My Bangalore

“Noththing is gudd in your Bangalore”, declared our neighbourhood lady a week after she had moved in to the house next door. She must have been around 55 years old then, about six years ago. “The vegetables don’t taste gudd at aall”(??); “Why do you measure land in square futt? We measure in square yard”; “People do not have any driving sense att aal here”; “Your city is not safe”; “Your Kannada is not heard anywhere; your own people do not speak Kannada” (derisively); “Weather in your city is bad” (heard anyone say that?); “One good thing about your city is lot of our people (read people from her native state) are here”, she would go on. Listening to her always-energetic rants, one could not tell that she was so old.

She would make it a point to mouth negatives about Bangalore whenever she saw me, knowing very well that I hated it! I never retorted to her statements only out of respect toward an elderly person. Whenever I tried to show her how nice my city is she would snub all my efforts. This is when I learnt that if someone does not want to see things beyond a barrier, s/he will not. There is no point in trying to reason with such people.
She never listened to what I had to say about my Bangalore. Nevertheless, I write here what I wanted to say.

- A typical Bangalorean does not have any problem conversing with people from anywhere on the earth. We, by nature, welcome everybody to our city.


- We do not look for friends who speak the same language. Like, I speak Kannada, but most of my friends are non-Kannadigas. Many of my friends are Tamil and Teluguites, some speak Hindi, English, some Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, and one friend is a Punjabi. We do not differentiate people by region or language. We respect all cultures.


- My city is so green that while I was at home, I used to wake up to the alarm bell of the bird song from the trees. The air of my city is laden with the fragrance of our rich flora. Bangalore is simply beautiful.

- My Bangalore is home to many premier education and research institutes of the country.
Needless to say, my city has a large number of job offers.









- Bad Road Sense - I agree. But, most of Bangalore’s work force consists of people from across the country. So, if you see that people drive awfully on road (sometimes even on the sidewalk) it’s a characteristic of the entire country. You cannot blame the locals alone.


Kannada Issue - I cannot read Kannada fast. I do not know everything about its rich heritage. But I know that it is one of the most beautiful languages spoken.

A language is not preserved by locals alone. My Kannada teacher during my Pre-University was a Tamil whose pronunciation had no hint of her mother tongue. A friend, a Tamil, reads Kannada books and has many blog posts in Kannada.

The Jnanpitha Award is the highest literary award in India. Seven Jnanpitha awards have been each awarded in Kannada and Hindi. Some of the Jnanapitha award recipients in Kannada spoke a different language. Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre, one of the greatest Kannada poets, was a Marathi.

Girish Karnad, another Jnanapitha award recipient in Kannada, was born into a Konkani-speaking family. His initial schooling was in Marathi. He had once said about his literary work “my thought process happens in Kannada and then I translate it to English”. Masti Venkatesha Iyengar, who has also been awarded the highest literary award, was born into a Tamil family.

Kindly ignore the fanatics who claim they are “protectors of Kannada”.
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Well, that's my Bangalore and our Kannada for you.

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If you think Bangalore sleeps early, Boston is no better. Shops in the heart of Boston close by 10PM!

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This lady had a peculiar timing to ask my Mom for favours - 7:15 am. That was the time Mom packed my lunch and I would have to leave for college by 7:30.

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Current Song:

Tum jo ho to gaa rahi hain yeh hawaan from the movie What’s your rashee