When hashtag ‘Trevor Noah cancelled his show’ became synonymous with #peakbengaluru traffic woes

Although Trevor Noah cancelled his show in Bengaluru reportedly due to sound system glitches, Bengalureans grabbed the moment to add another hashtag to their #peakbengaluru angst stories. From funny memes about the pot-holed roads to while-we-wait-for-cars-to-inch-forward anecdotes, Bengalurians’s interesting takes on social media, tagging #Noah, have gone viral.

Incidentally, the unprecedented traffic jam on September 27 on the Outer Ring Road stretch, the lifeline for the tech community living there, resulted in a ripple effect all over the city, causing even the stand-up comedian and former talk show host to be late for his own show. With only an hour to go, many who were heading for Noah’s show and were stuck in the traffic were seen trying to sell tickets that cost them Rs 6,500 for Rs 5,000.

The show, however, was cancelled because of some technical glitches in the sound system. But having an international stand-up comedian in the city was too good an opportunity to let pass for Bengalureans, who never hesitate to ‘roast’ the IT hub known for its traffic bottlenecks and civic infrastructure issues.

So, while Bengaluru waited endlessly for the jam to clear up, social media kept buzzing with pictures and updates late into the night, providing an insight into the chaos.

Not surprisingly, even BookMyShow, the organiser of the Noah show, which has come under a lot of flak, and Noah himself, took to social media platform X to put out an apology. “Bengaluru, we are extremely sorry for the inconvenience caused at Trevor Noah’s Off The Record show at Manpho Convention Centre on September 27. The Bengaluru leg of the India Tour for both September 27 & 28 stands cancelled. All Customers who purchased tickets for both shows will get a complete refund within 8-10 working days,” BookMyShow sent out a message on X, at 1.55am on September 28. Many, like Anurag Mathur, a senior employee of Amazon, kept themselves busy throughout by live tweeting. Mathur’s posts were punctuated with dark humour, as he crawled through the traffic for almost five hours to reach his destination. Here’s one for sample: “With a sudden gusto of energy, our cab driver changed to 2nd gear for the first time in 3 hours and sped past another car reaching an ungodly speed of 10/km hour on ORR today. Map still reads 1.5 hours to home.” For what it’s worth, tech city’s ‘star infrastructure’ – food and beverage – stood by its “service at all cost” promise. When a techie working for Flipkart, also an X user, @Rishivaths, called Dominos, they actually delivered a pizza to his stuck-in-traffic car.

He promptly made a video of the delivery boys on a two-wheeler, snaking their way through the waiting cars, and posted it on X. “They were kind enough to track our live location (a few metres away from our random location added in the traffic) and deliver to us in the traffic jam,” he had tweeted.

Of course, this triggered another avalanche of memes and sarcastic comments from other users. Like X user Vibin Babuurajan, who said, “Next time I’m booking a massage from Urban Company.” Another X user, Ritwik Z, listed out places to go from Bengaluru, when one has 4.5-5 hours to spare. “Mysore-Bengaluru-Mysore, Coorg-Bengaluru, Chikkamagaluru-Bengaluru,” read his post.

Politics came into play too. P C Mohan, BJP LS MP of Bengaluru Central, put in his two pennies worth by blaming the present government. His X post, “The Baiyappanahalli-KR Pura metro link could have eased this, but the state government’s inaction, despite CMRS approval, prolongs the suffering,” triggered a political debate on who did what. Although according to @Bnglrweatherman, who tracks Karnataka weather on X, the jam did not ease out even at midnight. In the morning, Bengaluru appears to have gone back to its “normal” mode. Now, people could get to their destination, literally at a stone’s throw away, in less than one hour. Software developer Ruthvik Ghagarwale, posted on his X account at about 10.42am — “…I can practically see my house from my car, but it still took me a whopping 51 mins!”.