straight on the roads

one more post on road behavior..

soon after moving to bangalore - almost 20 years now - i had to depend on others to get directions to go from one place to another, as i was not familiar with the roads.

one lesson i learnt very soon was to not ask for directions when there was more than one person together.
the problem was that in bangalore, there are multiple routes to reach point B from point A. in many cases you have the option of choosing one of the many roads at a junction [more on that in a bit].

When there is more than one person, everyone will be very eager to help. and they can not easily agree what directions to give you. one would say - this is the shortest route, while another might say that another option would be the fastest and a third would say that for a two wheeler, it is better to go in a third road etc etc etc.
in all this, you and your question would become just incidental and each one would want to substantiate their position.

so, i try to find a single person - a shopkeeper, an auto driver or even a lone pedestrian, to ask for directions nowadays.

with multiple roads meeting at a junction - such as the south end cirlce, no two roads would align at a normal 'straight' angle - of 90 or 180 degree. while giving directions, one would say 'go straight' - leaving you wondering which is the straight road!

One view from the BTIS camera of the South End circle in Bangalore.
what takes the cake in getting directions is to figure out how one would take a turn at a dead end!
that is only till you figure out a dead end need not be a dead end, but a T-junction.

in an earlier post, i had mentioned that many road names need qualifiers. it is not just with road names.
recently, i was to meet someone visiting bangalore at the kumaraswamy layout bus stand,  - which was close to where he was staying.

after a lot of difficulty and figuring out the right turn to take  [as my directions were to go straight, when, in deed i needed to make a deep left - as most of the traffic flowed and not go by the geometric straight, which led me to a 'dead end'!], i got to know that there were TWO bus stands in kumaraswamy layout!

Road Names in bangalore

One of the many things that have intrigued and amused me about bangalore are the road names.

the fist such name that i head was 'double road'.
back when, this name represented the first 'double' or divided raod, aka KH Road - possibly the only such road then.
subsequently any divided road seems to be called a double road, with a prefix or suffix of the neighborhood, such as indiranagar double road or lalbagh double road..

another category of road names is also amusing - roads named by their width. 80-feet road or 100-feet road are common names. my first impression was that this was the length of the road! used to wonder why someone would want to name such short roads - till we moved our office to an 80-feet road.

recently i noticed a board for a road called Hosa road - or 'new' road. wonder how long this will stay unique or whether we will have more hosa roads with prefixes and suffixes.

one example of a possibility of running out of road names: i have heard of three roads - Hosur Road, Marigowda Road and Siddapura Road - all called Hosur Road!

Roadside temples ..2

i showed you the cluster of temples that are present at a intersection near my home in the last post.
how could these have developed?

the following sequence will provide you with one of the ways of how a roadside temple starts and grows..
first, pick a spot.

then, find a deity

make a shelter

make it more permanent

and make it an institution

now, you have not only created an organization, but also managed to grab a good area of public land with sufficient diversity in the Gods, that can start attracting devotees.

not all roadside temples would have had such ulterior motives.

it could well have been a way to increase public awareness and acceptable social behavior of not littering..
as in this case!

the presence of many God pictures do not seem to have had any effect on the littering of garbage around!

Roadside temples..

Recently, I was very happy when i saw this supreme court directive.

i think that this has been long overdue. while i think that there should be places of worship and local gatherings for social occasions, the sentiments of people are being exploited by vested interests.
i have written earlier on some of the roadside temples that have come up as illegal structures.
i want to share some recent developments close to where i stay.
this was a temple that was located among the dwellings that were cleared to make way for a – hotel / multiplex / hypermarket and… a skating rink with real ice!
the others got fair cash compensations and alternate sites, though located a little far away, but bigger than what they had here.
the road is also scheduled for widening and it is a matter of time that this temple may also have to be removed or relocated.
diagonally opposite this temple is another, a more established one – as it seems to have been built on private land.
as if this was not enough, the third corner of the T-intersection had a couple of smaller temples that have started growing..
more on that in the next post.

Happy Deepavali

May the festival of light bring everyone the best of health, wealth and happiness..

Sarve janAh suKino BavanTu

Harihar 2

this is about another interesting location in harihar..

an oriental style

church

built by a brahmin

using a deity he found in the river.

harihareswara temple

from my earlier post, if you got a [wrong!] idea that the reason for me going to davanegere was the benne dose, sorry to disappoint you.

i had some other work in that area and was using davanagere as a base.

one other town i visited was Harihar, on the banks of the thungabadhra.
architecturally, i saw something very old - a few centuries old - as well as something very new, both places of worship.

the first was the harihareswara temple.
the following pictures should give you an idea of the exquisite architecture.
the entrance was pretty unimpressive and does not give you an indication of what is inside.

the sanctum sanatorium indicated that the structure has been maintained, but not too well.

the location is declared as a heritage site and comes under the archeology department. this has also impacted the funds for the upkeep of the temple.

the hall with pillars in front shows how the structure - of limestone? - has weathered well through the centuries and still stays shining, without any paint!

the structure of some of the stupas were also different.

this snapshot describes the story of the origins of this temple.

i will share the details of the modern church in my next post.