Karnataka is acting up

The 4th of October was a rather strange day in Bangalore and whole Karnataka, the state of which Bangalore is the capital. At that day, a bandh was conducted. Basically, Bandh means nothing but ‘closed’ and is form of protest by political activists. Hence, at that day all the shops were closed, companies were not supposed to work, rickshaws were not supposed to drive, as well as buses. To make it short, the whole city slept, inhabitants stayed at home the day. The Bandh this time was conducted because Karnataka and a neighbour state are having a tug of war about the boundaries and the population of Karnataka supports the government in his politics. The Bandh started at 6am and lasted till 6pm. Then, normal life came back to Bangalore. A Bandh is similar to a strike but it includes the whole state and not only a certain group of people. A Bandh is feared by all companies as the cost them a lot of money. My company nevertheless tried to have a day as usual. In order to achieve that employees were supposed to be picked up at 5am while other employees spent the night in the company, and some also spent the night in guest houses, located near to the company. The reason is because during a Bandh violence has to be expected. Some years ago, some people even were shot, cars and buses were burnt. And those who are not taking part of the bandh might be attacked by the activists. Therefore, as for me, I requested my manager to spend the day at home and he fortunately accepted. During the day then, I was hanging about with the others and did nothing. In the evening, we all together watched a hindi movie called “Krish”. Fortunately, no incidents were registered, the city just seemed to be fallen asleep.