Bangalore Blues

The other day, actually come to think of it, quite some time ago, one fine evening, I was riding a bike with a friend , we were coming back from someplace I think, and we were nearby the Vidhan Soudha . The place was looking beautiful – well-maintained, well-kept, clean; quite unlike the rest of Bangalore.

For no reason I came to thinking… about Bangalore..

Before I came to this city last year, I was always fascinated with it. My brother had been in Mangalore for the past 4 years… and he used to come to Bangalore sometimes…
He’d always be saying, ‘we’re at Barista’, ‘we’re at a pub’ etc. and I’d always kind of yearn to experience all those new things. Having always been in small cities (or towns), i.e. Shillong, and then Allahabad, I’ve never tasted real city life for long. I’ve been to all the metros, but never long enough to feel its pulse. It was always a glimpse…a few days, that too not as a person belonging to that city, but as an outsider.

Bangalore gave me the first real taste of a metro. Unlike all the other metros, Bangalore is not as fast paced. It has a rhythm of its own. Not slow, yet not too fast. Not the hurry of Mumbai, where people rush to the local railways at 4am in the morning, and that is not a one-day thing – it’s day to day for them. I’ve actually seen this. First time I ever went to Mumbai (it was Bombay then), our train was delayed by some hours and we reached the Dadar station at 2am at night. For some reason, which I don’t recall now, we went by local train to Victoria Terminus (then). Even at 2 am, the trains had some people, its true maybe that the city never sleeps. At VT, everything was slightly quiet when we reached (2:30 am I guess). By 4 am, to our surprise, the station started getting crowded. People rushing to the trains, getting along with the day - amazing.
Anyway, having been the small town it was, (15 years back, maybe even lesser), it has retained some of that pace. One will hardly find people outside at 1 am or something. At least I don’t think so.

Now, with the majority of the IT industry being based here, more and more people are coming to this city, exhausting the infrastructure of this completely unprepared city. Now, people complain all the time of the crowds, the pollution, traffic, the list is never-ending. Nobody seems to want to stay here anymore. Yet, nobody seems to be leaving. Everyone will be cribbing, especially when stuck in an inexplicable traffic jam for more than an hour, and yet one will be thinking a million times before migrating to the other cities.
The weather is incredible – temperate climate throughout the year, hardly any heat and hardly any cold. Having stayed in Allahabad for 4 years, a place with extreme climate, I have experienced the worst of both worlds – walking to college in the scorching heat when the temperature is 45 degrees centigrade, for a class which was cancelled after we reached….one didn’t know whether to be happy that there’s no class or frustrated that we walked all the way, and our attendance wouldn’t count (for us, learning wasn’t relevant.. attendance was all that mattered), sitting in your room, wondering how it is that you can manage using your computer without having to leave the comfort of your warm bed, waking up at 9am and seeing nothing outside but white…for the uninitiated, that’s fog I’m talking about. Anyway coming back to the point, for me Bangalore was heaven when I came here; I came in August, when in Northern India, the heat is still on. Here, it was extremely pleasant, if not cool. Every evening, for about half an hour + 15 minutes, inevitably, it would rain. Evenings, you’d need a light jacket to be comfortable. That’s it. That was last year, this year its been slightly warmer, where unavailability of fans during March and April caused a little discomfort, and the cold never really set in until December (now)….

Now, like all other people who are not Bangalorean, I too perennially complain about the city, and its innumerable unresolved problems... and yet, I’m still here. For me, Bangalore has been an eye opener. Well, it’s no wonder that I crib about the city; this is the city to which I came to start my professional career, my first job. A life very distant from the easy carefree life back at college (I know I know I cant seem to get over the fact that college is over and those days are never going to come back), a far cry from having to worry about sessionals and semesters. The life is different, the activities are different, the worries are different, the friends are different, why blame the city?

Far away from home, managing to go back about twice a year - the low-cost flight airlines websites being one of the most visited sites in my internet history, complaining about the surrounding environment is but natural. And yet, when it comes to thinking about getting a transfer to another city, nearer to home, my mind thinks ‘n’ times and answers in the negative – stay here till shifting is unavoidable. My parents also prefer that I work here …why? Besides some stray incidents of mugging, robbery and murder, Bangalore is safer than most of the other big cities. Eve-teasing is uncommon, roads are safe. Yes, nightlife stops after 11-12 in the night… but so what, I never wander out at that time anyway. At least they’re not so worried when I’m unable to pick up their phone due to some reason. No riots, no bomb-blasts, no mobs. Yes there are the occasional terror threats, until now they have never materialized. I hope they never do.

For a person like me who doesn’t drink, and cannot dance, is too lazy to go trekking etc, and doesn’t have a very large friend circle to boast of, there’s nothing much to do in Bangalore. Except for the occasional movie, shopping, window shopping, mall-hopping (that too very much reduced now, because its just not worth it.. moving around in crowded spaces with seemingly no breathing space), I hardly ever do anything different. However, for people who love to do new things, see different things, there are the trekking trips, theatre, schools to teach everything – from piano to salsa, from painting to pottery, from cooking to driving… Then there are the sudden workshops, adventure sports camps, concerts, plenty of events to choose from. And if one is in the mood of traveling out into nature, there is no dearth of places to choose from. If you’re looking for big cities, all the major cities are overnight journeys from here- Hyderabad, Chennai, Mangalore, Pondicherry, Ooty, Kodaikanal etc. etc.

Since the time I’ve been here, I’ve also gone to some places, Munnar (a place in Kerala), Mysore, Ooty, and Kodaikanal. When I was small, id traveled down South a couple of times, At that time Chennai (Madras then) was the hub; we first went there, and from there traveled to several places, Pondicherry, Mysore, Trivandrum, Kanyakumari. At that time, Bangalore was nowhere on the map really, we did come here, but mainly to travel to Mysore from here.. It was a sleepy quiet town, with wide lanes, sparse traffic, nearly non-existent tourism, who could imagine that that town would become the nerve centre of the Indian IT business? At the amazing rate the city is expanding, who knows what the future holds for this Silicon City of India? Constructions everywhere, be it commercial or residential, be it plush apartments or malls, a concrete jungle is slowly enveloping the city.

From the terrace of our house here, I can see the expanse of plain land, covered with building of all shapes and sizes….beautiful houses I might add, here in Koramangala. In the midst of the endless concrete, some patches of green tend to provide relief to the eyes; a small park, some trees, someone’s well kept garden... I look skywards, and as I see yet another distant airplane coming into the city. It’s pretty awe-inspiring actually, the rate at which airplanes take-off and land in this city. Perhaps this is the only city where, wherever you go, if you look up, at some point, you are sure to see a plane flying in some direction; the current airport being right in the middle of the city. From our house terrace, within the space of minutes, one can see 2 airplanes flying in from the same direction, while planes are flying out in the opposite direction. It’s a nice pastime - standing out there in the evenings, looking at the planes, trying to guess the Airlines.

Some say Bangalore has lost its charm; the thousands coming here every year have inadvertently destroyed it. I am non-committal towards the statement for I might be counted as one of those. Despite all the negative opinions, I don’t think Bangalore is just another big noisy city. Agreed, its changed from what it was, some good changes, some bad, but then what hasn’t changed in so many years?
I, for one, know that when I leave this city, I’m sure going to miss it.