BENGALURU: Bengalureans gave a thumbs down to much-hyped ‘Jan Akrosh Divas’. A few of them even volunteered to work two hours extra on Monday.
Express spoke to some people, who were rushing to work on Monday morning, unfazed by ‘Monday blues’.
Narayan T V, the IT dept head at a joint venture of HAL said, “When they announced Akrosh Divas, my colleagues and I discussed about working extra hours. Today, all of us, dressed in white, came to office an hour early. Our work usually starts from 9 and ends at 6 but today, we all came at 8 and will work till 7. We support demonetization and Modi’s move to curb black money and corruption.”
Auto driver Narasimhamurthy said, he along with his friends had planned to ply auto for free if the government had decided to stall transport.
“I usually start my day by around 9.30 am everyday. Today, I started as early as 7. In case if the government had called for bandh and stopped buses, I, along with a few friends had decided to ply autos for free. I totally support Modi’s demonetisation initiative,” he added.
Suresh, a garment factory manager in Nagarabhavi, said neither he nor his workers were interested in it.
“None of our workers mentioned anything about working extra or about any bandh. It’s a regular Monday for us.”
Yogesh, who works at a restaurant on New BEL Road, said, “Business seems normal. Since morning we have received good footfalls, which I must say is a good start for a Monday.”
Prashanth V, a lecturer at Acharya Institute of Graduate Studies said they had good number of students attending classes today.
“I was totally surprised. Despite festival (Karthika somavara) most students turned up for classes. When I asked a student, who was irregular to classes, he said he was there to show support to Modi, which actually surprised me,” he said.
Aishwarya, a student from Vijaya College, said she is not sure of demonetisation move but her mom is ‘swept away’ by Modi’s decision on banning of currency notes. “Yesterday, my mom received a WhatsApp message asking her not to buy anything from the stores that remain closed today, in support of bandh. Surprisingly, she decided to stand by it. Not sure how demonetisation works, but, the influence of ‘forwarded messages’ on social networking sites and apps seems to be working in favour of Modi.”
Most shops, hotels, schools and colleges and commercial localities functioned as usual.