One Month in Blr~

So I have literally 0 clue what this piece is about; feel free to consider it a blurry account of my time in Bangalore(as if all the preceding posts were well thought out and served a definite purpose lol)

Anyhoo, Bangalore was..umm..fun? Well yes, for the most part.

I've had two brief visits before, and have always digged its mellow vibe and 'Broo - Macha - KD bugger' culture. Church Street (the lane running parallel to MG Road) and Indiranagar's 100 Feet Road have been my go-to places and I've long declared cute breweries like BEiR and Toit as my Meccas(not a beer person traditionally but its the laid-back feel that reels me in). Being a Bombay Boi originally, the colossal real estate space still feels a bit alien; I've gotten way too comfortable with the idea of matchbox flats . Jayanagar streets are quiet, and traffic non-existent if you compare it with the rest of Bangalore. The Metro is a stone's throw away, but also serves as a painful reminder that Metro construction can actually get completed ( Pune and Thane Metro projects don't seem to have any inclination :3)

Like all other places, folks here come with their own virtues and vices but there's also a very distinct behavioral pattern evident all across the city. They are mad sweet, often go out of the way to help you out and are generally chill. Also, they seem to be eerily okay with the horrible traffic out here; in fact there seems to exist a foolish collective pride attached to it. The food here is just like the crowd, very cosmo. Barbecue pizzas at Toit, Chicken fried rice at Koshy's and Biryani @ Meghana are crazy delish.

English movies channels are a luxury the local set-top box couldn't furnish, but I was just grateful that the IPL viewing experience went uninterrupted. I made up for the loss of cinematic experience by rewatching almost all of my favorite Tarantino flicks- from Django Unchained to Reservoir Dogs, Once Upon a Time to Pulp Fiction. The classes being online, I made ample use of the best keyboard shortcut known to mankind- ‘Alt-Tab’; binging 5 seasons of HIMYM, a series I’ve been meaning to watch since ages. It’s basically FRIENDS but less lame; if the criticism sounds too harsh, I’d like to blame The Office for setting the bar a lil too high.

The city looks really pretty when sun-lit; walking through random bylanes has been one of the the highlights of my stay here (although it just might be my bias against rains, seasonal affective disorder(SAD) is very real guys :p). For some weird reason, the city seems to be suffering from an acute shortage of ACs. Try pointing it out subtly and 15 locals will jump out defending the city with their pet line: “Maga, the weather’s sooo good, why do you need an AC”.

But there are a few things about Blr that I wholeheartedly disapprove of:

-every place is super crowded

-even the posh areas have pathetic roads (rip my white sneakers :')

-peeps here have extremely fluid schedules; it's a yes to hanging out one second and a no the very next, often even without intimation, forget shame

Lane after lane, I get this recurring feeling that the city has lost a bit of it's charm over the years although I have not been witness to bygone era. Blame it on the pandemonium or the pandemic, something intriguing has transpired in recent times. Having said that, a city is made by it's people and the lingering snapshot that has stayed is of cooks at idli-vada joints offering you wide smiles in their sambar-rasam laden aprons.