Its been almost a year and a half since I first came to
Bangalore. And like every city, it has
its own charm. The tree lined streets, the pleasant weather, the plenty of
gardens are a part of it. And so are the traffic jams and overpriced eateries
and malls. Well, to each his own, the city has already been described innumerable
times from a variety of perspective. Two
things surprise me though, firstly, that Bangalore is not a metro and secondly,
this city is a great teacher in itself. And it has its own way of making you learn
new things and making you unlearn much more.
I say unlearn because most of the things that have been true
for us so far are challenged in the most fundamental ways. The most common and
the simplest example would be how people change, or maybe, show some traits
which you never thought existed so far. I guess money, or the lack of it, does
change a lot of things. Catching up with friends is equivalent to a meal in
some fancy restaurant (there is a very nice term for it, fine dining) where
they charge you more for the ambience than the food itself. How many of you
remember having a much better time with the same people in the hostel mess?? A
nice weekend probably means unnecessary shopping and/or visit to a pub where
the music is so loud that its impossible to talk, and we go there to “hang out”
with friends!!!! Ironic, isn’t it?? We live weekend to weekend, the five days
in between are just to get over with, asap. The phrase “having a life” is now equivalent
to the spending power on weekends, the more you spend, the more “life” you have.
We have confused the definition of ‘a lifestyle’ and ‘a life’. And if
this isn’t enough, there is always the pressure of looking good, my bad,
looking ‘hot’ and ‘sexy’ and ‘modern’ and ‘trendy’. So we spend thousands on
the most trivial things like the length of our hair or the shape of our toe
nails or the color of our skin. Or maybe, in Bangalore, it does matter what
your skin tone is! And once we are outside our homes after being decked up like
this, we talk about each and every topic under the sun (not to mention the constant
gossip) as if we have a Phd in each of them. We give each other a ego massage
and congratulate ourselves for being the masters of the universe. Oh what a
wonderfully productive weekend!!! And somebody who does not like all this is a
loser, a loner, an outcast or the most pathetic of all, a workaholic!! OMG!! He
so needs to ‘get a life’!!!
A good residential area in Bangalore will probably have
around 30 restaurants, 20 beauty parlours, 15 mobile service provider shops
within 1km radius of it, but not even a single bookstore or stationery shop. Ever
noticed that?
So what does Bangalore teach you? It teaches you that
situations change people. That some of your closest friends whom you have known
for ages will gossip about you for no good reason and you can find the best of
friends in perfect strangers. The people you care about can just take advantage
of you and some people will be your guardian angels without reason or without
your knowledge. That, if you look for them, there will still be some who live
for their work and beyond the status quo. Even if for most people money does
buy happiness, there will still be some for whom money is just for survival.
That your loved ones will always be with you inspite of being far away and some
people will always be the same, no matter what and these are the people worth
cherishing and caring for. It teaches
you that a dinner date is not necessary to be in love with someone. You can be
alone in the crowd and yet, just one person is enough to complete your world.
And last but not the least, as Karan Johar says, “Its all
about family”……
P.S- the you I mention is not a person but all of us, what I
have written does not necessarily imply a personal experience, the ‘masters of
the universe’ line is from the movie Titanic and I am just expressing an
opinion, not preaching.
