07 May 2009


FACTS: Interesting Facts About Bangalore

Here are some interesting facts about Bangalore



1. Bangalore has the impeccable record of highest growth within a span of 20 Years


2. Bangalore has highest number of pubs in Asia.




3. Bangalore has highest number of (c)igarette $mokers in India.




4. Bangalore has the highest number of software companies in India-212, followed by Hyderabad - 108, Pune - 97. Hence called the Silicon Valley of India




5. Bangalore has 21 engineering colleges, which is highest in the world in a
given city. Bangalore University has 57 Engineering colleges affiliated to it,
which is highest in the world.




6. Bangalore is the only city in the world to have commercial and defense
Airport operating from the same strip.
7. Bangalore has highest number of public sectors and government Organizations
in India.
8. Bangalore university has highest number of students going abroad for higher
studies
taking the first place from IIT-Kanpur.




9. Bangalore has only 48% of local population ( i.e.Kannadigas) .Hence a true
cosmopolitan with around 25% Tamilians, 14% Telugites, 10% Keralites, 8%
Europeans, and 6% a mixture of all races.




10. Bangalore police has the reputation of being second best in India after
Delhi.




11. Bangalore has the highest density of traffic in India.



12. Bangalore has the highest number of 2-wheelers in the world.




13. Bangalore is considered the fashion capital of east comparable to Paris.
15. Bangalore has produced the maximum international sportsmen in India for
all sports ahead of even Mumbai & Delhi.
16. Bangalore has produced the maximum number of scientists considered for
Nobel Prize nominations.
17. Bangalore has produced the highest number of professionals in USA almost
60% of the Indian population abroad is from Bangalore (except Gulf).

18. Bangalore is famous for THREE: Software Professionals, Girls and Dogs.



19. Bangalore is famous for its dog bites, an average of 12 people are bitten
by stray dogs per MINUTE somewhere in Bangalore!!

A heartful of Thanks

I just want to thank all of you for your educational emails over the
past year. Thanks to you, I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a
paper towel.

I can't use the remote in a hotel room because I don't know what the
last person was doing while flipping through the adult movie channels.

I can't sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what
has happened on it since it was last washed.
I can't enjoy lemon slices in my tea or on my seafood anymore because
lemon peels have been found to contain all kinds of nasty germs
including feces.
I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because
the number one pass-time while driving alone is picking your nose
(although cell phone usage may be taking the number one spot)
Eating a Little Debbie sends me on a guilt trip because I can only
imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years.
I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor
of a public bathroom. Yuck!
I must send my special thanks to whoever sent me the one about poop in
the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every
envelope that needs sealing.
Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same
reason.
I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny
Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.
I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive
the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for
participating in their special e-mail program.
I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking
out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.
I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant
freaks with no eyes or feathers.
I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a
water buffalo on a hot day.
Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I
forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five
minutes.
Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can
remove toilet stains.
I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the
car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping
gas.
I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these
products are atheists who refuse to put 'Under God' on their cans.
I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.
And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup of water in the
microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face...disfiguring me
for life.
I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be
pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.
I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a
perfume sample and rob me.
I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually
Al Qaeda in disguise.
I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our
American troops or the Salvation Army.
I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a
number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Uganda
& Singapore and Uzbekistan .
I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have
their recipe.
Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown
African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when
it bites my butt.
And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up $5.00 dropped in
the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester
waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.
I can no longer drive my car because I can't buy gas from certain gas
companies!
If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70
minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM
this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back,
causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it
actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's
ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician...
Have a wonderful day...
Oh, by the way.....

A German scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has
discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their
e-mail with their hand on the mouse.
Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.
My Friend visited Philippines and had returned back to India (He is basically an Indian but spent most part in UK, so considers himself a resident of UK) and after a long pause between our schooling days and getting busy with our own life we met a couple of times, before he returned back to philips, this is what he had to mail, he had promised to give me a view of this strange country as seen through my own eyes when I asked him about the food culture mainly.Trust me after this I'm never gonna think of visiting this place.That idiot knew very well I wouldn't be liking this mail of his for sure :-) and me being a foodie it was too difficult to digest.Now I get it why he preferred mailing me than telling me.Its an interesting read though a lengthy one.while here he had told me how people there eat bird's nests drink snakes wine and so on...I had warned him not to mail me such things trust me I knew what he would be be mailing me. -


I have now been in this country for over six years, and consider myself in most respects well assimilated. However, there is one key step on the road to full assimilation, which I have yet to take, and that's to eat BALUT.

The day any of you sees me eating balut, please call immigration and ask them to issue me a Filipino passport. Because at that point there will be no turning back.

BALUT, for those still blissfully ignorant non-Pinoys out there, is a fertilized duck egg.

It is commonly sold with salt in a piece of newspaper, much like English fish and chips, by street vendors usually after dark, presumably so you can't see how gross it is.

