Life in Bangalore-3

(Life in Bangalore is a series started in 2007. The present post and its prequel ‘Life In Bangalore-2’ are the top 2 search results if you google for the words ‘Life in Bangalore.’ Read Life in Bangalore Part  I and Part – II)

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The time has come for me to leave the city that has given me some of the best days of my life, Bangalore. Where am I going? Same place where I came from, the big bad yet annoyingly perfect capital city, New Delhi. A city which is known to be dil walon ki (of people with heart) yet where people are rude and foul mouthed, a city with big wide roads, relatively smooth traffic making it unsafe for women who dare to go out in the nights, a city where people either don’t care about you, or they care only enough to judge you, a city about which I can write a thousand bad things, I am going back to that city after spending two and half wonderful years in Bangalore.

(Good Bye Delhi, my last post as a Delhi Blogger two years back in Feb 2007)

My relocation from Delhi to Bangalore was a signpost moment in my life, and each day that I spent here were milestone sort. Life was at an all time high ever since I stepped in Bangalore, suddenly a door of fun, fame and friends had opened and I was overwhelmed with all that came my way. My being a part of the Barcamp organizers, my starting the Bangalore Bloggers group, the many Barcamps and other events that followed that year, the young and fun techies of Bangalore, the free and footloose lifestyle, the travel, the adventure, the smoking, drinking, men, sex, romance I did it all.

But it all seemed to have come to an end from the start of this year. In just two years too much changed. Suddenly all the fun activity have lost its charm, people have moved on to different cities or have found some other pre occupation. If at the start of 2007 it was one of the most exciting thing to go out for a bloggers meet in the city, in just 2 years bloggers meet have become passé and they have moved on to tweetups.

The thing about Bangalore life is that it’s very volatile. The crowd here is a floating crowd, young techies freshly out of college come to Bangalore after campus selections, they give this city and their companies 2-3 years and move on for better opportunities. For 2 years they live to the fullest. These two years become their days of living life on the edge. Which is why you see so much of energy in this city.

But if you stick around for too long you’d notice, under the bubbling and bursting surface lies hidden a slow, lethargic mundane life. It may take you couple of years but it eventually hits you with a feeling of Deja Vu, like you have seen and felt it all before. Those smoky pubs, those unshaven rock stars, those openly kissing gay couples outside Nasa pub, those sex workers near Trinity circle, they would all seem a bit too familiar if you have taken too many rounds of the city.

This feeling of having served my days here began to seep in my mind since the start of this year. I started feeling I have lost my purpose in Bangalore. I wanted more from my life. In December 2007 I rented out a small house, but now I wanted a bigger one. I wanted fancy furniture, a mini gym, flat TV…I just wanted more from everything.

And then I was posed with the question, do I want to my feet in Bangalore to be rooted further and deeper? Do I want to invest more here to have a bigger life? The answer was No. Because I was done with the fun in Bangalore, the city had nothing more to offer to me. So I decided to move, but not before I could find the right job.

(To be continued)