Farewell Bangalore

Dear Bangalore,
I still remember the day I first set my sight on you. Little did I know that you will play a crucial role in my life. It was in 2002, during my engineering days. I was on my 5th semester tour. I can still feel the cold climate and the smell of the fresh flowers. Those big shopping malls, the pubs and the ultra modern folks (chics) here instantly made you one of my dream cities. All those stories about software professionals making a nice living here, oh! man, I had decided that you are the one city I want to be in.

Fall 2003
I came again for the 7th semester tour and by that time me and my friends wanted to spend some quality time here with you and that’s one main reason we chose to do our final year project here. Those were the days, when I started loving you – fall 2003. I think I loved everything about you. The New Year (2004) celebrations in Brigade road – I don’t think I will ever forget it. Even I loved the journeys to and from my native to you.

Again
Again, you crossed path with my life even if not for long in spring 2005 in when I started ‘hunting’ for a job. But fortunately or unfortunately, I got my job in Trivandrum. Then again, I knew that someday I am going to come back to you. And that’s why, when I got an offer from here, I was really excited. But before coming here, I heard many rumors about the pathetic traffic conditions, the slowly disappearing cold climate etc.

Expectations
What I expected was not what I saw in here. A city which is so polluted with dust and garbage, roads filled with vehicles and dogs, malls and shop keepers who wanted to grab the money in my pocket to theirs, auto rickshaw drivers who will kill if they get a chance etc. I really got scared at first seeing the changed you and because of the change in climatic conditions, I was having fever, cold etc on a regular basis. I even thought about leaving you. My regular readers are aware of my attitude towards you, I guess.

Time is a healer
Getting used to things we confront daily is a quality (good or bad?) of the human race. Slowly I started liking you. One important thing I like about you is the personal space you gave me. Also the technological community here and the exposure I got from you were simply amazing. I realized there is a world like this. It totally changed my outlook towards life itself. I had a very good team and work environment, a new circle of friends, lots of parties to attend, all those nice hotels where I could try different variety of dishes, the beautiful climate which helped me maximizing my artistic talents and so on.

Farewell
Finally the time has come for me to move on. In this journey of life, I have reached a point where I have to part with you, my beautiful friend. I have no idea what is there in store for me in the future. May be I will fall in love with the next city I am moving to. May be I am never going to come back to you. But looking back now, I can see vividly, the influence you have in my life. With so many challenges, experiences, happy times, sad times, you have a very special place in my heart. And that place will ever be there, no matter where I go or what I become. I really hope I will be able to come back some day to you and I know, if that day comes, you will be here with your warm welcome, just like you welcome anyone who comes to you. Farewell Bangalore.

With warm love and regards
- Manu

Bangalore: The City of thieves?

First of all, I am not accusing everyone in Bangalore. I have many good friends who are originally from here. But this is the first impression I have got about Bangalore - Garden city as well as the city of thieves. The day when I joined my new company, I heard about the burglary of a mobile of one of my colleague. The incident goes like this. My colleague forgot to take her mobile to a meeting and left it on her office desk. When she was back, the mobile was long gone. I appreciate her for fighting with all her efforts and finally she got her mobile back after a series of incidents. I am not going in to the details of it [as I am not allowed to do so].
While discussing this incident with another of my colleague, he told me about what happened to him. A woman came to his apartment and introduced that she will clean the house. He went inside for a second opinion from another guy who is staying there. By the time he got back, she was gone along with his wallet. He somehow traced her to a street and even before he could talk to her, the locals rammed the place and he literally had to flee. So the next whole week he was really busy, calling all the credit/debit card companies to block them.
Okay, those are two incidents of theft which happened to my colleagues. These were the hot news of discussion among us for the first week I landed here. Then I heard many similar incidents for which I cannot submit any proof.
Even if you cannot call theft in the direct sense, what else can you call what the auto-rikshaw drivers are doing here? How can you logically resolve what has happened to you when you have to pay Rs 20/- and Rs 60/- for the same route and same distance to two different auto-riksaw drivers? They all think they are above the law. At the same time, the public transportation system here is really pathetic. Even to travel a distance of 1-2kms, it may take from half to one hour at peak times of traffic.
Leave the auto-rikshaw drivers. I once went to a furniture mart to buy a couple of chairs. The person there immediately showed me and my friend a printed chart of the prices of some brands and models of chairs. After some time bargaining he went inside the shop and produced the catalogue showing the detailed pictures of the chairs. First we thought what he saying was correct. Later only we inspected the catalogue with the actual chairs models there and we really got surprised to see that that price in that printed sheet was well below what he told us. Around Re100-200/- margin was there.
Or, take the case of BSNL. I gave application for a BSNL broadband connection on September 9^th, 2007. They assured me that I will get it with in one week. Now its almost 2 months and I am still waiting. You can read the detailed story about it in my other blog. I even had to start a trilogy to explain the whole stuff.
Is there any means to book people like these? What do I have to do? File a complaint in the police station? I don’t think that will help in anyway. I can narrate a number of incidents like these. I think its time we need to act. But how, I don’t know.