Define 'PORT'. The answers I gave wasn't convincing her, she negated all my answers. Finally the Philosopher within me woke up and replied, "Madam, There are certain things in LIFE that doesn't have Answer or solution." The teacher was taken aback she stopped questioning me and concentrated on other mate of me!

I faced the same pinch of salt as a teacher later in my career. A student was caught for having copy-chits in his pockets. That guy coolly replied, "Sir, The trousers isn't mine, in urgency I wore my room-mates pants."

The next incidence was narrated by my friend as TRUE one happened in his class, Faculty was drawing a Four-stroke Engine diagram on board. A paper-engine-less rocket crash landed on the dais. Faculty became angry and started screaming at students. A cool dude from back benches came running with his hand-kerchief and picked up the rocket and murmured "Sir, We will send this to Finger Print Experts."   

Once I was conducting Viva-Voce for 'C' Programming lab. My question to student was 'Define Compiler.' He replied, "Sir, It is BLUE in Color!" His answer was apparently right as TURBO-C Compiler is BLUE in Color!

Friends, don't you agree that Campus means BUZZ & FUN.