BANGALORE BYTES AGAIN!!

In the last post I talked about how it was difficult for pedestrians to walk through in the domlur junction. But now I am glad that I am walking and not driving. This happens when it starts to rain. The previous day or rather the previous night we were planning to go back home from office.

We had been given some work as part of the project (the first work we had got) and we stayed back to make sure that it is finished on time. So by the time we started from office it was 10. Now after a long period of time, it was raining heavily in Bangalore. We were 5 people, one person had a bike and remaining people were walking. So we asked a auto the rate for going home. It is barely one km from here but he asked for 100 rupees. We bluntly refused. The auto person warned that it was full of water and difficult to walk. I was wearing sandals and not shoes so I said I don’t care and we walked on. Two people went on bike. Remaining three of us walked.

The initial part of the road was ok. We walked a bit. But then we saw that there was only water in front and no road. A lot of cars were going there. I asked for a lift in one of them. He asked me where I worked. I said IBM. He said,” hop on” and also added “hope you have not misunderstood me asking such a question. I said no not at all. I wanted lift only till the main road as I planned to walk as soon as the water level goes down. Now when I reached the main road, I was left with my mouth gaping.

One side of the road was full of water. Now just saying full won’t justify it at all. It was overflowing from the right to the left side. The water level was at least 3 feet deep. There was a traffic block there. Going forward I saw that one of the cars, an alto was lying at an oblong angle on that road. The water was till the window sill, some half feet below the window. The engine got off and the car was literally floating. Some cars went past it and due to the wave caused by that this car was moving around in water. The partition between the two roads was high and it was like a dam. The water was till the brim and overflowing. Some places where some of the bricks had broken off, the water was gushing like the water flowing from a dam. When one car passed the wave caused by that caused a larger volume of water to flow and some people in bikes had to get down to prevent being swept away. The bikers were taking the bikes up through the separation and moving to the opposite road. There was a traffic jam for at least 2 km. auto rikshaws lifted their vehicles and kept it on safer and higher ground. The Bangalore traffic and road were in a pitiable state. It was at this moment that I realized why people say walking is good for health. 