I posted this status on Facebook the other day: "If you take the number of centimeters of rain that fall on Bangalore or Pune every year, multiply by the land area, and divide by the population, you get so much water per person that we should all have enough and more of it every day.
(This is what I've been doing today afternoon, aided by the numbers from Wikipedia)"
A couple of folks wanted me to post the calculations, so here's a post explaining it.
According to this site, one cubic metre of water is equivalent to 1000 litres. So, if your city has an area of one square meter (small city, I know), and it has one meter of rainfall in a year, the city is getting a thousand litres of water. I.e., one centimetre of rainfall over one square metre is 10 litres of water.
Wikipedia lists Bangalore as having an area of 710 sq. km. approximately. 1 sq. km. is about 10^6 square metres. Therefore, if one centimetre of rains falls on Bangalore, we have 10 litres * 710 * 10^6 of water. That's 710,00,00,000 or 710 crore litres of water.
The official government site on Karnataka lists Bangalore as having about 900 mm of annual rainfall, or about 90 cm. That means that about 63,900 crore litres of water falls to the ground within Bangalore city limits every year.
Again, Wikipedia lists Bangalore's population at 65 lakhs. 63,900 crore (i.e. 63,90,000 lakhs) divided by 65 lakhs is 98,307 litres of water per person per year. In other words, about 270 litres per day.
This set of statistics show that only about 9 developed countries show a water use of more than 270 litres per day. India is way down the list, at 150 litres or so.
What it all boils down to (pardon the pun), is that if Bangalore can hold on to all the water that falls in its own territory every year, every citizen will have all the water he or she needs for every purpose. I haven't even considered all the water from the Kaveri river schemes and so on, and the much lower population density of non-urban areas in Karnataka.
Just hold on to the rain - using lakes, by letting the earth absorb the water, by helping the water table rise, and you will solve your water problem for a very, very long time.
[This is a rather naive calculation, I know, but the overall logic sounds pretty fair to me. Try it for your own city]
Showing posts with label Bangalore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bangalore. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Holi in Bangalore
Our society secretary sent out a mail a couple of days back, informing us that the Holi bonfire would be burned last evening, and the celebration with colours on the morning thereafter, i.e. today. Not knowing quite what to expect, my wife and I decided to go to the bonfire.
There was a big crowd of folks all around the fire. When we'd started, my wife called up her mother and asked her what we were supposed to do at a Holi celebration. "Offer some money at the pooja," she said. "Take some mamraa, and sindoor, and..." but my wife had forgotten everything except the money part by the time the conversation was over. So I had some money in my pocket.
As we got closer, it became obvious that the crowd was almost entirely composed of North Indians. All young couples, some with little kids - the typical profile of the new Bangalore citizen. Our society is a pretty posh place, so lots of folks in Bermudas, cargoes, snazzy clothes, babies in prams, et al. I looked around for the Pooja thali, where I've usually been instructed to put money in, during previous religious functions.
There wasn't one. A couple of sari-clad ladies had their pooja thalis, and were just walking away from the fire having completed their ritual, but these were obviously not society-wide poojas. The noise level was lower than usual in crowds this size. A few folks were capturing the fire and the crowds on their handycams.
Someone began to walk around the fire, hands in a namaskar, lips mumbling a prayer. Three more people followed him. Many, many others looked at each other, unsure of whether they were supposed to do that. The girl next to me asked her husband if he wanted to do it. He replied with a laugh, "I could, but don't expect me to do this seven times." They finally stayed put.
There was an awkward silence, when all the conversations in a room stop suddenly. It struck me that no one here really knew what they were supposed to do for the Holi pooja. They'd seen their parents do something, and were gathered here hoping that someone would do it all and they would follow the lead. But here they were the parents. Worse, everyone was from a different state, so probably there was no common thing, no ritual, no comforting pattern, that everyone could fall back on. It was probably like this in every big society in Bangalore, this evening. The fire burned on, the only one here who knew what its job was.
