How To Travel in Bangalore

I've been traveling extensively in and around central Bangalore for the past 6+ months. I have experimented with various modes of transport and various tools that assist finding the right transport in these journeys. Today when I met Nishan on his first day of a new life in Bangalore, I realized I have been traveling long enough to give some travel advice.

Disclaimer: This may not apply to all parts of Bengaluru, especially the Electronic City side (which actually should come under Chennai metro)

What is the best way to travel in Bangalore? It depends. What time is it? Where are you going? How much time do you have?

BMTC

BMTC is the most connected public transport system in Bangalore. The frequency of buses is usually inversely proportional to how badly we want to reach somewhere quickly. But, if we leave enough time to wait for the right bus, there will always be a bus. 

The BMTC app on play store is a hit and miss. If you've used it successfully in a particular route and if the time is before 8pm there is a high chance that the "Trip planner" will show buses that actually are plying. In fact, in such situations the information is so accurate (location, bus number plate, etc.) that I've been thinking about an Uber like service on top of the BMTC app.

There is a monthly pass if it works for you. For ₹1100 in ordinary buses and ₹1700 in AC buses you can travel wherever you want how much ever you want for a month. These passes can be got from any of the bus stations. There is also a daily pass which can be got from bus conductors.

Metro

Namma metro is simple. It either goes where you are going or it doesn't. Indiranagar, Jayanagar, Majestic, Mysore Road, Yeshwanthpur - these are best connected by the metro. The unfair advantage metro has over any other means of transport is that at 7 o'clock when the entire road network is jammed up, the metro rail just flies over the traffic.

In rush hour, if possible, always choose metro.

Get a metro card. It saves 15%. It can be recharged online. And it can be kept in wallet which allows you past gates by waving the wallet over them.

Uber/Ola/Rapido/Speedo/Ludo/Bodo/whatever-do

Uber and Ola are for business class travel. Also, when it is late night and there is no other way to travel. Rapido is for teenagers who aren't afraid of dying. Avoid all these unless absolutely trapped.

Google maps

The only tool you need to figure out the best route to anywhere is Google maps. It may not always get the timing right (especially for buses), but it always calculates the quickest route. Use the public transport tab. Use options and choose "subway" whenever there is a chance. Experiment with the starting/ending point a bit and there may be more convenient routes.

When using Google maps for planning travel, always be mindful of the time of day for which the calculations are made. Change this in the "arrive by" or "depart at" setting.

To conclude, traveling cheaply in Bangalore is possible. The secret is in planning and timing. Use the tips I've laid out with your own judgement and enjoy traveling!

Making Time

Yesterday Swathi and I visited Anivar and Joshina and their kids. It has been at least 5 months since we started planning this visit. And we finally made time for it, yesterday.
The moment we stepped inside Noonu and Ilan were on us - showing their toys, making us read story books, laughing at jokes, jumping, dancing, and purely enjoying. I burst out laughing at one particular joke in Balarama and could not control myself for half a minute. We had lots of food for stomach and mind.
I had asked Joshina about her work some time in the recent past. She told me about her current life philosophy which resonates with what Anivar told about his life philosophy a few weeks back, both of which struck a chord in me. The following is what it boils down to.

The society will expect superhuman things from you. Whenever you do something, there will be a few people to ask you about that next thing that you haven't done. If you keep trying to satisfy all these "next things", you will never be able to keep up. Because it is humanly impossible. But more importantly, you will be happy only if you are doing the things you want to do and those are things that bring you happiness.
A few weeks ago, I had said to myself "the secret to getting things done is to have more things to do". I think I was not entirely right. The focus should never be on getting things done. The focus should be on finding out things worth doing.
Today, coincidentally, I read Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day (affiliate link). I started it today and I made time to finish it today. And now I have made time to write this blog post today. The book gave me a strategy to implement the theory I learned in The One Thing (affiliate link).
The idea is to focus on life and not let it wither away. To focus on things that make sense to you. Things that are meaningful to you. Things that you will regret not doing. Make time for those things.

On (Not) Judging People

Human beings have an in-built sense of "morality" that they routinely apply against everything that they come across. There are multiple ways one's sense of what is moral and what is immoral emerges - including religion, upbringing, exposure, rationality, mental health, and so on.

Is morality necessary?

Morality is necessary. Not just because it allows people to live together without killing each other. But also because it helps an individual answer their own questions about what to do in any particular situation. It is the moral compass that often shows the direction to forge.

Should we use morality to judge others?

A distinction needs to be made before answering this. When "judging" someone, are you judging the person or their action? The answer matters a lot.

When you judge a person for a particular action, you are labeling that person as "good" or "bad" based on that action. For example, if you see the CEO of a company scolding an employee for a "small" thing and judge the CEO to be a bad person, you may be making two mistakes.
1) You do not know the reasons why the CEO is scolding the employee. It may even be for the good of the employee in the long term.
2) By labeling the CEO as a bad person, you have created a barrier between you personally and them which might make it difficult for you to work with them.

There are several cases where reason 1 does not apply at all. For example, say the CEO is actually doing something, say, being corrupt, which they themselves might not be able to defend.

But reason 2 is more important for someone who is trying to get things done. People are not dispensable. Human resource is hard to come by. If you start judging people by a few of their actions and dismiss them as "bad". If you make it impossible for you to be working with them. Then you have one less person to work with. And when we are all humans and everyone will have some or the other "follies", especially when you are viewing them through your sense of morality (which, having been formed by your own unique experiences in life, is going to be different from anyone else's sense of morality), judging people will soon leave you with nobody you can work with.

In other words, every human is different. If you keep looking for people who think, walk, and talk exactly like you to forge teams, you will never be able to move forward.

But, does it make sense to judge actions? Yes. As long as the judgement does not spill over to the person as a whole. In fact, judging actions is natural and direct consequence of morality. But extrapolating that judgement to an entire person is human bias.

But what if someone is wrong in all areas of their life? I think it is quite right to be mathematical here. The total value of a person is the sum of all their individual values and the added value that interaction of values give them.