It's meant to be an aphrodisiac, although I can't imagine anything more likely to dispel sexual desire than crunching on a partially formed baby duck swimming in noxious fluid. The embryo in the egg comes in varying stages of development, but basically it is not considered macho to eat one without fully discernible feathers, beak, and claws. Some say these crunchy bits are the best. Others prefer just to drink the so-called 'soup', the vile, pungent liquid that surrounds the aforementioned feathery fetus...excuse me; I have to go and throw up now. I'll be back in a minute.

Food dominates the life of the Filipino. People here just love to eat. They eat at least eight times a day. These eight official meals are called, in order: breakfast, snacks, lunch, merienda, merienda cena, dinner, bedtime snacks and no one-saw-me-take-that-cookie-from-the-fridge-so-it-doesn't-count.

The short gaps in between these mealtimes are spent eating Sky Flakes from the open packet that sits on every desktop. You're never far from food in the Philippines . If you doubt this, next time you're driving home from work, try this game. See how long you can drive without seeing food and I don't mean a distant restaurant, or a picture of food. I mean a man on the sidewalk frying fish balls, or a man walking through the traffic selling nuts or candy. I bet it's less than one minute.

Here are some other things I've noticed about food in the Philippines :

Firstly, a meal is not a meal without rice - even breakfast. In the UK , I could go a whole year without eating rice. Second, it's impossible to drink without eating. A bottle of San Miguel just isn't the same without gambas or beef tapa. Third, no one ventures more than two paces from their house without baon (food in small container) and a container of something cold to drink. You might as well ask a Filipino to leave home without his pants on. And lastly, where I come from, you eat with a knife and fork. Here, you eat with a spoon and fork. You try eating rice swimming in fish sauce with a knife.

One really nice thing about Filipino food culture is that people always ask you to SHARE their food. In my office, if you catch anyone Attacking their baon, they will always go, "Sir! KAIN TAYO!" ("Let's eat!"). This confused me, until I realized that they didn't actually expect me to sit down and start munching on their boneless bangus. In fact, the polite response is something like, "No thanks, I just ate."

But the principle is sound - if you have food on your plate, you are expected to share it, however hungry you are, with those who may be even hungrier. I think that's great!

In fact, this is frequently even taken one step further. Many Filipinos use "Have you eaten yet?" ("KUMAIN KA NA?") as a general greeting, irrespective of time of day or location.

Some foreigners think Filipino food is fairly dull compared to other Asian cuisines. Actually lots of it is very good: Spicy dishes like Bicol Express (strange, a dish named after a train); anything cooked with coconut milk; anything KINILAW; and anything ADOBO. And it's hard to beat the sheer wanton, cholesterolic frenzy of a good old-fashioned LECHON de leche (roast pig) feast. Dig a pit, light a fire, add 50 pounds of animal fat on a stick, and cook until crisp. Mmm, mmm... you can actually feel your arteries constricting with each successive mouthful.

I also share one key Pinoy trait --- a sweet tooth. I am thus the only foreigner I know who does not complain about sweet bread, sweet burgers, sweet spaghetti, sweet banana ketchup, and so on. I am a man who likes to put jam on his pizza. Try it!

It's the weird food you want to avoid. In addition to duck fetus in the half-shell, items to avoid in the Philippines include pig's blood soup (DINUGUAN); bull's testicle soup, the strangely-named "SOUP NUMBER FIVE" (I dread to think what numbers one through four are); and the ubiquitous, stinky shrimp paste, BAGOONG, and it's equally stinky sister, PATIS. Filipinos are so addicted to these latter items that they will even risk arrest or deportation trying to smuggle them into countries like Australia and the USA , which wisely ban the importation of items you can smell from more than 100 paces.

Deepti, Then there's the small matter of the purple ice cream. I have never been able to get my brain around eating purple food; the ubiquitous UBE leaves me cold. And lastly on the subject of weird food, beware: that KALDERETANG KAMBING (goat) could well be KALDERETANG ASO (dog)... ( Uh ! don't you lie you bugger, you have had a black current with me which is ofcourse PURPLE!!!! )

The Filipino, of course, has a well-developed sense of food. Here's a typical Pinoy food joke: "I'm on a seafood diet. "What's a seafood diet?" "When I see food, I eat it!"

* In general, seafood diet is one of the most nutritionally balanced foods. A seafood diet helps control weight and goes a long way toward preventing heart disease.

Filipinos also eat strange bits of animals --- the feet, the head, the guts, etc., usually barbecued on a stick. These have been given witty names, like "ADIDAS" (chicken's feet); "KURBATA" (either just chicken's neck, or "neck and thigh" as in "neck-tie"); "WALKMAN" (pigs ears); "PAL"(chicken wings); "HELMET" (chicken head); "IUD" (chicken intestines), and BETAMAX" (video-cassette-like blocks of animal blood). Yum, yum. Bon appetit.