A mobile phone began to ring, somewhere behind me. A voice answered it with a palpable sense of relief. "Hello? Yes, Happy Holi to you, too!... Yes, we're just celebrating Holi here... yes, all of our society, all together..." Technology had saved us all from a bad moment.
The next day would be easier, we said to ourselves. All we have to do is smear colours on each other and shout Holi Hai! And we headed back to our houses recently turned to homes.
I'd forgotten all about the money I'd taken along. I'll use it at Diwali, I thought.
There was a big crowd of folks all around the fire. When we'd started, my wife called up her mother and asked her what we were supposed to do at a Holi celebration. "Offer some money at the pooja," she said. "Take some mamraa, and sindoor, and..." but my wife had forgotten everything except the money part by the time the conversation was over. So I had some money in my pocket.
As we got closer, it became obvious that the crowd was almost entirely composed of North Indians. All young couples, some with little kids - the typical profile of the new Bangalore citizen. Our society is a pretty posh place, so lots of folks in Bermudas, cargoes, snazzy clothes, babies in prams, et al. I looked around for the Pooja thali, where I've usually been instructed to put money in, during previous religious functions.
There wasn't one. A couple of sari-clad ladies had their pooja thalis, and were just walking away from the fire having completed their ritual, but these were obviously not society-wide poojas. The noise level was lower than usual in crowds this size. A few folks were capturing the fire and the crowds on their handycams.
Someone began to walk around the fire, hands in a namaskar, lips mumbling a prayer. Three more people followed him. Many, many others looked at each other, unsure of whether they were supposed to do that. The girl next to me asked her husband if he wanted to do it. He replied with a laugh, "I could, but don't expect me to do this seven times." They finally stayed put.
There was an awkward silence, when all the conversations in a room stop suddenly. It struck me that no one here really knew what they were supposed to do for the Holi pooja. They'd seen their parents do something, and were gathered here hoping that someone would do it all and they would follow the lead. But here they were the parents. Worse, everyone was from a different state, so probably there was no common thing, no ritual, no comforting pattern, that everyone could fall back on. It was probably like this in every big society in Bangalore, this evening. The fire burned on, the only one here who knew what its job was.
A mobile phone began to ring, somewhere behind me. A voice answered it with a palpable sense of relief. "Hello? Yes, Happy Holi to you, too!... Yes, we're just celebrating Holi here... yes, all of our society, all together..." Technology had saved us all from a bad moment.
The next day would be easier, we said to ourselves. All we have to do is smear colours on each other and shout Holi Hai! And we headed back to our houses recently turned to homes.
I'd forgotten all about the money I'd taken along. I'll use it at Diwali, I thought.
Monday, October 20, 2008
A few more small Bangalore experiences...
---------
"Corporates" are a different kind of creature here. Our team went to play Paintball a few weeks back, and the instructor was telling us, "these guns have been modified to fire with a little less force, because we have mostly corporates here as customers, and they don't like it when it hurts." Every hotel worth its salt (excuse the pun) has "special offers for corporate parties." When we - my office gang - go to a movie, we're offered special "corporate packages". All these are basically offers for people who are on expense account but must not be asked to take any pains or suffer the tiniest discomfort. Something tells me investment bankers were the first 'corporates', before us IT folks went that way.
---------
Went to a lovely Udupi place called Mahalaxmi Tiffin Room over the weekend. It's close to National College, in the Basavanagudi area, in case you're interested. They serve something called a Kali Dosa, which is worth going all that way for. There's no menu and no billboard, so the only way one would know they serve it (the way I did), is if a local resident has raved about it to one (the way my boss did, to me). Go there, enjoy it.
