The first of these comes about what happened with us today. We were off to the elusive food street in Bangalore. After a quick google map lookup, we treaded on towards our destination only till we found the lovely Lalbagh lake staring towards us. We could not resist the temptation to sit beside it and enjoy nature right in the heart of Bangalore. We looked around for a parking spot and saw a place where around 10-15 bikes were parked under a no parking sign outside Lalbagh. Around four traffic policemen were having their tea and evening snacks and seemed pretty much unruffled about the bikes parked. They saw us parking our vehicle right there, but they did not budge. Then we went up to them and asked for the directions to get to Food Street. They cordially explained us the way. Having not heard them say a word about the parked vehicle, we thought it as a tacit acceptance by them about parking our vehicle at that place. After having a nice sit-out besides the lake, we came back only to discover that the same policeman who gave us directions and saw us parking our vehicle under the no parking sign issue a parking ticket! Our mistake, yes and we duly paid and took the receipt but so much for the "have you thanked the policeman" campaign by the Govt.
Then, we reached the Food Street which is pretty much a small pathway having 10-15 shops serving street food. For someone who has seen food streets in some other cities, this would not even qualify as a Food Street, but nevertheless every city has its own style.
The local delicacies on offer were miscellaneous types of Dosas rich in Ghee, Ragi rotis and Akki Rotis, Obattu and Paddu. Besides the idlis, various forms and shapes of vadas were also wasily available.
What surprised us was the presence of the Mumbai chaats and kulfis. For a traditional food street with many shops dating back to early 1960s, it was nice to see that there are varieties from outside the local flavour too.
We first leapt onto the butter-rich Pav Bhaji which lived upto the expectations. Then, we tried our hands, rather taste buds on the local version of momo-- known as Paddu. To say the least, it was "uninspiring" as Ash put it most appropriately. Next up, we cautiously moved to the Akki roti, which more than made up for the Paddu's let down. It was extremely tasty.
Then we had some badaam milk and set off towards home after enquiring about the roads. We entered a narrow ally only to find a big police jeep and yes, I had managed to get another ticket in one day, this time round for entering in the wrong way. the friendly policeman asked Rs. 400! We wondered how a poor man would afford to get out of a similar "crime". Friendly Policeman 2 came up and said that since we were students (!!), we could only pay Rs. 200 and get off. Now, thats a student offer even telecom companies would fins hard to beat. Nevertheless, Ash very correctly said that we will pay the full sum that gives us a ticket and we will not bribe whatever the amount. Hearing this, the over-friendly and "considerate" policemen backed off and another one came with his blackberry out and gave us a ticket of Rs. 100 which is the actual amount for entering from wrong side.
While we were about to set off, the Friendly policeman came to us and said, "Oh! at first I thought you were Muslims living nearby and hence I would let you go off without a fine, but you are not as your Driving Licence suggests and hence you had to pay up." Now that was an extremely innovative excuse for hiding his attempts of having tried to take a bribe from us.
After all this drama, we managed to get to our homes without any further tickets. Had I got one more, I would have mentioned my alternative career as Ticket collector (TC). :)
