About Bangalore

Recently, I was forwarded a mail devoted to Bangalore bashing. It said that Bangalore’s boom was only because of IT, and apart from that Bangalore had little else to offer. Its transport was in a mess, what with the international airport promising to take off since the author was in her mother’s womb, etc. It went on along these lines.

True, Bangalore’s IT boom has been way over-hyped. That is, if you’re an IT person, you can rock here. But otherwise, it’s much the same for the rest of us. Except for costly modes of transport, (artificially) skyrocketing real estate prices, choking traffic, lung-related problems. For the non-IT person, this city can be the same as any other metro.

The present state government ignored the city in the budget, to The Times of India’s general indignation. The software majors threatened to go away. The city was supposed to tremble. Maybe the city did, dependant as it is on the IT moolah. Of course after a day or two of gimmicking, the state government behaved and made up with the techies.

If Bangalore is lacking in infrastructure as everyone seems to be saying, my question is how then must be the ‘hinterland’ (a TOI term) faring? Surely it must be hopeless out there. Well, I know it is, except for maybe Mangalore and Mysore. For Bangalore’s sake, there has to be more IT decentralisation. There’s a limit to how much this city can take, there’s a limit to the dreams it can fulfill.

Actually, this blog makes me think of 2-3 possible blogs. Sometime soon I want to write about Janaagraha. Am thinking of enrolling as volunteer. Maybe the post will come after that.

There’s more to write about Bangalore, too. The cultures and sub-cultures breeding here are quite interesting. Hmmm.