Secret developer list!

Southeykai Sarathi has done some award-deserving undercover work and found the secret behind the beautiful, evocative names of housing projects around the city. What seems like unrestrained, brilliant poetry is actually a studied, scientific process, taking into account things such as spirit of the times, pervading moods, current trends, degrees of happiness, population flows, weather patterns, sea level changes and the background noise levels of the universe.

These factors have been used to create two highly distilled lists of English words that subliminally cue emotions of warmth, home, safety and great beauty. The resulting names are often deceptively similar, but these variations are, in fact, cunning and subtle. The lists allow developers to instantly create a name that would ordinarily take centuries of meditation and deep knowledge of the wayward ways of the natural world to develop.

And here, at great personal and legal risk, are the two lists--REVEALED TO THE PUBLIC FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME!!!! All you have to do is pick a word from List A and match it with--here's the amazing bit--ANY word from List B. Give it a try. It's a humbling experience.

List A
Palm
Fern
Diamond
Rose
Daffodil
Coconut
Blossom
Orchid
Sunflower
Welcome
Green
Garden (Some variations put this word in List B, but purists spit on this practice.)

List B
Meadows
Fields
Grove
Pastures
Glade
Park
Boulevard
Woods
Sanctuary
Resort
Refuge
Valley

Method actor snips spinal cord to play quadriplegic: Critics describe performance as "wooden"

Jum Jum Khan, India's revered method actor, recently underwent surgery to sever his spinal cord so that he could effectively play a paralysed character in Mohan Bagan's new play, I Was a Indian Politician. This intense drama tells the story of an aspiring prime minister who is "permanently poised on the edge of action".

Jum Jum Khan has, in the past, become an alcoholic, a heroin addict and a murderer in his quest for "hyper-real performances". However, critics were not impressed with his portrayal of Bagan's politician. "Wooden," said one. "Utterly failed to move me... or him," said another. "He should win an Oscar. For best set," said a third.

Jum Jum Khan was unavailable for comment, and has, inexplicably, cancelled his next movie, Rambamurthy, in which he plays an Indian version of John Rambo.

Visiting businessman trapped in one-way system for 14 hours

Bangalore's one-way road network makes for easy traffic flow, but can be a nightmare to navigate, as one visitor to the city found. Johaan Leftlooter, a businessman from Sweden, wanted to go just 250m down the road to his next meeting, but found that traffic flow was against him.

"I should have trusted my instincts and just walked. Instead, I chose to drive around. I lost my sense of direction and was lost for the next 14 hours."

Leftlooter, who makes it a point to drive himself in every city he visits, says he was often in tears during his ordeal.

"I came within sight of the building more than three times during my drive, but before I got there, somehow, I was on the wrong road again."

Leftlooter was soon dizzied and dehydrated, but kept going in the belief that his goal was "over the next hill--or in this case, around the next turn". When Leftlooter stopped for directions, which he did many times, he says he was always told the same thing: "Go straiiiiiight and take left".

"Very often, the left turn was a one-way road in the wrong direction, or it was a lane only wide enough for cycles, or it was a right turn. I'm sorry, but people in this city are directional fuckwits," said Leftlooter.

Leftlooter, who started his journey at 10am, finally made it to his destination at midnight. "As the traffic reduced after 11pm, I decided to follow an old Italian adage from the early days of Ferrari testing: 'When in the autodrome, do as the autodromans do.' So I went the wrong way down a street and I was there in five minutes. I broke down."

Luckily, since Leftlooter was a white person, the meeting attendees were still waiting. After he recovered, Leftlooter conducted the meeting and then went to his hotel. "I got somebody to drop me there of course. I'm never driving here again," he said.

Bangalore Airport awarded long-awaited 'Armpit' status

Bangalore: Officials of the Silicon City of India's international airport have worked many years for this. They have tried everything: from spraying newly arrived passengers with DDT, to employing 400 autodrivers to simulate their gang rape as they exit the terminal... but so far, nothing has yielded results. Then last week, in a surprise announcement, the International Shit Pit Recognition Organization (ISPRO), finally awarded Bangalore Airport its coveted 'Armpit' status.

