Bangalore or Bengaluru ........when i visited the city close to 7 years back,memories i carried from here were those of a green city with clean roads,trees planted on both sides of the road bearing beautiful purple flowers,a city that was unlike the other crowded metropolitan cities......the Bull temple,Vidhana Soudha, The Planetarium,The Visveswaraiah Science Museum and idlis and dosas.....Never thought that this would be the place where i ll get my first job....never thought i would come to this city as a resident.
The first few days of stay here were the most comfortable,staying in the Company sponsered accomodation for a week,cab carrying us to and fro to office,meals served as per our wish......The real story started when we started looking for an accomodation for ourselves (the city has downpours throughout the year and we landed up in the month of June ;) unaware of the fact that even when its sunny at the present moment, the next moment it would start pouring as if its been raining for the last few hours....the working hours not too hectice for the first 15 days,we would set to start searching for an accomodation as soon as we got free from office,walking in the rains on roads that we still do not know names of,baffled between crosses and mains(here in Bangalore,addresses consist of numbered streets,streets bisected as crossses and mains,which to your surprise would exist on both the sides of a road,in short if you do not know the closest landmark,it would be an irritable experience to reach an address laden with CROSSES and MAINS..;)....It was painful to walk and walk endlessly and reach to accomodations with dingy rooms,nothing in the name of hygiene and not to mention food that we were not at all used to..(rice,rice and rice).Eventually our efforts resulted in a place decent enough to stay, north indian food and a nice location.The first day of office from that place,walked down to a place where we got stuck in between the road with four flyovers in front of us,not knowing which one to take for office ...But however we were not to be spared with those little efforts,the owner of the place we stayed in was an illiterate foolish man,claiming to understand everything we said but would keep in mind only the things that were of use to him. He gave us room different from what we wanted to have,troubled us with not getting the Geyser repaired,the lock of the room broken and not repaired until we stopped paying him the rent,electricity going off every now and then.Fighting with him became a daily routine.
Apart from all these there are daily efforts in finding out joints offering good north indian food,searching for ways to spend weekends,understanding bus routes and on top of that filling pockets of the defamed Bangalore rickshaw owners....but the city has its own charm being the most cosmopolitan of all south indian cities....varied cultures(we do not understand either of Kannada,Malayalam or Tamil ;))but still am getting used to the way of life here,most important,getting used to the food(started having rice as a full meal),relishing the distictiveness of this part of Indian Peninsula.....Nevertheless,Bangalore is beautiful and the best thing about this place is the weather,pleasant whatever time of the year it may be,the evenings will always be cool,you can walk on the roads without sweating yourself out.The place is a bliss for rose lovers,I have never seen such beautiful roses ever in my life that i have seen here.......bundles and bundles of them on carts whenever i cross the KR market,its a tonic to the eyes. The place is a mirror of modern India(Silicon Valley of India),preserving its heritage and imbibing other cultures at the same time.
The Bangalore story would continue in this blog as long as I am here in Bangalore.I love being here and would look forward to explore and share more stories and experiences.
