Traffic police

Have you ever noticed this person in white and khaki uniform called traffic police? Well, I'm not talking about those fat-ass policewalas standing near their cars with an alcohol-meter in some one-way road and stopping all bikes, checking for papers and boozes and making money... I'm talking about this hapless guy standing right in the middle of the cross-roads where dust, dirt and honking noise is so much that you get irritated in just 2 minutes waiting for the signal. But this guy stands right there with probably a nose mask and tries to control the traffic or let's see what exactly he is doing...
There is this cross-road on outer ring road where the employee from Eco-space tech park cross the ring road to go for Marathahalli or people coming from other directions cross this ring road to go to eco-space. There were some plans to make the service road alongside the eco-space one-way, but that was a total flop-show resulting in big traffic jam.
Ok, so here I'm waiting on my bike on service road for our hero to stop the traffic on ring road so that I can cross it. Our hero is standing in front of me waving the traffic on ring road to pass. Suddenly there is this cab came from my behind and stands besides me ( I always wonder about these cabs how there driving precision is always in centimeters). Now this cab starts inching on the ring road while our policewala is still signalling the ring-road traffic to pass. Slowly this cab has covered half of the ring road and the traffic of ring road is taking a curve path to pass this a**h*le cabbie. Now suddenly the cabbie finds gap in the ring road traffic and crosses it. Behind him, goes another cab and then another. I also cross behind these cab and after crossing I looked at our hero, now he was waving the traffic on service road to cross the ring road. He hand signal direction has been changed. Did that cab change the direction of his signals?? I'm driving my bike still confused about that and I reached another cross-road. There again is another traffic police standing in the middle of the road controlling the traffic and also perhaps controlled by it.

Autowalas

Anybody traveling/living in Bangalore must be aware of a phenomenon called auto short for auto-rickshaw. These yellow and black 3 wheelers are meant for public transport, to help public reach their destination conveniently. But sometimes, I wonder who are the people traveling by autos and how on earth could they negotiate the fair fare if at all they could convince auto-wala to go to their desired place. In Bangalore, its better to ask autowalas where he is going and if you happen to go somewhere in the way, its ok else look for another auto. And for the fare, I have already seen a rise of 40% in their fare in last 2 years.

Yesterday, I had to take an auto or bus to reach my office as DK with whom I used to go office after my wrist problem has gone to his home. Sometimes back, I had tried auto to go to office and it costed my 90 bucks one side. From my apartment's parking to office's parking measures around 11.2 kms according to my bike making a proper auto fare of 11.2*7 = 78.2. That too from my apartment's to office's parking. But 90 was all that I could negotiate with. So yesterday I thought of using bus but to get to HAL bus stand I have to travel around 2 kms. I asked one autowala. 30 bucks was the answer. bhainch**... next to that auto was another one without meter. He was going to HAL for 5 bucks only but would take more passenger than you. That was good, I reached HAL for 5 bucks only with other 2 persons and we could have accommodated 1 more person without any problem. While returning from office, it was 6:30 in the evening when I reached HAL. There were 3 autos waiting. Here's my conversation with them-

ME - Bhaiya, BEML chaloge??
Autowala1 - 50 Rupees.
ME-(to myself: behench** ek hi din mein ameer hoga kya be!) - Kyon bhaiya. 2 kms to hai. 15 rupaye lagte hain.
Autowala1 - saar rain hone wala hai..
ME-(to myself: to haraamkhor kya ship ya boat mein le jaayega) - abhi to nahi ho raha hai na bhaiya...
Autowala2 - saar abhi traffic bahut hai udhar..
ME - lekin bhaiya 15 ka 50 to bahut hai. kuchh to kam karo...
Autowala3 - theek hai saar 40 de do.. chalo.
ME-(to myself: mada****d, saale, &*@*%$^&*(# )

So I waited there till it started raining and got drenched. Then came one auto that got ready for 25 bucks.... I reached home saving my 25 bucks... Feels good.:)
Same day I went to doc and asked if I could drive my bike. Doc said yes if it doesn't hurt you. So now I am riding my bike for office, of course its not hurting more than the process of autos.

Tenosynovitis

WTF. That's exactly what I would have thought had I heard this term before 1 month or so. But now I know that this is a kind of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) now becoming common to software professionals. It started suddenly.. no knocking on the door, no formalities, no early symptoms, nothing, just started. I was driving my bike for Yercaud and when we took break on our way, I felt my thumb got stiffened and there was pain in bending it. I tried to ignore it because it might have happened for any reason. But this pain continued for a week and sometimes my thumb was used to stuck in a stretched position and I had to use my other hand to bring it to normal position. Now, I thought, was the time to visit some doctor. I googled a bit and found Hosmat is considered to be hospital for orthopedic problems. I went to Hosmat and waited for my appointment. Here's the conversation with doc-

Doc: Hi Ashok, What hapened?
Me: I'm having pain in my thumb near wrist.
Doc: For how long?
Me: I think a week.
Doc: Did you hurt it? any accident?
Me: No, not that I remember.
Doc: (held my thumb in a stretched position) Now try bending your thumb.
Me: It pains.
Doc: Operation karna padega.
Me: OPERATION????
Doc: See Ashok. Aisa hota hai ki there are these tendons passing through this tunnel. By some reasons sometimes this tunnel gets blocked. so.......
Me: But OPERATION?
Doc: It's not that BIG operation. Ok. Let's get an X-ray of this incase you having doubts.
I went and got my X-ray done. Returned with the report.
Me: Sir, report.
Doc: (Looking at X-ray film) See, there is no problem in bones.
Me: (Saala, I have seen only frog's internals, how the hell I can comprehend anything on this x-ray). Ok sir. But operation???
Doc: (Smiling) So you want to be sure about this. Go and get ultasound report.
I left and got my ultrasound done. In that report, it was written in BOLD CAPITAL letter "TENOSYNOVITIS of abductor pollicis is suspected". Returned to doctor and showed him the report.
Doc: See. It is the same thing. So when do you want to have this surgery?
Me: Is there other option?
Doc: Hmm.... I can do the plaster but then It may return again.
Me: OK sir, Let me think. By the way, what will be the cost of this SMALL operation?
Doc: If you have shared room, it will come around 16K bucks.
Me: Ok sir, I will think and decide. Thank you.
Doc: Ok.

Well, I left and did some googling on tenosynovitis and found a lot of stuff there. Some interesting ones were from handsuniversity and wiki. Finally I dropped the idea of having surgery so soon as one of my friend told me that in Hosmat, they prescribe surgery for everything... Rest story I will write some other time.