To you, Bangalore!!

Recently, I was asked to talk about bangalore, in fact to summarize the good, the bad and the ugly in a minute.  The toughest one minute of my life, I must say. But please note, this difficulty was not due to a lack of thoughts or a dearth of experience. It was, au contraire, caused by the excess of both.

Living in Bangalore has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages start piling up when you don’t know the local language and despite many horrible experiences fail to recognize the importance of learning it.

“My name is Anjlin, and I don’t know your language”

Everyday of your life, that you spend in this city, you are made to stand up and confess this in front of the whole world, much like an AA meeting. You could be rude, you could be messy but all is forgiven if you speak the language of the masses. I am not, in any way, trying to disrespect or ridicule this great historical language. All I am asking here is, can people not accept the fact that I wasn’t born here and this is not, unfortunately not, my mother tongue? The thing is, it’s not as if you can’t get by without the language. There are those who can read your face and know you are a “foreigner” and stick to a common means of communication, which is, almost always, English. Then, there are those who are kind enough to use an English word here and there to help you assume the meaning of what they say. But , every now and then, you come across people who make you reconsider that offer of a job closer to your roots where you can talk as much as you want. All of us “foreigners” here can count at least a hundred conversations that we’ve been a part of initially, but thrown out of suddenly, because a few more people who knew THE language joined in.

But I am not one to see only the negative in things. I do realize that this is the land of opportunities, a modern day Promised Land, so to speak. I come from a small town , like many of my fellow “foreigners” do. If it were not for this city, I would’ve been confined to a small town, an insignificant career and a boring social life. With a beaming night life (although cut short), and a plethora of restaurants, pubs and bars, life in this metro (of sorts) is anything but dull. It has so many things to offer that sometimes you can have more on your plate than you can stuff your stomach with. I am one of those people who have been pushed into a job that does not really satisfy the crazy, creative streak in them. This city offers me theater, music, literature, culture and a lot more, and I just feel lucky to have landed here.

Despite all the fights and squabbles with autowallahs, all the demeaning remarks from people about how us “foreigners” have ruined the culture of the city (even though it is us “foreigners” who have given it its place in the world map with the booming IT sector and what not), I have a love for Bangalore that makes me ache every time someone suggests moving out of it. Bangalore to me is like a dear friend. A friend I cannot afford to lose, a friend who’s faults I cannot hold against her, a friend who has given a direction to my passion and most of all a friend who has given me my life. So here’s to you my friend, flaws and everything!! Stay the same and forever forgive my ignorance.