"We worked a long time to think of a building and an experience that portrayed a complete antithesis of Bangalore's international image," said a visibly pleased K. Kumaraswamy, the chief of the Bangalore Airport Improvement Board. "Apart from the DDT and autodrivers, we have thought of all sorts of things; we have even provided, at great expense, piped body odour in the arrival and immigration areas."

"Our immigration officials are handpicked from far-flung rural areas. We ensure that all international flights are met by people who speak only Kannada---that too a northern dialect that even I can't understand," said Kumaraswamy.

Arriving passengers are herded down corridors carefully designed to look like toilets, and an escalator that's "highly likely to trap and dismember at least one of every hundred passengers". Once outside the airport building, visitors are treated to a landscape that one American arrival described as "a scene from the partition riots in the film Gandhi".

Steve Barry, an IT consultant from the US, has never seen such carefully organised chaos before. "The pathways are designed so that people coming into the airport derail the departing trolley pushers who then spill out onto a crowded access road and hold up all the already jammed traffic."

Head-on collisions between luggage trolleys and taxis are common. The airport also pays the traffic police to drive a van around the parking area and shout at drivers via a public-address system every time their cars come to a halt.

"The police have been extremely co-operative," says Kumaraswamy. "They don't bother about whether you've stopped because of traffic, to let somebody out, or because you've run over somebody's child. They just turn up the volume on their loudspeaker and, using choicest expletives, scream at you until you get moving again."

This attention to detail has been admirable, but why has the award been such a long time coming? Kumaraswamy says, "We discovered that we weren't paying departing international passengers quite the same level of attention."

When Kumaraswamy realised this lack, he quickly took steps to further degrade the departure experience. "We found several erring guards who smiled, and were efficient at checking passenger tickets at the door. They have been suspended, pending investigation. Also, all security check officers have been given extensive Annoyance Training. For example, they have been trained to take at least 120 seconds to ink their stamp and stamp a passenger's boarding card. When there's a queue of 50 passengers waiting to pass through security, this can be extremely effective."

Kumaraswamy has redesigned the international departure lounge with 30 per cent fewer seats than are needed at all but the quietest hours. Though the coffee shop has four people employed in a space that's about three feet by three feet, they are trained to take at least 15 minutes for even simple orders.

In addition, all announcements are garbled using sophisticated military coding technology. "Our announcements are totally undecipherable. We challenge anybody, anywhere to crack them," says Kumaraswamy.

The 'Armpit' status gives Bangalore new currency with discerning travellers worldwide. Backpackers and other travellers seeking an "authentic" experience are expected to increase business by about 25 per cent over the next year.

But Kumaraswamy is doing anything but resting on his laurels. "We are now working to submit the airport for the highly prestigious 'Armpit of Armpits' award. We are facing great competition from the current holder, but we hope to unseat them this year."

The Armpit of Armpits is currently held by the Tom Bradley International Terminal of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Watchers say that LAX will be hard to beat because of the disparity between the country experience and the airport experience.

"LAX has the distinct advantage of having an airport that is such a sharp contrast to the open skies of California and the organised cities of America. Also, they charge $2 for each luggage trolley. Such barbarism is hard to match," says Kumaraswamy.

"But Bangalore will get there, I promise."

Man charges parking fee at Airport Road traffic jams

Bangalore: A man identified only as Babu was arrested recently for illegally charging stopped motorists a parking fee. The police received a number of calls last week complaining about a man who had charged them Rs. 5 while they were stuck in a traffic jam on Airport Road. Many paid, only to realise their mistake when traffic started moving again.

Babu said, "I saw all these cars stopped for so long, I thought they were parked. So I collected fees---I did nothing wrong, I even issued tokens. Most people paid without any complaints."

The man was reportedly earning nearly Rs.2,000 a day from his illegal activity. One of the defrauded motorists, Sandhya Balakrishnan said, "He was a cunning operator. He'd wait until you'd been stopped for so long that you forgot where you were and even who you were. Then he'd pounce and aggressively ask for five rupees for parking on his land. I paid without thinking and only realised after I had left my car and gone shopping in Kemp Fort. When I came back, the jam was even worse because I hadn't moved my car. It was humiliating."

