Bangalore, Brigade Road, and an International Conference inbetween

Hi,

For all those avid and non-existent readers, a big apology for not being faithful to my blog. Its not that i've not written perfectly meaningless posts with no information. (even from shanon's viewpoint, the stuff I write, no matter how unexpected, can still contain absolutely no information!). Its just that i really din't feel like writing in quite a while, and also, yeah i really did not have anything to write about anyway. So don't blame me for derilection - yet. Without much ado, lets get to the reason this posts exists. My trip to bangalore.

Disclaimer : Its a long time since i've been writing. So my skills as a writer (hmm, where there any in the first place?) have taken a nosedive. So for people who are looking for eloquence, here's what I've to say - "Sorry buddy".

Yeah, I was really excited when i first came to know that i was going to bangalore. yeah, many might wonder why such a childish excitement for that place. The truth of that matter is that I've never really seen that place, and unfortunately missed the college trip the year they had it. Well thats only half the reason for the excitement. the other half is that my paper on image compression was selected for presentation. (let me spare you eternal boredom and get to the fun part of it.).

Bangalore is such a fine city. the weather, the roads, the greenery, I can go on. but most of you already know that hmm. Having a demographic below 35 years of age, is one indicator to say that the city is youthful, but the true test comes really in the crowded arteries of the city. My intro to bangalore started, with me arriving in an early morining train, and stepping outside just froze me to the bone. Coming from everlasting humidity and a place where seasons are defined as warm, warmer, and oh yeah, hell would be a lot cooler right now - Chennai. This was the first surprise this city threw at me. This was 19th Sunday. The rest of the day was uneventful mostly because I was sleeping the whole day. and promptly got up at 5 pm.

As it seems, the Times of India seemed to be the most popular paper around. This was the second surpirse that the city threw at me. Whats so surprising you ask, for starters the paper had more newsprint devoted to frivolous supplements than the news. It did have a good collection of comics though. And most of the supplements were magnanimously infested with BYT's (beautiful young things) with the perfect waist line that most of us can only dream of.. Well, probably guys at The Hindu should take a cue, and get a bit more 'exposure' for their supplements too.

Well, perusal of the newspaper which was lingering on the borders of pronography was just one idling, i spent my time on at bangalore, the other was basically roaming about the major roads of the cities, as if i had lost a family heriloom somewhere there. And the first day saw me going to the most commercial street in bangalore, so aptly named 'commercial street'. This place (for all you chennaites), is spencer's plaza, unfolded into a single long street. How, would probably tax the mind of the most talented topologist, so just take what I say for granted. This is one place where you can shop for anything from trekking boots to lingerie, without breaking a sweat. This street is overwhelming and breathtaking, both in its sheer magnitude, and also the unearthly prices qouted. So, inspite of all the unimaginable lure, you end up window shopping (and drooling a lot nevertheless), and buying nothing at all. And, my rather eventful first day at bangalore ended with a hearty meal at Woodlands, courtesy Bharat's uncle . Well, not a bad way to start a trip hmm. Maybe I will write more about this when I find time to do so, but for now, this post has already got longer than what most people would read, so signing off

Vishnu.