Chronicles of Bangalore- 1

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.