Many other road users left their vehicles after they had paid the fee. Col. Kapil Shah left his blue Bajaj scooter on the Airport Road for 30 minutes after he paid Babu. He went to a nearby restaurant for a meal. "When I got back, the traffic had moved one foot. So I had done nothing wrong. Besides, I have the token," he said as he leaned his scooter prior to kick-starting it.

Many solutions have been proposed for the congestion on Airport Road. The most recent one, suggested by BDA spokesperson N. Thingalingiah, is to lower the road surface so that bus roofs are level with the pavement and side roads. "That way two wheelers can ride on the roofs of the buses, reducing congestion dramatically," said Thingalingiah. The proposal is being studied by the police and BMTC for viability.

IT-industry pushes for COBOL- and Java-medium schools

Bangalore: A consortium of information-technology companies is campaigning for schools to teach exclusively in computer languages from Standard Six. The push is in reaction to the Karnataka government's decision to de-recognise schools that do not teach in Kannada until Standard 5.

Industry leaders said that they need to overcome the setbacks introduced by not grounding children in English; alleging the denial of a competitive advantage in an international market. The languages COBOL and Java are intended to replace the English medium of education in all classes.

"COBOL is such a structured, descriptive language," said Pratap Sen, CEO of Sen Microsystems, a Bangalore-based server company. "By learning in COBOL, Bangalore's children will get a wonderful grounding for their inevitable career in the IT industry."

The campaign suggests that the science subjects be taught in Java, a newer language that will keep children up to date with technology. "COBOL is a wonderful language in which to teach the arts and social sciences," said Sen. "Java, meanwhile, is less suited to poetry and history, but is perfect for science and mathematics."

The industry looks forward to the flood of recruits who will "be able to communicate with computers as naturally as they do with people".

Qualis taxi respects right of way, causes massive pile-up

Bangalore: Five people were injured yesterday in a traffic accident caused by a taxi travelling on the Varthur road. The driver of the taxi slowed down to allow a pedestrain to cross near the Marathalli ring road and caused an accident that involved five vehicles on both lanes of the two-way stretch.

"I was so astonished to see a taxi respect right of way that I drove staight into the bus in front that had also braked to catch a glimpse of this erratic behaviour. The driver should be severely punished," said Manoj Rao, whose car was significantly damaged by the impact. He suffered a broken arm.

The pedestrian, too astonished to continue crossing the road, was unharmed. He is still is a state of shock and police are unable to identify him.

The driver of the taxi fled the scene of the accident and is absconding. Ram Varma, a passenger in the Qualis who hurt his knee said, "The driver was known to be very dangerous. He would stop when the light turned from green to amber, he used his indicator before taking turns and sometimes he even let in cars from side roads."

K. Kumar, another passenger whose nose was bleeding, agreed. "It is impossible to do all these things and safely operate a vehicle. We told him many times, but he would not listen. We knew this was coming."

The police have booked a case and are investigating.

Inner-outer-inner ring road announced

Bangalore: The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) recently announced plans for a new phase of the ring-road network. Five new roads will augment the current inner- and outer-ring-road network.

Work on the inner-outer-inner ring road is expected to begin in 2008. The other roads in the pipeline are the inner-inner ring road, the inner-outer-outer ring road, the outer-outer-inner ring road and the outer-outer-outer ring road.

"Depending on vehicular traffic we may include an outer-outer-outer-inner ring road, with the option of adding an outer-outer-outer-outer ring road, but we don't anticipate such heavy demand within the next 25 years," says the BDA spokesperson, N. Thingalingiah. He also announced that the first road will be completed within six months of project implementation, and that all five roads will be ready in two years. "We are moving fast. We don't anticipate any delays," he said.

When questioned about hold-ups caused by private property or temple complexes along the routes, he said, "There will be no trouble. People have become very co-operative and understand the need for these high-speed roads."

Many citizens present at the announcement did not share his optimism. D. Ramkumar who was attending the announcement ceremony "out of morbid curiosity" said, "It takes these politicians five years just to remove the opposable digit from the fundament. How do they propose to build an entire road in six months?"

L. Lokesh agreed. "My uncle has a small boulder on the path of the proposed outer-outer-inner ring road that was left to him by our grandfather. Our family will never let the government move it. Let's see what they do."