In Kerala, shortcut means it’s a shortcut. You will reach your destination with your direction sense. But this is not the case in Bangalore.
Those people who got the best direction sense and never got into this problem - Praise God.
I have two instances, where I got wrong from the navigational perspective.
One instance was while I was travelling to brother's house in Ramamurthy Nagar from Gottigere, with Ani. Those who know about the traffic in Bangalore, can really understand - how helpful the pocket roads are. And in Bangalore it is an ultimate skill to have a good idea about those routes and use it at the right time. Lot of gullies and pocket roads to left and right and all directions – you will get really confused.
You will have a tough time, if you start exploring the ways by your own. I would suggest to best way to learn the routes are to hire an auto or taxi. They know the nook and corner of Bangalore and will aid you to understand the shortcuts – hassle free.
On our way near to the Bayyappanahally railway station (Now there’s metro station too) there was traffic congestion. And we went with the shortcut idea and I took a left and we started navigating logically to reach the main road. When noticed that route was kind of vacant, couldn’t find much people on that road then and we were happy that there’s only less traffic and about the move we made, before others can think about it. After some time we noticed one right, which was the only way to go forward and we took a sharp turn - suddenly I had to apply the brake as there was a person, who was standing in the middle of the road and brushing, with a cup of water in his hand. I was furious and was about to ask the same question which Keralites likes a lot - 'Is it your fathers road man?' or like the new Mahindra Verito ad - 'Are you the son of Mr. Ramamurthy?'
Before I could utter the word, Ani patted on my shoulder and whispered - 'Looks like we are on the premises of this guys house' and yes, it was. We were inside his house premises. Thank God that Ani stopped me from the dialogs. I would have counted the stars around my head.
With a smile we asked him - 'Sir, how to go to Ramamurthy Nagar'. He was a gentleman and he replied politely the way to Ramamurthy Nagar. The same way we came to his house, we had to go back. We were having a mixed feeling then. But it’s Bangalore. The traffic was still there. BMTC bus was still roaring and honking, guy on the bike styling his hair and a poor buffalo which got stuck between the two cars. The scene was intact.
We too waited in the queue and moved along the traffic flow.
We still talks about this incident and Ani asks me at times – ‘what about a shortcut?’
Second one happened yesterday, when I wanted to go to one of my friend’s (Jobi & Jebin’s) house. I picked up Pritham, another friend of mine, from the Ramamurthy Nagar signal and we headed towards Jobi's house. Before reaching the left, which we have to take, as there was huge traffic in front, we thought of taking a shortcut. Again – Shortcut :)
Pritham was not much confident, but he was okay with the change in the route. I was narrating him about the first shortcut incident on the was and we were laughing and laughing and when I took a turn, railway line in front. Ooops, not again.
Complete darkness around and in our front a railway line. Fantastic.
But we did not show that disappointment on our face. We were more confident. Took a turn back in the same route and checked with around 4-5 people, about the route to the main road. Luckily all the people had their own views about the routes and we were more confused. Some way we managed to reach the destination.
However the funny part was that - twice we reached near to the destination through a couple of another routes earlier. But we backed off, as it was utter darkness around and narrow roads. We did not take that route, which would lead us to Jobi's house much earlier.
When analyzed about the situation we could unwind some great learning’s from that Journey. Good experience anyway.
PS: Do not trust the Google Maps completely. BBMP always excavate the roads around, for underground passes and pipelines. You might end up in those pits. Google is yet to catch up with BBMP guys efficiency.
