These long commutes make commuting people bored. To beat boredom, people keep themselves engaged in several activities like listening to music, reading books, sleeping, thinking and also some stupid things like observing bus in which they are sitting, seats & its nuts and bolts, scribblings written on back of seats..etc.

Many do one more activity.. observing other commuters; watching them when they board or alight. Several people call it with several names.. starring, ogling, watching, observing.. etc. Whatever you call it, it is one of the most common things people do during commute. I also used to do that.

Watching / observing people, as I call it, helps you to identify a pattern in them. It helps you to identify people’s likes, preferences, style statement,  dressing sense, habits and even their relationship status. Yes.. even relationship status can be identified. It is very easy to identify whether a person is single or committed or married or has bf in bus or at some other place over the phone. Guesses might go wrong but most of times it would be accurate prediction if you have acquired the skill of observation.

There was this girl who used to commute from my area to office in the same bus at same timings.

She never used to talk to anyone either with fellow bus-mates or over the phone. She was not hot or sexy. She was an average good looking girl. She was just another commuter in the bus. Yet I used to observe her a lot.

I prefer a two seater window seat of last but one row. Her preference was also a two seater window seat but of mid row. I never felt of sitting next to her or talk to her. I had always chosen last but one row in spite of several opportunities when a seat next to her was not taken.

Eventually I had to come to US for an onsite opportunity. A year stay away from homeland had totally removed her out of my mind.

Last month when I had gone to India, bus journey to office again reminded me of this girl. But I could not find her in bus during my whole stay of  month. Some of obvious thoughts that came across.. she must have gone to onsite or married and moved to some other area or city. But that was not the case.

The day before my departure to US, I saw her. I was in bus. She was in opposite bus stop standing waiting for some other bus. She was wearing a different company ID tag. She had quit the company.

This post is dedicated to her.. who I never knew.. who was a stranger yet so familiar.. to an infoscion .. now an ex-infoscion

Several elections have come and gone. Politicians visit people every time during elections and make huge castle election promises. But no representative and no party has ever done any significant development for North Karnataka. It is still the forgotten and neglected part of the state even after 50 years.

Many awareness campaigns were raised to motivate people to come out of home and vote. Lead India, several other volunteer/ non profit organizations, several organizations including my employer tried to bring awareness by putting ads on TVs, newspapers, notice boards and by sending official mails in order to increase voter turnout. But will these be really effective when the people have lost total interest in state politics because of lack of stable govt, opportunist politicians and all burning issues which politicians are not even having a glance on them.

Coming back to North Karnataka, it has been severely lagging from all aspects. There is a backwardness in everything infrastructure, education, economy, government facilities, rail links, road transport, airports, tourism..etc

Every politician come and give huge promises and unrealistic plans. They will promise like anything.. this that. that this..all blah blah and bullshit. This time,for third phase, most national leaders have toured for campaign.. L K Advani, Susma Swaraj, Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Lalu, Mayavati and many more. These are the people who build castle in the air. Someone has rightly said politicians build bridge even when there is no river. Let alone national leaders, even the politicians from North Karnataka like Dharam Singh / Kharge are doing nothing for NK and even after this they are winning continuously. Now whom to blame? NK people expected a lot when Dhram Singh became CM and unfortunately even he couldn’t do anything during his CMship.

Leaders of North Karnataka are good for nothing and they never fought for anything. All they know is earn(black or white doesn’t matter),  eat and sleep till next elections.  Inspite of number of agitations from people, nothing improved and nothing initiated.  Farmers of NK are dependent on rain for agriculture. Don’t politicians think irrigation projects are needed? The Kalasa Banduri Nala project for Hubli-Dharwad people, development of airports of NK region, new rail links for connecting various places of NK and several other projects are still a dream.

Myself being from North Karnataka, I feel shame to say that our leaders are useless. But fortunately decade by decade, there is gradual rise in mass agitation and also politicians started believing that they need to look into these long remaining issues.

We need to elect leaders who make difference to us. I know, these all have made us to lose interest in overall politics.  You may opt to choose not to vote thinking that no leader will do anything for us! But by your decision of not voting, worst leaders will be chosen and condition will be even more pathetic. Vote for good leader. If there is no good leader nominated, atleast vote for comparatively not so worse leader, thus by preventing worst leader to be chosen.

Exercise you vote today! Your vote will make a differnce!