"The Road Ahead"
Have got to know more about the anatomy of Bangalore or more precisely the circulation system of Bangalore. I usually have a keen eye on the different roads, landmarks of any new place I visit, I try to map it in my mind, and then sometimes challenge myself to think of a way of going from point X to Y and to predict where a particular road will lead to without actually going on it. I get to validate it, when I get a chance to go along that road, or ask some friend who has lived there for long, or an auto/taxi driver. I try to put in the missing links of my road info jigsaw. This is not only an interesting pastime, but it can save you a lot of money and time, especially if you are travelling in the weird third-world contraption called the auto-rickshaw, with the drivers trying to take you for a ride literally by taking you through a longer route sometimes.

Not to malign the auto-drivers, in general the Blore drivers are good (but not in the driving sense), you can trust them to not to trick you, unlike the Delhi ones who are the worst of the lot. Pune/Mumbai ones are also okay.Bloreans lament about the state of traffic especially the driving behavior, saying it is worse than other places. but believe me it is much better than Calcutta or Lucknow, and even Pune. Discipline is more in Bangalore inspite of heavy traffic. Among all Indian cities I feel Bombay is best regarding traffic sense and order.

Some other observations about Bangalore.

• Offices/Markets spread out all over the city. So no central congestion point, unlike Calcutta and Bombay.
• Lot of choices of buses, quite efficient and cheap public transport. Major drawback is that all route info is in Kannada. One has to memorize the route numbers to identify the buses.
• Best footpaths in the country, they are wide, smooth, tree-lined. So one can walk unhindered even in the busiest of intersections and roads.
• Glut of autos. The drivers lament about their exponential growth. In economics it is akin to the "Tragedy of the Commons" theory, where a profitable common resource is over-exploited so that finally it turns out to be economically unviable for all. Though not perfectly applicable here because supply-demand will finally stabilize, but not before economic hardships for lot of these drivers.
• Large military presence in the center of the city, similar to Pune, Calcutta. They occupy acres of prime land. Positive aspects are that over-commercialization and crowding is avoided, open spaces and green cover exist which acts as the lungs of the city. Some drawbacks are that it has stretched the city unnecessarily and some of the wasted or partially-used defence spaces could be put to better purpose, like parking lots, roads, some public utility establishment.