Crisp blue skies with small white clouds. Pleasant sunshine. And cool breeze on your face. Welcome to Bangalore, (oops!) or Bengaluru.
The Indian Airlines flight did not disappoint me the moment I saw our ‘delayed’ right next to our flight number. Thanks to one of our team-member’s anxiety, we checked in ‘much’ ahead of time. So then, with a lot of time in hand I walked the place up n down, read the newspaper, walked up and down again and then got chatty with my team mates. Interesting, one of them has a two year old kid, other was originally from Maharashtra but settled in Bengaluru, other was a Japanese Diplomat and another was standing in the Mc Donald’s food line. Our supervisor, a young enthusiast, super planner was also really pleasant and chatty.
In the two hour flight we were served small kachoris with spicy curry and my American-Chinese friend refused to even try it!! Small hitch at the airport, she lost her luggage. It was strange that she had kept her backpack as her handbag and her handbag as her luggage! (Anyway, so later we got to know that it travel to Hyderabad and came back to her a few days later) We spotted a ‘duty free’ shopping space and I obviously excited rushed into it with another friend. It took us a while to get in there, because we did not have an International boarding pass. They could not sell us anything for the same reason. Broke my heart :(
So, after another over an hour long drive, we got to the city. Saw the PG accommodation set for us and decided to check into a hotel. It pissed our supervisor off big time. In the evening, just when I decided to walk out to get a city map, it rained. I know that you probably can not imagine the expression that I would like to convey through the earlier mentioned ‘it rained’, so let me just say ‘IT RAINED’ (in capital and bold letters!!) and then it got chilly. Word of advice 1: when you come to the city, irrespective of the time of the year, carry at least a sweatshirt or a stole. And then it did not stop. And then day two, when we just stepped out to visit Lal Bagh, there it was. It was like the sky had opened up to welcome us to the city.
Bangalore can surprise you. The city has beautiful houses- no one of them looks similar to another in certain areas, high rise apartments, a local vegetable market that is bang next to a big mall, flyovers at every turn, temples on every roadside, café coffee day at every major turn and crazy traffic that follows no rules and comes from any given direction – and in speed. Word of advice 2: when you come to the city, never-ever make any temple or CCD your landmark. So anyway, our room is on the terrace. In the mornings I open the door to coconut trees swinging, sounding like its raining most of the time.
So a few days later, we are trying to get into the skin of our work, adjusting that the cockroaches at our PG are also staying there with us and that the city has awesome weather to top it all. We have been walking on the roads, running behind buses – thanks to Taka and Shaughn, who like to walk around, I should mention here that their flat is about 3 kms away from our office and they still get to office before us and always walk. We have been exploring chai and coffee places, bars and food joints, going to temples (that are everywhere) besides planning ahead for things. MG Road and Bridget Road look like NY Times Square, with youngsters and their gangs walking around. City Market is full of whatever you could think of getting in your head. And the market, around the corner of my locality has a non vegetarian fast food joint. Waaweeee!!
So it is all going fine and one week down I already miss JNU and my friends. Yesterday I went to the ISKON temple that was somewhere faaaar away and took us forever to get there in the bus. My first brush with the commercial side of maybe what one can call religion. And then today I climbed up a hill that was behind a temple near the boy’s flat to have the city’s view and see the sun set. Then I walked about 4kms back home.
In between our plans to travel around south India, going to National Law School (finally), hoping to catch a glimpse of Rahul Dravid, eating rava idli for lunch on a awesome stone carved table at the lovely backyard of our office, picking up food discount coupons form the road (!!), trying to figure out the swimming pool’s entrance that I pass everyday, staring into roadside temples, having filter coffee and goldflake, missing a few people, eating and smelling the delicious mangoes,
trying to survive the road traffic, gazing at houses, doing our actual work of the case study at CSCS, drinking beer and walking back from office while biting into spicy pakodas, every evening I like to make brief stops to watch kids skate or play basketball at the stadium. Life pretty much is going on in Bengaluru.
