The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Reporter's Diary

THE FITNESS fad has reached extreme limits. Those used to Santa Clauses with booming, hearty laughter and ample waistlines and chubby cheeks are in for a shock. Santa has become calorie conscious and will no longer worry over cardiac concerns.

The rather leaner and decidedly younger versions of Santas are now doing the rounds of shopping malls, upmarket and department stores and even crowded shopping areas such as Commercial Street, Brigade Road and Mahatma Gandhi Road.

Changing times, one has to console oneself remembering with nostalgia the roly-poly Santas of yesteryear.

The joke doing the rounds is that today's Santas will be more comfortable on "exercycles" than sleighs. Perhaps even on bicycles of the "mountain bike" type.

* * *

WHILE ON the festive season one cannot help noticing all those enticements to "shop till you drop" on at the malls and larger stores.

For every purchase worth X rupees (all four digit amounts) you end up with coupons for lucky draws. The prizes range from cars to large-screen television sets and music systems and in some cases even diamond jewellery.

Near the billing counters of every large store you can find the boxes for dropping these coupons after they have been duly filled with names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail IDs. A rather harmless form of gambling, one may suppose. For the harried housewife with children in tow and impatient husbands, shopping is not complete without these lucky draw coupons.If you think this is rather gross, step into some shopping malls where you can actually donate for charity and add a decorative star to the Christmas tree in the foyer.

WITH THE city police imposing "one-ways" at regular intervals, the `one-way syndrome' has caught the drivers. Now, most two-wheeler riders and car owners think that every blockade of a road by the police is a one-way, unless it's clarified.

The other day at on K.R. Road where a road from the Basavanagudi swimming pool joins it and then leads to V.V. Puram, a few traffic policemen had placed a blockade and were asking the motorists to take a circuitous route to V.V. Puram and then go to J.C. Road. With no reasons provided by the police, the drivers had to take the route. They rued about the new one way, about which they had not read in newspapers.

But a few motorists took a route that joins the blocked road midway. Here too, they were turned away by the policemen. The policemen said: "This is not a new one way. We are blocking the traffic to avoid congestion for today's car festival of the Subramanya temple."

* * *

THE CHIEF MINISTER, N. Dharam Singh, took a dig at presspersons during the ceremony to present the Karnataka Media Academy awards recently at Ravindra Kalakshetra: "You have written everything about everyone. But you never wrote that Dharam Singh will be the Chief Minister. Yet, I am here as Karnataka Chief Minister."

But, he said he was happy that journalists tried to understand the nitty-gritty of politics and many predicted the future events correctly.

Yet they had difficulties in understanding the complexities of coalition government.

"And we have our own challenges and complexities. You know it is not easy. We will have to make many concessions," he said. Hence, journalists should be sympathetic to him and his Government "as always," he said as members of the audience went into splits.

Contributions by K. Satyamurty, M. Raghava and Govind/D.Belgaumkar

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