On a related note, my wife's now mortally terrified of going to Mavalli Tiffin Room - the famous MTR - because, get this, they have food that's TOO delicious. After a recent excursion at lunch time, her exact words were, "Badhiya khaana khilaa khilaa kar maartey hai yeh log. Ban kar dena chaahiye inhey." it was just coincidence that they happened to be serving both Pongal and Bisibelebath in that same meal - each of these are dishes my wife usually eats as a complete meal.
Somehow a lot of people who don't belong to Bangalore - Delhiites, Puneites, Mumbaikars - have zero interest in going to these traditional parts of the city. Part of the story is that most new-generation types aren't interested in the traditional parts of their own cities, either. Finding your way around the old city anywhere can be quite a chore. But I think it's also to do with the Americanization of the average IT guy in Bangalore - he's even less likely to be interested in going into tiny places full of lungi-clad uncles eating dosas. Comments?
-----------
The one item that comes into discussion every single day, in 90% of the conversations with friends and coworkers, is buying a house. Several times I'm the one bringing up the topic. Even though committing to paying a huge loan for years on end gives me the jitters, somehow I can't get the inevitable step out of my head. It's made worse because all my colleagues who shifted to Bangalore in recent times are searching for places to buy - some of them have houses in their own places, but they've looking here, too, either as investment or just to have another base. Perhaps it's part of the Bangalore effect.
---------
"Corporates" are a different kind of creature here. Our team went to play Paintball a few weeks back, and the instructor was telling us, "these guns have been modified to fire with a little less force, because we have mostly corporates here as customers, and they don't like it when it hurts." Every hotel worth its salt (excuse the pun) has "special offers for corporate parties." When we - my office gang - go to a movie, we're offered special "corporate packages". All these are basically offers for people who are on expense account but must not be asked to take any pains or suffer the tiniest discomfort. Something tells me investment bankers were the first 'corporates', before us IT folks went that way.
---------
Went to a lovely Udupi place called Mahalaxmi Tiffin Room over the weekend. It's close to National College, in the Basavanagudi area, in case you're interested. They serve something called a Kali Dosa, which is worth going all that way for. There's no menu and no billboard, so the only way one would know they serve it (the way I did), is if a local resident has raved about it to one (the way my boss did, to me). Go there, enjoy it.
On a related note, my wife's now mortally terrified of going to Mavalli Tiffin Room - the famous MTR - because, get this, they have food that's TOO delicious. After a recent excursion at lunch time, her exact words were, "Badhiya khaana khilaa khilaa kar maartey hai yeh log. Ban kar dena chaahiye inhey." it was just coincidence that they happened to be serving both Pongal and Bisibelebath in that same meal - each of these are dishes my wife usually eats as a complete meal.
Somehow a lot of people who don't belong to Bangalore - Delhiites, Puneites, Mumbaikars - have zero interest in going to these traditional parts of the city. Part of the story is that most new-generation types aren't interested in the traditional parts of their own cities, either. Finding your way around the old city anywhere can be quite a chore. But I think it's also to do with the Americanization of the average IT guy in Bangalore - he's even less likely to be interested in going into tiny places full of lungi-clad uncles eating dosas. Comments?
-----------
The one item that comes into discussion every single day, in 90% of the conversations with friends and coworkers, is buying a house. Several times I'm the one bringing up the topic. Even though committing to paying a huge loan for years on end gives me the jitters, somehow I can't get the inevitable step out of my head. It's made worse because all my colleagues who shifted to Bangalore in recent times are searching for places to buy - some of them have houses in their own places, but they've looking here, too, either as investment or just to have another base. Perhaps it's part of the Bangalore effect.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Paul Graham posts a good essay on his site, about the character of cities. Reading through it makes me want to go live in Berkeley right now. After reading this, I began to think about what characters we could assign to Indian cities. Delhi would, as far as I know, be all about connections and power, the way Graham describes Washington D.C.. Mumbai's character would have been like New York - all about Money - except that the film industry is there, too, so being big in that industry becomes a viable substitute for money for most. No doubt you folks could explain the characters of a dozen other India cities.