Bangalore aint giving me blues right now, though I am looking forward to friends coming down to visit me and me visiting others.
The Indian Airlines flight did not disappoint me the moment I saw our ‘delayed’ right next to our flight number. Thanks to one of our team-member’s anxiety, we checked in ‘much’ ahead of time. So then, with a lot of time in hand I walked the place up n down, read the newspaper, walked up and down again and then got chatty with my team mates. Interesting, one of them has a two year old kid, other was originally from Maharashtra but settled in Bengaluru, other was a Japanese Diplomat and another was standing in the Mc Donald’s food line. Our supervisor, a young enthusiast, super planner was also really pleasant and chatty.
In the two hour flight we were served small kachoris with spicy curry and my American-Chinese friend refused to even try it!! Small hitch at the airport, she lost her luggage. It was strange that she had kept her backpack as her handbag and her handbag as her luggage! (Anyway, so later we got to know that it travel to Hyderabad and came back to her a few days later) We spotted a ‘duty free’ shopping space and I obviously excited rushed into it with another friend. It took us a while to get in there, because we did not have an International boarding pass. They could not sell us anything for the same reason. Broke my heart :(So, after another over an hour long drive, we got to the city. Saw the PG accommodation set for us and decided to check into a hotel. It pissed our supervisor off big time. In the evening, just when I decided to walk out to get a city map, it rained. I know that you probably can not imagine the expression that I would like to convey through the earlier mentioned ‘it rained’, so let me just say ‘IT RAINED’ (in capital and bold letters!!) and then it got chilly. Word of advice 1: when you come to the city, irrespective of the time of the year, carry at least a sweatshirt or a stole. And then it did not stop. And then day two, when we just stepped out to visit Lal Bagh, there it was. It was like the sky had opened up to welcome us to the city.
Bangalore can surprise you. The city has beautiful houses- no one of them looks similar to another in certain areas, high rise apartments, a local vegetable market that is bang next to a big mall, flyovers at every turn, temples on every roadside, café coffee day at every major turn and crazy traffic that follows no rules and comes from any given direction – and in speed. Word of advice 2: when you come to the city, never-ever make any temple or CCD your landmark. So anyway, our room is on the terrace. In the mornings I open the door to coconut trees swinging, sounding like its raining most of the time.
So a few days later, we are trying to get into the skin of our work, adjusting that the cockroaches at our PG are also staying there with us and that the city has awesome weather to top it all. We have been walking on the roads, running behind buses – thanks to Taka and Shaughn, who like to walk around, I should mention here that their flat is about 3 kms away from our office and they still get to office before us and always walk. We have been exploring chai and coffee places, bars and food joints, going to temples (that are everywhere) besides planning ahead for things. MG Road and Bridget Road look like NY Times Square, with youngsters and their gangs walking around. City Market is full of whatever you could think of getting in your head. And the market, around the corner of my locality has a non vegetarian fast food joint. Waaweeee!!
So it is all going fine and one week down I already miss JNU and my friends. Yesterday I went to the ISKON temple that was somewhere faaaar away and took us forever to get there in the bus. My first brush with the commercial side of maybe what one can call religion. And then today I climbed up a hill that was behind a temple near the boy’s flat to have the city’s view and see the sun set. Then I walked about 4kms back home.
In between our plans to travel around south India, going to National Law School (finally), hoping to catch a glimpse of Rahul Dravid, eating rava idli for lunch on a awesome stone carved table at the lovely backyard of our office, picking up food discount coupons form the road (!!), trying to figure out the swimming pool’s entrance that I pass everyday, staring into roadside temples, having filter coffee and goldflake, missing a few people, eating and smelling the delicious mangoes,
trying to survive the road traffic, gazing at houses, doing our actual work of the case study at CSCS, drinking beer and walking back from office while biting into spicy pakodas, every evening I like to make brief stops to watch kids skate or play basketball at the stadium. Life pretty much is going on in Bengaluru.Bangalore aint giving me blues right now, though I am looking forward to friends coming down to visit me and me visiting others.
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