Between two seas

There are 54 potholes before the van reaches good road from the airport. The driver is driving slow thinking we have just touched down in Bangalore from some village in Bihar. He thinks that high speed will scare us to death. Anyway, there are two months for me to criticize a city many love. So I settle down in my hostel room at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. The room has a cot that is deployed in many hospital wards. I have seen the same bed in prison cells in western television shows. This jail cell has Internet. The one we used in 1998. Yes, 'the click and go to Goa and come back to see the page loading' Internet. We are told that is because the network is being repaired. We get a raw deal at a very very mature institute. The campus is fabulously green though. The hostels are a maze. And I love the climate. About the food, I don't bother. I just fill up. But there is a restaurant just outside the gate, Status. This restaurant is any manager's heaven. TQM food, food from north, food from south, even food from China, just-in-time service, customer relationship management, everything on the menu is available, standard costing (they don't charge you for sitting there for half hour and eat nothing) and of-course Strategic Location just outside the place where the hungry managers of India are being cultivated. I hereby declare 'Status - Andhra Style Food' the best restaurant ever. I hope they read this and give me a discount on the Biryani.

Bangalore has a strange traffic sense. Everyone is so much in hurry. People in Delhi are in hurry as well, even more, but they know how to avoid a deadlock. The intelligent people of Bangalore decide not to use their intelligence outside their offices. Everyone enters an intersection, the cars face each other and their is deadlock at every intersection. If only one person had the patience of letting the other person pass, everything would be fine. But no, every Bangalorean pays taxes for the road, so they must be on every part of it. I think this in not the fault of the good people of Bengaluru. It is because the intersections do not have traffic signals. And I used to think that traffic signals are a menace ! Even office corridors in Bangalore should have traffic signals, you can spill your coffee if someone cuts you off.

Bangalore is heaven for those who want to go to office, relax at home, spend all their income and end up drunk every weekend. The fun places to hang out in Bangalore are .......ummm.........offices.........ok let me try more.............Forum mall........ [please note : I will complete the list the next day].....OK I asked an experienced Bangalorean...these are the places..

1. Pub
2. MG Road
3. Pub
4. Brigade Road (That's basically MG road again)
5. Pub
6. Forum Mall(did I say that again?)
7. Pub
8. Wonder La
9. Pub
10. Garuda Mall
11. Pub
12. Pub
13. Pub
14. Bangalore Central
15. Pub
16. A place where people sit and drink
17. Bar
18. Office cafeteria
    
19. Bar & Restaurant
20. Office pantry
    

I think Bangalore is the most fun city. Trouble is I don't drink, so I have to spend Rs.500 just to sit in a pub and listen to my friends chat in their high spirits.

I never said why I was in Bangalore. The reason in summer hardship,oops, summer internship at Wipro Technologies. I was a part of an army of 191 management summer interns at Wipro Technologies. You don't need to go back to the previous line, I'll write it again. 191 management summer interns at Wipro Technologies. Anyway they were giving me money to be a part of the army and hopefully a good first stint at the workplace. The moment I got down from the bus at the Electronic City Wipro campus, I realized something. This is a place a person can get lost. Not because the place is new or the roads are winding, it's because there are 15000 people in this office. The gate is the place where you realize that you are just employee no. 12000381. You are a mere person, you are not a IIM I student, you are not Ayush Paul, you are just your badge.

My guide is a busy man, he is delivery manager. He manages deliveries. So he is in UK all the time, delivering. But he is the one who showed me the way. I had originally got some timepass project. He asked me to work on something that will help him to crack a client he has not been able to do. That is why I respect him, because he gave me something sensible and useful to work on. And he is a total no nonsense person, he wants only the result, he is not interested in the Karma thing. I like it ! He assigns me to a buddy. I have never seen a person who can talk so openly about his employer and he is so so prompt. I hope that is the culture at Wipro. I spend my day bad mouthing Wipro and some people who run it, even when they are paying me and expecting nothing from me. I do my project as well.

The place where I sit is surrounded by managers. All sorts of them. I can't even open forwarded attachments without fear. They don't share the extension phone with me. That is so sad. They are always busy. They are always on the phone negotiating and clarifying. I don't know, if they know that I exist in their cubicle. I would love to know them, but Azim Premji gives them so much money that they have pledged their life to the monitor and the VoIP phone.

I fortified my friendship with few friends while in Bangalore and met new friends. Kovid was from my institute, so we were quickly sharing PJs. I discovered that he recited the Oxford English Dictionary when he spoke. He would throw in weird words and phrases, as if he was Sidhu. Manaspreet and Kulpreet couldn't get the logic behind my jokes, so they crack their own. Vaibhav form my engineering days was as inquisitive as ever. He has this strange way of asking questions every time. He even asks questions when he is answering someone else's questions. But he is an expert at work. Of the new people I met, I think the mentionable are TISSians and Shipra Sharma. Shipra Sharma, the most helpful girl ever, was asked by my friend, Divya, to guide this little kid around the city. And so she did. She got me my mobile connection. Romit , TISSian 1, was doing his internship at Google, and probably that is why it seems he is always looking for something. TISSian 2, Shaveta, which is her correct spelling, is too relaxed when she speaks. I don't know from where does she get her patience. The buddy program she runs is very deceitful, you are made a 'buddy' and then you just have to agree to everything she says and she acknowledges you with a 'Yes Buddy!' in her calm voice. But she is fun. TISSian 3, Vidhi is the angry young woman. See how I disguised young with woman, she will be happy to see I referred to her as young. She always wants to shut me up. But now I like her, because she owes me money. She is a real hard working HR manager. Suman is married to a merchant navy guy, who I presume is a very Joyous person.

This city between two seas has the ability to make people feel like machines. I just hope I am very wrong, because most people in Bangalore love it. I love the city's auto drivers who crib for 1 rupee, because they at least run on meters. I love the expensive food, because it is the only sort available. I love the buses which have signs in Kannad only, because they are more frequent and comfortable. I love this crowded city, because it is making it's crowd self sustained, wealthy and hopeful of the future. And this city between the two seas is far away from the shore to let any tide touch it. I hope Bangalore makes me fall in love with it.

And yes, Wipro Technologies is a very nice place to work, if you want to. People just bad mouth it, because they have no other topic to talk about and the general feeling that the employer is Satan's subsidiary.

I think I spoiled the sentimental ending...anyway...