Bangalore – Heaven amidst hell

I was on a photography trip a couple of weeks back. Only instead of taking candid shots of the kids or the pup, or lovely stuff, or verdant Cubbon Park that I like to do (and share on Instagram), I have been taking ugly photos of Bangalore, of the havoc that the heavy rains caused on our roads.

I guess I was bored stuck in traffic jams (sometimes for a record 3 hours), just to travel a 5-km long stretch of Outer Ring Road to get to my office.

So, here are a few shots I took while I was stuck in a traffic jam caused by very little rain. All that flooding is due to our poor drainage system and flyover construction in that particular section of the road.

Those folks pumping out the water in the last photo were doing it at 9:30 am during peak traffic. This was when the rains had halted the previous night itself, and they could have come earlier and cleaned it up. So, while I am happy that they did help sort out the road, it should have been much earlier in the day.

To add to the misery, a bus strike for three days forced people to use their transport, which meant we had double the traffic on the roads during these flooded times.

I felt most terrible for the people without any means of travel who depend on the bus for their commute. The outer ring road was flooded with people trying to cop a ride or desperate enough to pay exorbitant amounts to cabs, private buses, and autos to get where they needed to go.

The more adventurous (or desperate) clambered on top of the few overcrowded private buses that were on the road, paying (I assume) vast sums of money to sit on top of the bus.

A colleague took the above photo and shared it with me.

Sad state of affairs 😟.

But then, as I drove home past the misery of the Outer Ring Road, I looked up and saw this beautiful purple sunset and stopped to capture it.

I can’t say that the beautiful sunset made the horrendous drive back home worth it, but it did work to cut my stress and improve my mood, so I didn’t arrive home a cranky mess.

If you live in Bangalore, tell me your horror traffic tales; go ahead tell me regardless of where you live 😀. How do you manage to stay sane in traffic?

I feel very sheepish to admit that I do a lot of Instagramming and whatsapping while waiting for things to move. Oops! Also, the gaana app helped quite a bit. I listened to only the songs I wanted without waiting on annoying ads or over-chirpy radio jockeys.