2 Evenings at Bangalore

I was in Bangalore for 4th International GPLv3 Conference on 23th and 24th Aug 2006. I didn't want to miss RMS (Richard Stallman, Chairman and founder of fsf, and a very famous personality). That was one of the major reasons why I was there. Unfortunately I missed his session due to flight problems. Never trust flying in air. I missed my flight on 22nd Aug from Delhi to Bangalore. I had to stay a night at Delhi.

My first impression of Bangalore is it's a huge, crowded city, and pretty much expensive compared to Kathmandu. The biggest disadvantage for its hugeness is you need at least 30 minutes to go to anywhere. The problem gets even bigger when you have to travel at evening, especially if you don't own a vehicle. The public vehicles, (there are mostly autos in the city), don't agree to go to any crowded places and even if you finally managed to get auto-driver to agree, he would put his own rate, sometimes very high compared to actual rate. There are public buses, but only if you are the experienced locals, with climbing and hanging skills. Certainly walking in streets like MG roads, Brigade road is interesting, with lots of bright lights, shinning glasses. But again if you live far from those roads, then you will have a problem getting to your place; public transport dependency is costly.

Bangalore is no doubt the information hub of India. Virtually all the big and successful IT organizations have their presence there, you name it... Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle, IBM, Bosch, Intel, SAP to name a few...... The boom in IT sector has little to do with the overall development of the city. I have tried to catch a snap showing garbage place infront of Oracle building. I had a hard time, not to close my nose, while getting a snap in front of Oracle home. Slums, dirts, crowds, smokes are kind of glued to South-Asian countries.

Dog sitting over garbage, in an alley in front of Oracle Building, Bangalore

I didn't realize public toilets in front of Oracle Building, Bangalore

The most interesting thing that happened to me was I drank 3 glasses of lime water at 3 different places at 3 different prices, IRs 18, IRs 8, IRs 5, in chronological order. I never intended to find the cheap places. I saw a shop and asked for the lime. My friend was saying that there is one place where I would be able to get the same at IRs 4. I was already full by then. Interesting... isn't it? To be honest, IRs 18 lime water was bad compared to the other two. There's one restaurant where if you stand up you would get the food at half the price than you would get while sitting. And of course there's a table where you can place your food while standing. Anyways that's a huge price to pay for a seat.

I am not talking about Bangalore McDonnalds. I am sure they won't have such variable rates for their customers. I just had two evenings to roam around Bangalore, the entire day being spent at the conference at IIMB. Obviously I couldn't visit every corner of Bangalore. I am wondering how the order parts of the huge Bangalore are like.