Ok this is the sort of speculative predictive post that I don’t usually indulge in. However, I think my blog is at the right level of obscurity that makes it conducive for making speculative predictions. It is not popular enough that enough people will remember this prediction in case this doesn’t come through. And it’s…
Bangalore names are getting shorter
The Bangalore Names Dataset, derived from the Bangalore Voter Rolls (cleaned version here), validates a hypothesis that a lot of people had – that given names in Bangalore are becoming shorter. From an average of 9 letters in the name for a male aged around 80, the length of the name comes down to 6.5…
Smashing the Law of Conservation of H
A decade and half ago, Ravikiran Rao came up with what he called the “law of conservation of H“. The concept has to do with the South Indian practice of adding a “H” to denote a soft consonant, a practice not shared by North Indians (Karthik instead of Kartik for example). This practice, Ravikiran claims,…
The Comeback of Lakshmi
A few months back I stumbled upon this dataset of all voters registered in Bangalore. A quick scraping script followed by a run later, I had the names and addresses and voter IDs of all voters registered to vote in Bangalore in the state assembly elections held this way. As you can imagine, this is…
The other side of the long tail
There are several people who talk about how the advent and the popularity of the internet has resulted in markets in many a long tail. Without loss of generality, let us just take the market for writing here. Several niches which were earlier not served since there wasn’t enough of a dedicated audience in a…
CTR
Ok this is a post that has been delayed by about a couple of weeks. One of those things that has been in my head now for a while so writing it. So some two or three Sundays back (more likely to be two) I went to the famous CTR in Malleswaram for breakfast. For…
Bangalore Book Festival
So today I made my way to Gayatri Vihar in the Palace Grounds to visit the Bangalore Book Festival, on its last day. It was interesting, though a bit crowded (what would you expect on the last day of an exhibition? and that too, when it’s a Sunday?). I didn’t buy much (just picked up…
Weddings
I’m trying to understand the significance of attending another person’s wedding. It is very unlikely that you are going to add any significant value to the process, since the person who invited you is likely to be extremely busy with the process. Unless you know one of the main people involved in the wedding really…
Why fine dining costs so much in Bangalore
Blame the Bangarappa government of 1993, which took a decision to stop issuing more liquor licenses, a decision that still continues today.? According to themadman ?(who runs the excellent Shiok, currently temproarily closed), the only way one can start a restaurant serving liquor in Bangalore is to buy a permit from someone who is shutting…
Pleasant Observations
This morning, on the way to the gym, i saw a pleasant and wonderful sight. In fact, it was a curious problem but the solution gave me hope that the average intelligence in India is not too low. It was shortly passed 7 am, and the traffic lights at South End Circle had just come…
Hotel Dwaraka
In its earlier sit-down avatar on Bull Temple Road, it was known for doling out copious quantities of chutney in buckets. No sooner had you emptied half the chutney on your plate, a waiter would materialize and pour a bucket of the stuff into your plate. The main item on the menu here was the…
Zoning with respect to the new airport
Now that the airport has been successfully moved, despite the vehement protests from the powerful IT-BT-ITES lobby and various others, the next fear is that these companies will move close to the new airport. As it stands now, I’m not sure how the NH7 and other roads that lead to the new airport are going…
SLV Banashankari 2nd Stage
Around this time last year, I was doing a series of blog posts on delivery and revenue management practices in restaurants in Bangalore. My apologies for not updating on that series for so long. This morning I had my breakfast at SLV in Banashankari 2nd stage (near the BDA complex; opposite the park next to…
Correction
In a post I wrote a month back, I had talked about Predicatably Irrational Traffic – in which I talked about a bunch of motorists collectively jumping a signal which they deemed unfair. Now, having read “The Logic of Life” a couple of weeks back, I’m not sure the heading of that was correct. I’m…
Coffee pricing at Chalukya
The pricing of coffee at the Samrat restaurant (part of Hotel Chalukya on Race Course Road) is interesting. This is a popular old restaurant, and being in an area full of government offices, is perennially crowded (despite its large size). It is a sit-down kind of restaurant, though you might have to share a table…
The Barista Way
The Barista outlet outside Barton centre on M G Road seems to have come up with an excellent way in order to improve their “table turnovers”. They simply play loud and jarring music in order to make the stay as unpleasant as possible for the customers. And new ones keep pouring in so they are…
Vidyarthi Bhavan seems to have got it right
Recently, I had written that the old restaurants in Bangalore need to cash in on their loyalty factor and make use of the inelastic demand in order to remain profitable. Vidyarthi Bhavan in Gandhi Bazaar seems to have gotten it right, at least partially. Of course, they remain closed for lunch and dinner, and on…
Saving the old “hotels”
Recently, an article on the CNN-IBN site about old eateries in Bangalore shutting shop made its way into my inbox a number of times. Read it the first time, and put a “well left” on all subsequent occasions. And recently, in response to some other totally unrelated post, someone wanted me to comment on it.…
UD and the Masala Dosa
A few months back, before went on exchange, we thought of doing a survey of “delivery systems in south indian fast food (read darshini) restaurants in Bangalore”. And maybe publishing a paper on it. However, thanks to our combined laziness, it’s never happened. Nevertheless thought of writing what I’ve been observing in a few restaurants…
Bhelpuri Economics
Every evening during my last term break, I used to go on a long walk round South Bangalore, and used to top it off by eating somewhere. Being too impatient to sit at a table and order, I would typically saunter into some fast-food places and make good all those calories burnt in the walk.…