{"id":1635,"date":"2018-09-14T11:58:35","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T11:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.kredx.com\/?p=1635"},"modified":"2023-10-26T06:00:51","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T06:00:51","slug":"kredx-and-the-micro-stories-of-bangalore-traffic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/kredx-and-the-micro-stories-of-bangalore-traffic\/","title":{"rendered":"KredX and the Micro Stories of Bangalore Traffic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Traffic in Bangalore is a community of miniature stories. There is a tale of aggressive passion emanating off the Uber driver whispering sweet nothings into his earpiece while honking urgently at a homely looking cow taking a dump in the middle of the road. Another story of stubborn maternity exudes off the mom struggling to make her tired lullaby rise above her own baby\u2019s incessant bawls. The uncouth uncles in fancy cars, soft-spoken bus drivers with the kindest of smiles, even the moped-riding 18-year-olds contentedly discussing the reasons why balanced chemical equations cannot determine the order of a reaction; they are all part of a collective story that blankets Bangalore traffic. We wanted to find out the little stories that people from KredX experience every day while wading through the day\u2019s traffic. <\/span><\/p>\n

How They Feel<\/b><\/h2>\n

Adam Walker<\/b>, Product Manager, resident Caucasian man, an angst-ridden victim of first world guilt, smiles indulgently when we ask for his thoughts on Bangalore traffic. Then with all the elegance of an angry porcupine confronted with a hairbrush, launches himself into a string of expletives he feels Bangalore traffic can be defined by, \u201cFuck all, bullshit, rude, harassing, stressful, time killing, anger some, ruining my life.\u201d As Adam pauses to catch his breath, <\/span>Kanika Rao<\/b>, Corporate Counsel, interjects sympathetically, \u201cPeople don\u2019t know how to drive here, I mean, uff, if it\u2019s a one way people will come from both the sides, outer ring road doesn\u2019t mean one side, it is both the sides. It is a huge problem here.\u201d A little bemused at the obvious onrush of spirited anger at the mere mention of traffic, we hope <\/span>Madhusmita Panda<\/b>, VP Marketing, might prove to be a beacon of positivity. \u201cI hate driving, I\u2019ve always hated driving. And now it takes 45 minutes to travel 4 kilometers? That is crazy\u201d Clearly, the traffic in this city is detested to such an extent that people aren\u2019t capable of finding a silver lining. Which was why we expected <\/span>Vibha Krishnan<\/b>, Marketing Manager, to have less than pleasant thoughts on the matter when we brought it up with her. \u201cI like watching things go by, I don\u2019t mind it actually. I just generally watch, look outside I mean. It\u2019s almost like a welcome break, I like the inactivity that lets me observe the chaos outside.\u201d Not only did Vibha surprise us but she suddenly made us realise that the real stories are in what people are doing while stuck in traffic and not in how they feel about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

What They Do<\/b><\/h2>\n

Changing tack accordingly, we approach <\/span>Devang Mundra<\/b>, VP Engineering, for his comments. \u201cI do little experiments in my car. Sometimes, I wouldn\u2019t go as fast as somebody behind me would expect me to go and I would see how long it takes for them to honk. Sometimes, I would honk at somebody at random just to see how much honking would cause the person to move faster than their natural pace. I just like observing people and testing their thresholds. This is basically my entertainment during the commute.\u201d Devang, we gather, is the human manifestation of malevolent karma that rains upon all the impudent drivers in this world who don\u2019t believe in turn signals and safe driving. <\/span>Anurag Jain<\/b>, COO, has quite another take on living with the traffic, \u201cI\u2019ve started talking to people more over the phone. I\u2019ve started eating fruits while I am driving, which is honestly a welcome development. I\u2019ve stopped bothering about all those guys on two wheelers, which basically means I have become a much more patient individual. Now I just put my windows up, turn my phone\u2019s bluetooth on, play a nice song and I am up and running. I just don\u2019t bother, you know?\u201d We rather liked the recourse Anurag had taken upon himself, it had implications of zen written all over it. It turned out \u201czen\u201d was of particular interest to quite a few people dealing with the daily commute to work. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mohammed Hammad<\/b>, Investor Sales Analyst, supplies matter of factly, \u201cI do Wim Hof breathing technique in the cab, it pumps more oxygen into my brain and helps me become much more aware of everything around me. And while doing that, I listen to some peaceful music. By the time I reach work, I am sorted, zen actually.\u201d <\/span>Nitesh Badchariya, <\/b>UI\/UX Designer,<\/span> leans a little too comfortably on his ergonomic chair and compliments Hammad\u2019s point<\/span> with careless serenity. \u201cI do a bit of Vipassana and a few other breathing techniques so that I can concentrate on work more when I finally get to the office. But I mainly like daydreaming and just zoning myself out.\u201d We felt slightly intimidated by these men and the exotic manner with which they employ the human lungs. The good news, however, was that unproductivity was sitting only a few feet away and twirling it\u2019s mustache with immaculate concentration. <\/span>Abhishek Chandramouleeswaran<\/b>, Investor Sales Analyst, offers a little briskly, \u201cIn the morning I usually zone out in the bus. Or if I find a seat, I go on Quora. When I am going back home I always Netflix. I have my powerbank with me at all times just for this purpose.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