So where does that leave Bangalore? As my recent posts indicate, I wasn't too impressed initially by the place - a lazy sort of local population coupled with many, many people anxious to earn and spend money in vapid interests. Then, the other day (at a Mall's food court, if you must know), it came to me. This place is like a frontier town, like the Wild West, or a prospecting town like the Klondike. Making it big is the priority here for most. Skimming off their shares from these get-rich-quickers is the priority for a darker underbelly, whose form changes in every frontier town but who remain the same sort of people. There's the simpler, easygoing people who lived in the area before some outsourcer mined gold here and started the rush. There are the million saloons - or should I call them Malls and North Indian Restaurants - which are almost entirely frequented by these outsiders, springing up shiny and overpriced among the smaller sedate watering holes for the natives.
So what are they prospecting for? What is this the frontier for? Money, perhaps, or a chance to shine, or the good life. Perhaps they all bring their dreams with them, whatever they wanted in their own towns, and try to find them here. The smell of this city is too varied, too mixed up, too fresh, to have one single flavour yet.
So where does that leave Bangalore? As my recent posts indicate, I wasn't too impressed initially by the place - a lazy sort of local population coupled with many, many people anxious to earn and spend money in vapid interests. Then, the other day (at a Mall's food court, if you must know), it came to me. This place is like a frontier town, like the Wild West, or a prospecting town like the Klondike. Making it big is the priority here for most. Skimming off their shares from these get-rich-quickers is the priority for a darker underbelly, whose form changes in every frontier town but who remain the same sort of people. There's the simpler, easygoing people who lived in the area before some outsourcer mined gold here and started the rush. There are the million saloons - or should I call them Malls and North Indian Restaurants - which are almost entirely frequented by these outsiders, springing up shiny and overpriced among the smaller sedate watering holes for the natives.
So what are they prospecting for? What is this the frontier for? Money, perhaps, or a chance to shine, or the good life. Perhaps they all bring their dreams with them, whatever they wanted in their own towns, and try to find them here. The smell of this city is too varied, too mixed up, too fresh, to have one single flavour yet.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Moving into a new place is like sleeping on a new coir mattress - It looks and feels generally great, but there are tiny coconut fibres poking you where you least suspect it. The right thing to do, of course, would be to pull out those fibres, or else ignore them, and enjoy sleeping on the new mattress. That's not how people work, though.
Went to an office party last week. It was at an amusement arcade, with bowling and beer and games. The games weren't free. Someone called me over to join in a Foosball game. He inserted tokens into the system and we began, four of us. After the first goal, we realized that the game would be over once all five available balls were eaten by the game, and we stole menu cards from nearby tables and blocked the goal-holes with them. "If it hits the menu card, we'll consider it a goal. We could go on playing all evening this way!" Someone said. At this the guy who'd bought the tokens said,"There's no need to be this kanjoos - a game is just 40 bucks, man! We'll just get more tokens..."
Suddenly my interest in the game had vanished. For some reason the number 40 haunted me. I went through the rest of the evening in a blue funk, doing miserably at bowling and downing a Sprite without tasting it. Somehow, though, I couldn't figure out the reason.
It came to me much later that night. It was all about this time my dabbawala had quit on me...
Towards the end of my first semester of college, someone pulled down a Mosque in UP, and suddenly everyone was rioting. My dabbawala, who used to bring me my lunch and dinner from across the city, decided to stop operations suddenly. With curfew in the town, I couldn't get out of my room to eat. For a while, I starved, surviving on Tomatoes and Fruit Bread.
At this time, a classmate who lived in the same colony took me to this nice Andhra lady nearby who made meals for a small number of students. "Aunty, can't you take on just one more person?"
Aunty thought a bit. "I could give you a dabba in the afternoons, I think. Some of my boys only take dabbas in the evening, so it's possible in the afternoon."