"A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches"-- (Proverbs 22:1)

When I arrived in the Philippines from the UK six years ago, one of the first cultural differences to strike me was names. The subject has provided a continuing source of amazement and amusement ever since.
The first unusual thing, from an English perspective, is that everyone here has a nickname. In the staid and boring United Kingdom , we have nicknames in kindergarten, but when we move into adulthood we tend, I am glad to say, to lose them.

The second thing that struck me is that Philippine names for both girls and boys tend to be what we in the UK would regard as overbearingly cutesy for anyone over about five. Fifty-five-year-olds colleague put it. Where I come from, (He's referring to UK) a boy with a nickname like Boy Blue or Honey Boy would be beaten to death at school by pre-adolescent bullies, and never make it to adulthood. So, probably, would girls with names like Babes, Lovely, Precious, Peachy or Apples. Yuk, ech ech. Here, however, no one bats an eyelid.

Then I noticed how many people have what I have come to call "door-bell names".

These are nicknames that sound like -well, doorbells. There are millions of them. Bing, Bong, Ding, and Dong are some of the more common. They can be, and frequently are, used in even more door-bell-like combinations such as Bing-Bong, Ding-Dong, Ting-Ting, and so on.
Even our newly appointed chief of police has a doorbell name Ping .
None of these doorbell names exist where I come from, and hence sound unusually amusing to my untutored foreign ear.

Someone once told me that one of the Bings, when asked why he was called Bing, replied, "because my brother is called Bong". Faultless logic. Dong, of course, is a particularly funny one for me, as where I come (Again referring to UK)from "dong" is a slang word for well; perhaps "talong" is the best Tagalog equivalent.

Repeating names was another novelty to me, having never before encountered people with names like Len-Len, Let-Let, Mai-Mai, or Ning-Ning.

The secretary I inherited on my arrival had an unusual one: Leck-Leck. Such names are then frequently further refined by using the "squared" symbol, as in Len2 or Mai2. This had me very confused for a while.
Then there is the trend for parents to stick to a theme when naming their children. This can be as simple as making them all begin with the same letter, as in Jun, Jimmy, Janice, and Joy.

More imaginative parents shoot for more sophisticated forms of assonance or rhyme, as in Biboy, Boboy, Buboy, Baboy (notice the names get worse the more kids there are-best to be born early or you could end up being a Baboy).

Even better, parents can create whole families of, say, desserts (Apple Pie, Cherry Pie, Honey Pie) or flowers (Rose, Daffodil, Tulip). The main advantage of such combinations is that they look great painted across your trunk if you're a cab driver.

That's another thing I'd never seen before coming to Manila -- taxis with the driver's kids' names on the trunk.

Another whole eye-opening field for the foreign visitor is the phenomenon of the "composite" name. This includes names like Jejomar (for Jesus, Joseph and Mary), and the remarkable Luzviminda (for Luzon , Visayas and Mindanao , believe it or not). That's a bit like me being called something like "Engscowani" (for England , Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland ). Between you and me, I'm glad I'm not. And how could I forget to mention the fabulous concept of the randomly inserted letter 'h'. Quite what this device is supposed to achieve, I have not yet figured out, but I think it is designed to give a touch of class to an Otherwise only averagely weird name. It results in creations like Jhun, Lhenn, Ghemma, and Jhimmy. Or how about Jhun-Jhun (Jhun2)?

How boring to come from a country like the UK full of people with names like John Smith. How wonderful to come from a country where imagination and exoticism rule the world of names.

Even the towns here have weird names; my favorite is the unbelievably named town of Sexmoan (ironically close to Olongapo and Angeles).
Where else in the world could that really be true?

Where else in the world could the head of the Church really be called Cardinal Sin? Where else but the Philippines !

Note: Philippines has a senator named Joker, and it is his legal name.

Intelligent Old Man

I enjoyed reading this-


IRS decides to audit Grandpa, and summons him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his attorney.

The auditor said, 'Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling.

I'm not sure the IRS finds that believable.'

I'm a great gambler, and I can prove it,' says

Grandpa. 'How about a demonstration?'

The auditor thinks for a moment and said, 'Okay. Go ahead.'

Grandpa says, 'I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.'

The auditor thinks a moment and says, 'It's a bet.'

Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it.

The auditor's jaw drops.

Grandpa says, 'Now, I'll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.'

Now the auditor can tell Grandpa isn't blind, so he takes the bet.

Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye.

The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Grandpa's attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.

'Want to go double or nothing?' Grandpa asks 'I'll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.'

The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there's no way this old guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.

Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can't make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor's desk.

The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win.

But Grandpa's attorney moans and puts his head in his hands.

'Are you okay?' the auditor asks.

'Not really,' says the attorney. 'This morning, when Grandpa told me he'd been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and pee all over your desk and you'd be happy about it.'