Snakes!

A conversation with mom on phone
Me: ‘Where was it?’
Mom: In my room, almost about to enter the bathroom
Me: And?
Mom: It must have sensed my footsteps and quickly turned back and climbed out of the window, probably from where it came in.
Me: Did you take a picture of it?
Mom: No, the camera and phone were both in the other room; I didn’t want to shift focus from it, so just stood there, observing and watching it
Me: Ok, good... Did it have any ‘V’ mark on its head? How big was it?
Mom: No it didn’t, it didn’t seem to be a cobra. It was about a meter long, not very big...But I was wondering what if it had got into the heap of clothes near the window, and if I had left it unnoticed for a long time?
Me: Don’t worry... most of the time they are harmless... but make sure you don’t get a shock if you spot one like that... in such cases, just open the door or window slowly and make some noise in the opposite direction, so that it goes out.
Mom: Hmmm... So you are now re-teaching me the lesson that I had taught you!!
Me: Oh yeah... :D

Yes, yes, you guessed it right. We were talking about a snake that had entered her room yesterday. Wondering how we could be so cool about it? Well, it is not the first time that a snake came in... not even the second, third or fourth time. We have in fact lost count of such instances... It keeps happening at least a couple of times a year inside home and many more times around, in the last two and a half decades of staying there. We were literally the first family to build a house in that part of Bangalore about 3 decades ago and for almost a decade ours was the only house, the nearest other building about half a km away. I’m sure mom, being a nature lover would have loved staying in such a place, with plants, trees, birds, animals and of course reptiles around, when dad was off to work during the day. How I wish I was staying in such a place now... well, it’s a tragedy there is no such place in Bangalore now, with every plant and tree being replaced by a high rise apartment or a shopping mall....

Coming to the point on snakes, I have so many experiences with snakes (just spotting the visitor of course, nothing else) not only in my maiden house but also the current one, that I thought of putting up here whatever I remembered. Before that please do remember that not all snakes are venomous, in fact very few are. If they were, then I would not be alive and writing them here!! And note that we, people, have encroached upon their habitats that they have no other place to go to and so show up in our homes at times. It is a sad thing that most of the times, snakes are associated with a lot of myths and just brutally killed. Come to think of it, it is these creatures that put a check on rodents like rats and mice, and maintain a balance in nature.

The world is not created only for man, in fact, if you ask me, he was a misfit here, in this beautiful world, that he is destroying all of it, and finally himself too.

Some good reads with information on snakes and what you should do in case of a snake bite:

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/blogs/show_entry/2082-venomous-snakes-near-sarjapur-road

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/2339-snakes-bangalore-safety-firstaid

More snake experiences of mine will soon follow.

A new block buster movie in Bangalore at 50 bucks!

Yeah... this used to be possible about a decade ago during our college days when we’d occasionally go to theatre to watch movies. And then came the malls and multiplexes, replacing the ordinary single-screen age old theatres. With this, rose the cost of movie-watching too. Watching a movie in Bangalore costs anywhere between 150 to 500+ bucks, depending on the day of the week and the movie.

Also the tickets need to be booked in advance. And driving to any of these ‘multiplexes’ which are at least an hour’s drive from home in heavy weekend traffic is a pain in itself.

For people like us, whose weekends are mostly quite unpredictable, planning out a movie-watching program had quite become a saga. We also missed a movie or two since we got tied up in some priority work though the tickets were booked. Due to all these, our movie watching had terribly reduced in the last year - just one movie in the whole of 2009!

We realized this early this year and were contemplating on some of the latest hit movies - Paa, 3 Idiots and so on, trying to decide upon the date and place, when we came across this ‘Venkateshwara theatre’ very close to home. Of course, we knew we should expect a cinema hall of the 90’s, but nevertheless wanted to give a try. So on a Saturday, quite unplanned, we just went in search of this hall in very narrow lanes. The then-showing movie was ‘Suryakanthi’, a kannada recent release. Though the movie was not so great, the cinema hall was pretty decent - for the 40 bucks that we gave per ticket! It did remind us of our childhood cinema halls, but I should say the sound system was not that bad, and the push-back seats were decent too.

Okay, we thought, we can just drop in here 10 minutes before the evening show, even on weekends, and watch some average movies. And to our surprise, the next week, when we were planning to go for 3 idiots and searching through the newspaper for the show timings in Forum, we saw that our dear Venkateshwara theatre was playing ‘3 idiots’!!!

At 5-30, being very sure that we won’t get the tickets for the 6pm show, that too on day 2 of the movie showing here, we still left home thinking we’ll buy tickets for the next day. And to our surprise, at 5-45, there were still ‘Balcony’ tickets available and for 50 bucks each!! And the hall was half empty! For a movie that is costing about 300 bucks in multiplexes, with all the complications, one sixth the amount was a great fair deal! The movie-count for this year is already 2 now, and I’ve decided to keep a watch on all the movies playing here.

A month of change...

Ok! I completed one month in this new workplace..... After working for over four and a half years in the previous place, I had got so resistant to change; but completing a month here, I feel the decision to change was not bad, after all!

Though the kind of work or the amount of it that I do is not much different, here are some note worthy changes this change has brought about:

• I don’t get an automated mail reminding me that I am late, if I log in to work at 9:00:01 a.m. (ya, late by 1 sec :D) Neither will I get a mail if I work for 8 hrs 59 min 59 sec, instead of 9 hrs! All I need to bother now is about my work being completed.
• I don’t need to wake up tense, get ready, gulp something and rush to work and wink at the entrance, only to realize I am late by a few seconds (I’m referring to the Iris recognition system to get into the office)
• I don’t need to put my hand bag, lunch bag on a x-ray scanner, mobile with a hologram on a conveyor belt and pass through the metal detector to make the security guards sure that I am not carrying any electronic storage devices into or out of the office (No, no, it wasn’t any rocket-science that I was working on, yet so much of security)
• I don’t have to commute 20km one way through the heart of namma Bengaluru city and spend a total of over 3 hours on the road in Bangalore’s traffic; instead, now, I have to ride for 15 min one way on a country-side road, which sometimes I feel is the road only for me, as there is no sign of what traffic is or what a signal is, pass through a couple of hamlets and wonder if it’s actually Bangalore!
• I don’t have to trouble Dee to drop me and pick me up everyday, making him drive for almost 4-5 hrs a day :)
• I don’t have a chance to crib that I don’t get time to read, as I have all the time now to read even two books in a week!
• I don’t have an excuse that I don’t have time for exercise as I do have enough time for it
• I don't have to wait till friday to go to office in casuals; he he.... anyday is friday now :)

On the other hand,

• I don’t get those tea time gossips and lunch time walks around the campus with my buddies :(
• I don’t get a chance to wait for a petty excuse to go to mom’s house directly after work saying that’s so close; now I have to wait only for weekends to go there. Neither can I go there for lunch once in a while, get pampered by mom and get lazy to get back to work :(
• I don’t get to drive with Dee to and fro everyday, talking non stop and entertaining him; I have to wait for him to get home before I start jabbering :P

Anyway, the negatives are few, as compared to the positives. And I’m pretty much happy about the decision.