I micro-blogged a lot about my Bangalore/India trip, but here are the things I did not blog about.
Of the insane traffic in the new Bangalore and how a complete collapse of critical infrastructure is playing before your eyes. Strangely, the old Bangalore has no such problems, and collectively the local administrators have decided that new Bangalore where Kannadigas are the minority should be subjected to brunt of torture. The good thing is metro is now fully functional and helps, but does it really though? What once used to be a garden city is now concrete dystopia with absolutely no sign of stopping. How will the residents of 2040 travel? How will they get electricity? How will they get water? Absolutely no solutions, just one grand community being built after another, and each community handles their own problems. Richer the community, better handle they have.
Of the casual discrimination against Muslims. As my close friend told me, its an unspoken rule in every tech workplace not to hire Muslims. A Muslim could crack the tech interview, but more than 90% of the time panel will reject him/her because they are Muslim. Of course no one says so explicitly, but it is well understood not to hire Muslims in their teams. I am talking companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and all, not some random companies. I guess more privileged you get, more you want to exercise it. I see USA descending the same trope in a few years where hiring a brown/minority will be discouraged, but no one will say anything because its all “understood” that whites should hire just whites. India is just a glimpse of where USA is headed.
Of how the cities have become the great attractors. Cheap labor exists for a reason and its because of demand. The influx of migrants from all over India into cities shows. The house nanny is from a remote village in Himachal who stays in Bangalore with our family looking after my nieces so she can give a better life to her own kid back in the village. But why leave your kid and come to Bangalore? Because there is no work for them to back home in their villages and even if there is, it pays peanuts. So while my father in law perpetually struggles to find labor to attend his areca nut fields in his village, all that labor has simply moved to Bangalore because we all love getting things delivered under 10 minutes, and they get to earn way more than they’d ever earn in the village. The great migration to mega-cities like Bangalore is not stopping any time soon.
Of the insane scale at which tech solutions exist but do we really need them? I love getting BlinkIt deliver me anything under 10 minutes, but do I really need it in 10 minutes? Would 15 mins make it any less safer for the driver? This has created an ecosystem where everyone is getting things delivered all the time. Hot food? 10 minutes. Anything from grocery? 10 minute. Need a document parceled from another part of Bangalore to your house? 1 hour. The concept of visiting a store for your essentials is almost non-existent. You BlinkIt and move on. With traffic in Bangalore the way it is, why not just get things delivered?
Of the only entertainment that truly exists for anyone in Bangalore: Mall. The mall is the place for you and your family to spend your time on weekends or weekdays. Bored? Mall. Want to catch a movie? Mall. Want to eat? Mall. Want to buy something? Mall. Want to take a stroll outside your community? Mall. Want to meet your friends? Mall. The mall has become the singular meeting place for everyone. Its no wonder malls are popping up every fucking place. And every mall has the same fucking stores. And how does Tata own half the fucking brands and store in every mall? I stopped counting the number of brands Tata owns after a while. But Tata is still better than Ambani or a Adani am I right?
I generally blogged only positive things about my stay there (i mean I did not go there to crib and whine did I? I could have stayed here instead). So i wanted to post about all the things I saw and heard, but filed it away under not-now. [All things said and done, I loved my India trip and I will continue to always love India more than my current home].