Bangalore has changed, and this reality check came in the form of a post from a blog I have read and loved for a long time now.
It's like seeing your best friend put on weight and not realizing it, simply because you've been seeing her every single day. So one day you suddenly do a double take and wonder how you overlooked such an obvious change.
We were walking down Brigade road, and at the junction where Brigade road joins MG Road, I was asked "You're here after a long time aren't you?". Fair enough, because I have lived here all my life, and could not answer a single question about the Metro. And that REALLY got me thinking. I am at brigade road 3 weekends out of 4 simply because it works as a hangout/ midway meet up point for most people I know. And how blind have I been? I finished with college in 2008, and for the first time in these three years, I opened my eyes and took in the changes, only to realize I do not recognize this city anymore. It has been a horribly rude awakening. This is a double take times million. Because these are changes that have been slowly creeping up, bit by bit in unnoticeable installments, to have culminated in this mammoth tribute to so-called progress.
Bangalore is the sweet young girl, who got pushed into growing up and turning into this sophisticated woman. But lost her roots in the process. There are still bits of the old Bangalore though, tucked away in remote little corners, fiercely guarding the originality like the last vestiges of the sweet young girls untainted and content soul.
There are no places where you can get filter coffee for a few rupees that tasted like the remedy for all your problems of the day, no street food that can be consumed without worrying about the lining of your stomach. There is definitely no clean air to make you feel like you are lucky to live in the garden city, and I really have forgotten all the laughter on long strolls we took on MG Road a few years ago when I was still in school. We have watched huge edifices take over the happy open places, swanky joints ruthless replace the comfortable and cozy, inexpensive eat-outs, and The Metro has changed the city in more ways than one.
And when a city changes, so do its people. I am now acquainted with a generation of direction-less individuals. The city is overtaken by clones; if you do not look, dress and talk like them, you are rewarded with condescending stares. Individuality is lost to the next generation like the city's claim to being the garden City. There was a time when every other person I knew came from somewhere outside of Bangalore, and they were all thrilled to be here and were wonderfully vocal about how great the city is. I don't hear that anymore, worse, all the true blue Bangaloreans I know are desperate to relocate.
Somewhere inside this sophisticated exterior lies the soul of a city that really misses the old days and the old ways, beacuse when I remember the city I knew just a few years ago, I remember a place that knew contentment. We did not have the mad rush of Mumbai, the super-enthusiasm of Chennai, the bustle of Kolkata, but if every city had a word to describe it, Bangalore's would have been "content" a few years ago.
Right now, though, just like a generation of young people, it is just restless.
It's like seeing your best friend put on weight and not realizing it, simply because you've been seeing her every single day. So one day you suddenly do a double take and wonder how you overlooked such an obvious change.
We were walking down Brigade road, and at the junction where Brigade road joins MG Road, I was asked "You're here after a long time aren't you?". Fair enough, because I have lived here all my life, and could not answer a single question about the Metro. And that REALLY got me thinking. I am at brigade road 3 weekends out of 4 simply because it works as a hangout/ midway meet up point for most people I know. And how blind have I been? I finished with college in 2008, and for the first time in these three years, I opened my eyes and took in the changes, only to realize I do not recognize this city anymore. It has been a horribly rude awakening. This is a double take times million. Because these are changes that have been slowly creeping up, bit by bit in unnoticeable installments, to have culminated in this mammoth tribute to so-called progress.
Bangalore is the sweet young girl, who got pushed into growing up and turning into this sophisticated woman. But lost her roots in the process. There are still bits of the old Bangalore though, tucked away in remote little corners, fiercely guarding the originality like the last vestiges of the sweet young girls untainted and content soul.
There are no places where you can get filter coffee for a few rupees that tasted like the remedy for all your problems of the day, no street food that can be consumed without worrying about the lining of your stomach. There is definitely no clean air to make you feel like you are lucky to live in the garden city, and I really have forgotten all the laughter on long strolls we took on MG Road a few years ago when I was still in school. We have watched huge edifices take over the happy open places, swanky joints ruthless replace the comfortable and cozy, inexpensive eat-outs, and The Metro has changed the city in more ways than one.
And when a city changes, so do its people. I am now acquainted with a generation of direction-less individuals. The city is overtaken by clones; if you do not look, dress and talk like them, you are rewarded with condescending stares. Individuality is lost to the next generation like the city's claim to being the garden City. There was a time when every other person I knew came from somewhere outside of Bangalore, and they were all thrilled to be here and were wonderfully vocal about how great the city is. I don't hear that anymore, worse, all the true blue Bangaloreans I know are desperate to relocate.
Somewhere inside this sophisticated exterior lies the soul of a city that really misses the old days and the old ways, beacuse when I remember the city I knew just a few years ago, I remember a place that knew contentment. We did not have the mad rush of Mumbai, the super-enthusiasm of Chennai, the bustle of Kolkata, but if every city had a word to describe it, Bangalore's would have been "content" a few years ago.
Right now, though, just like a generation of young people, it is just restless.