I agreed enthusiastically. "I need it only for a few days, I think. My normal dabbawala should be back once the riots are over." (which never happened, by the way. I wound up taking a dabba from this aunty during all the remaining years of college. )
"No problem," she said. "Pay me for the week in advance. It's eight rupees a meal, so for 5 meals, that will be 40 Rupees."
I went through my pockets and gave her the money. It was expensive - my older dabbawala used to charge me 5 Rupees a meal. But I had no option right now.
Half an hour later, I bought my empty dabba, had her fill it, and went back to my first proper meal in ages. I can still remember what it tasted like. It was worth paying so much for it - it tasted home cooked.
Went to an office party last week. It was at an amusement arcade, with bowling and beer and games. The games weren't free. Someone called me over to join in a Foosball game. He inserted tokens into the system and we began, four of us. After the first goal, we realized that the game would be over once all five available balls were eaten by the game, and we stole menu cards from nearby tables and blocked the goal-holes with them. "If it hits the menu card, we'll consider it a goal. We could go on playing all evening this way!" Someone said. At this the guy who'd bought the tokens said,"There's no need to be this kanjoos - a game is just 40 bucks, man! We'll just get more tokens..."
Suddenly my interest in the game had vanished. For some reason the number 40 haunted me. I went through the rest of the evening in a blue funk, doing miserably at bowling and downing a Sprite without tasting it. Somehow, though, I couldn't figure out the reason.
It came to me much later that night. It was all about this time my dabbawala had quit on me...
Towards the end of my first semester of college, someone pulled down a Mosque in UP, and suddenly everyone was rioting. My dabbawala, who used to bring me my lunch and dinner from across the city, decided to stop operations suddenly. With curfew in the town, I couldn't get out of my room to eat. For a while, I starved, surviving on Tomatoes and Fruit Bread.
At this time, a classmate who lived in the same colony took me to this nice Andhra lady nearby who made meals for a small number of students. "Aunty, can't you take on just one more person?"
Aunty thought a bit. "I could give you a dabba in the afternoons, I think. Some of my boys only take dabbas in the evening, so it's possible in the afternoon."
I agreed enthusiastically. "I need it only for a few days, I think. My normal dabbawala should be back once the riots are over." (which never happened, by the way. I wound up taking a dabba from this aunty during all the remaining years of college. )
"No problem," she said. "Pay me for the week in advance. It's eight rupees a meal, so for 5 meals, that will be 40 Rupees."
I went through my pockets and gave her the money. It was expensive - my older dabbawala used to charge me 5 Rupees a meal. But I had no option right now.
Half an hour later, I bought my empty dabba, had her fill it, and went back to my first proper meal in ages. I can still remember what it tasted like. It was worth paying so much for it - it tasted home cooked.
Monday, April 21, 2008
I've been in Bangalore for about 3 weeks now, so it's time for the inevitable "First impressions" post. Here we go.
1. Any Taxiwalla - be it a taxi from the hotel or the office cab, has a mobile phone, supposedly so you can call him up if he's late. In practice, though, if you're late and you call him, there's only one catch-all explanation: "Junction par hoon, sir", followed by "Lane ke andar turn kara raha hoon." Never mind that he actually trundles into the parking about half an hour after he's "turned into the lane", or that he never really says which junction he's at. I had the illuminating experience of my taxiwalla answering a phone from his sister, and replying to her with a cheerful "Junction par hoon", when he'd only just picked me up from the office and there was atleast a 20 minute drive ahead before we reached the hotel.
2. When you drive along any of the main roads, you inevitably cross some shops that look interesting - Chocolate shops and Bakeries for me, and clothes shops for my wife. Bangalore roads and traffic, however, conspire to make sure you can never stop suddenly while driving. There are no gaps in the traffic to ease into and stop, there's no vehicles parked anywhere nearby where you can add you own mount. And if the shop happens to be on the other side of the road, it would mean a kilometre's drive ahead searching for a break in the divider, so you just give up right there.
