Irritations and Contradictions?

My morning irritant:

Often a car is parked in front of the gate blocking my exit. I cannot go into a ' Road Rage', the much talked about Bengaluru phenomenon! I am not even out of the gate yet and anyway the driver is not there to vent my spleen!

Once it was our neighbour, he was luckily at home, came quickly to clear my way. While he sounded a little apologetic, his comment was typical! He said that he felt there was enough space. Implying that I lacked skills. I was so surprised that I failed to make a quick repartee! I have to practice some good ones to be used in future!'Not surprisingly' most offending cars are owner driven.

The white car had stickers of two club memberships! Fortunately I had to wait for only ten minutes as the driver had gone to a nearby shop. He was profusely apologetic after being caught!

Not all of them are polite. They act as if I am being unnecessarily fussy! We have the usual no parking sign on the gate, donated by some company or other! Once Ram even placed a polite note on one car which was parked in spite of this. I am racking my brain to think of a notice which will really work! Hope I succeed.

I remember that in Bangkok, esp in the narrower Sois, red cones or barriers are placed to stop others from parking. I guess it will be stolen here or moved to the side. I understand legally we have no claim to the place right in front of our home.

This did not trouble me as I had walked to a music concert nearby. But it still kept me from sleeping at night for a while . I have seen this Honda van moving about in the locality. I am sure it is going to be parked again and I plan to show my irritation the next time I catch him! The car has Tamil Nadu registration and all my 'Kannada' prejudices have acted up! Not strange as while we speak a brand of tamil at home, I am a Kannidaga first and storngly believe it is the others who are the problem!

I saw this poster at a shop window:

Good advice! The only contradiction was that the shop was in one of the air conditioned malls!

It is such people who have made a difference.

This is a picture of a dhobi ghat! People here have been practicing the advice given by the poster for a long time! I don't think that they have the time to stroll in malls and look at posters! The clothes are manually washed and dried in the sun.(I must go and see what they do in the rainy season though!)

This takes me to a source of irritation and contradiction at home. I do not want my T- shirts and cotton shorts and jeans to be ironed. It is my way of saving energy and reduce global ( esp Bangalore!) warming. Have not fully succeeded as I see that they still get ironed, argument being I cannot wear such crumpled T- shirts and shorts for golf! I am in a dilemma here! I recall as kids we used to smoothen our clothes before hanging them for drying and place neatly folded clothes under the beds to give them an ironed look. Must try it out again! Anyway I was too lazy then to get the coal fired iron started!