This was the moment, <\/span>Caroline Roshini<\/b>, HR Manager, entered the room with the cheerful aura of a delicate springtime breeze. Emboldened by Caroline\u2019s quite obvious gleeful abandon, we genially enquired as to what her adorable experiences with Bangalore traffic were. A moment of silence envelopes us as Caroline impassively collects her thoughts. And then she screams. \u201cYou know what? You know what the biggest problem in traffic is? MEN! Men are SLOW. Men cannot DRIVE fast, they cannot RIDE fast, they are ALWAYS just zoned out. They are riding, they are looking here, they are looking there, they are going slow in the middle of the road, they’re not letting anybody overtake them, not letting anybody\u2019s life become faster than theirs. These days, I go right next to them, then I honk loudly and then I overtake. Men are such GRANNIES!\u201d She expertly brandishes a certain hand gesture as a conclusion for this statement almost like an eloquent ballet dancer wiping off snot in the middle of a pirouette. As we back away slowly, we shrewdly wonder at the frequency with which Caroline might have fallen prey to Devang\u2019s curious brand of \u201cvehicular entertainment\u201d in the past. Some forms of experimentation, we conclude a little dispassionately, not only upend age-old stereotypes but apparently create refreshingly new ones as well. <\/span><\/p>\n

Improving Lifestyles on the Road<\/b><\/h2>\n

At this point, we found that Adam and Madhusmita had significantly calmed down as well. So, we tentatively re-approach them with the intention of finding out how they coped with their share of the city traffic. <\/span>Madhusmita <\/b>is much magnanimous with words this time, \u201cI\u2019ve developed a habit of swearing at people. My vocabulary has increased so much, it\u2019s almost like you look at me and I can swear at you. If its a taxi driver I have a specific swear word, another for a dude in a Honda City if it\u2019s an Audi I don\u2019t, I just smile. Traffic has helped me so much with improving my strategic thinking.\u201d <\/span>Adam <\/b>is equally expressive as he enlightens us about his traffic-related activities. \u201cThe silver lining to all this traffic is that I am doing a lot of things on my phone that I never used to, like, banking and listening to podcasts. I even find time to do yoga in the cab and meditate a little as well. I am always thinking of productive things to do every free moment I get. The traffic as terrible as it is has helped me become a much more disciplined person.\u201d <\/span>Hemant Joshi<\/b>, Product Manager, has also garnered some interesting insights after dealing with the traffic over the years. \u201cOn an experimental basis, I try to find out which side of the road I can travel faster, if one day I am on the left-hand side of the road, the other day I would be on the right, I have basically found out which corner of the road allows for optimal travel.\u201d We are startled by the scale of productivity with which people use traffic. And as we express our amazement with ardent admiration, <\/span>Vibha<\/b>, smiles a little and informs us kindly, \u201cHonestly, it was terribly stressful when I first moved to Bangalore. But slowly just like any other hardship, you just get used to it and then you create a life around it.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

KredX<\/a> seems to be pioneering the productive use of time wasted in daily traffic. When someone painstakingly creates an art form out of swearing, someone else is willing their lungs to make it to the next level. There are people who have maximised the productive capacity of their phones and others whose definition of productivity climaxes at the act of installing Netflix from Google Play. There is a man who eat fruits and another who subliminally spreads feminism with the use of his car. <\/span>There is apparently so much life, to the life stuck in Bangalore traffic.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traffic in Bangalore is a community of miniature stories. There is a tale of aggressive passion emanating off the Uber driver whispering sweet nothings into his earpiece while honking urgently at a homely looking cow taking a dump in the middle of the road. Another story of stubborn maternity exudes off the mom struggling to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13918,"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions\/13918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kredx.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}