3. Continuing from the last one, there are waaaayy more interesting shops here in Bangalore than there were in Pune.
4. Nearly all of the out-of-towners who arrive here have no interest whatsoever in learning about the place, the language, the food, or the sights. I suppose that's true for any place, which is why you have Maharashtra Mandals in every city, and India Clubs in every town in the Bay Area. Still, it's a little disheartening to hear Hindi-speaking folks dismiss Andhra/Udipi/Kerala restaurants entirely and focus on finding 'authentic' Punjabi food, and to find out that none of my friends had heard of MTR, Kunda, or Girish Kasaravalli. But again, maybe that's just me.
1. Any Taxiwalla - be it a taxi from the hotel or the office cab, has a mobile phone, supposedly so you can call him up if he's late. In practice, though, if you're late and you call him, there's only one catch-all explanation: "Junction par hoon, sir", followed by "Lane ke andar turn kara raha hoon." Never mind that he actually trundles into the parking about half an hour after he's "turned into the lane", or that he never really says which junction he's at. I had the illuminating experience of my taxiwalla answering a phone from his sister, and replying to her with a cheerful "Junction par hoon", when he'd only just picked me up from the office and there was atleast a 20 minute drive ahead before we reached the hotel.
2. When you drive along any of the main roads, you inevitably cross some shops that look interesting - Chocolate shops and Bakeries for me, and clothes shops for my wife. Bangalore roads and traffic, however, conspire to make sure you can never stop suddenly while driving. There are no gaps in the traffic to ease into and stop, there's no vehicles parked anywhere nearby where you can add you own mount. And if the shop happens to be on the other side of the road, it would mean a kilometre's drive ahead searching for a break in the divider, so you just give up right there.
3. Continuing from the last one, there are waaaayy more interesting shops here in Bangalore than there were in Pune.
4. Nearly all of the out-of-towners who arrive here have no interest whatsoever in learning about the place, the language, the food, or the sights. I suppose that's true for any place, which is why you have Maharashtra Mandals in every city, and India Clubs in every town in the Bay Area. Still, it's a little disheartening to hear Hindi-speaking folks dismiss Andhra/Udipi/Kerala restaurants entirely and focus on finding 'authentic' Punjabi food, and to find out that none of my friends had heard of MTR, Kunda, or Girish Kasaravalli. But again, maybe that's just me.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
So I've shifted.
To Bangalore, to a product company.
Yes, me and my wife. My parents are in Pune.
Yes, we've found a flat to stay in.
Yes, we like the city so far.
Oh yes, it is expensive, but there are small shops where you get affordable stuff, if you look.
Yep, I have some friends and relatives here.
No, I don't know how long I'll stay here.
Just a minute, let me put another rupee coin in.
Well, I expect to make a simple life here for myself. Naive hope, I know. I want to make time for reading and writing and exercise and talking and relaxing and generally feeling like I know where my life is headed.
Yeah? Ha ha ha, I know, that last one was a bit much.
All right then, I'll hang up. Be seeing you sometime.
Gotta go, there's some sort of dust in my eye. Probably a crumb from a Shrewsbury biscuit.
To Bangalore, to a product company.
Yes, me and my wife. My parents are in Pune.
Yes, we've found a flat to stay in.
Yes, we like the city so far.
Oh yes, it is expensive, but there are small shops where you get affordable stuff, if you look.
Yep, I have some friends and relatives here.
No, I don't know how long I'll stay here.
Just a minute, let me put another rupee coin in.
Well, I expect to make a simple life here for myself. Naive hope, I know. I want to make time for reading and writing and exercise and talking and relaxing and generally feeling like I know where my life is headed.
Yeah? Ha ha ha, I know, that last one was a bit much.
All right then, I'll hang up. Be seeing you sometime.
Gotta go, there's some sort of dust in my eye. Probably a crumb from a Shrewsbury biscuit.
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