Here is my review on Bangalore based on my experience of living/working there for a year in 1996.
I got a job in a well known software company in 1996 after finishing a course in Chennai (I’m from Madurai in Tamil nadu). I was really really excited when I got the job in Bangalore. As every naive Tamilian, I was also brought up to believe that Bangalore is the best place to live in and none of the cities in Tamilnadu can even be compared to the weather and greenery of Bangalore, sophistication and life style of Bangaloreans and the standard of living in Bangalore as general.
Adding to my excitement was the fact that lot of my college friends were living/working in Bangalore. WIth a decent salary and lots of friends to hang around I couldn’t wait to get to Bangalore.
And the day came when I left to Bangalore from Chennai, looking forward to a all the excitement waiting for me in Bangalore. A couple of weeks went by in the excitement of meeting my friends and being in the company of them and a new job. As weeks started to pass by, reality started sinking in. Bangalore was not all that I expected it to be.
To start with, the real estate rents are too high for the standard of homes being provided. The deposit and the rent are outrageous. We were paying Rs 3000/- for a junk place with 1 bedroom. The rent may seem low for today’s standard but it was a substantial amount in 1996.
The next thing is water. I have heard all complaints about the water scarcity in Tamilnadu in general and Chennai in particular. I too agree with this assessment. But to my astonishment, Bangalore was no better. The apartment complex in which we were living used to pump water to the tank only during specified times.
If the water in the tank is emptied before that we had to wait till the time comes for the next pumping. Even if they wanted to pump frequently there was not enough ground water. I think the ground water level was so low that even pumping once in 3 days could not generate enough water to fill a tank.
The third thing is electricity. There were scheduled power cuts which range some where between 4 to 6 hours a day. I’m not sure if this is still the case but the days I was in Bangalore were made hell by the power cut. I have to get up at 6:00 AM every day in order to catch the company bus. But every 15 days of the month, the power will be cut exactly from 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM. Which means I cannot heat the water and hence cannot take bath.
As Bangalore water tends to be chilly, there is no way I can take bath with out heating it. So most of the days I go to work with out taking bath (I used to do it in the evenings rather). THe power cut also compounds the problem of water. Sometimes it becomes extremely urgent to pump water up to the tank outside of the schedule due to some unforeseen circumstances. Frequently such situations arose when there was no power which made our life hell. Then there were power cuts in the evening which often fell in the prime hours (6:00 to 8:00 PM). Then there were unscheduled power cuts.
The fourth thing is transporation. For those who have their own vehicles, this is not a real problem. But for people like me who did not have a vehicle and who relied on public transporation, Bangalore is one of the worst places of public transportation. The bus frequency is less and the buses themselves are designed very poorly and the fares are very expensive. I was living in Mathikare while my work place was in the other end of the town in Hosur road. (I have to agree that it is partially my problem that I was living so far away from the work place. I did not want to miss the company of my friends who were living in Mathikere).
I entirely depended on the company bus to get to work. I had to catch the bus at 7:00 AM in the morning and it takes almost 2 hours for the bus to reach the office (due the horrendous traffic and construction work in Hosur road). If I miss the bus I had to forget about going to work. There is no way that I can use public transporation to reach my work place.
The last but not the least thing is the anti-Tamil bias. This may not be a problem for people from other regions of India but Tamilians face discrimination tantamount to any racial discrimination in any other part of the world. I do not want to delve too much into this subject because it deserves a separte discussion/article on its own. The bottom line is, I had a couple of bad incidents that really hurt my self respect. It made me think that there is no better place than your home town/state even if everything else is bad there.
The other minor things that I do not want to go into more detail are: bad food (couldn’t get food either near my workplace or my home), bad movie theaters.
Having said all that, I would like to say what I enjoyed when I was in bangalore:
a) Company of my friends
b) Good weather
c) Good beer
The bottom line is: I feel Bangalore is a good place if you have enough money to enjoy all it can offer. So it is a good place for rich or upper middle class folks. If you are just a middle class (which most of the software engineers are) guy, all you can do is just go to Brigade road and MG road and watch all the crazy things that the rich folks do. Other than that Bangalore has nothing much to offer. It is no better than any other place in India and it can never give the ’being at home’ feeling that any other city from your home state can give you.
This is just my opinion and I could be wrong in other’s perspective.