Swallow us alive
I go to Bangalore
like u know maybe thrice a year. It Seems
to grow franticlly bigger every time I visit.
It’s odd to
see lakes nearby on the Uber map but none visible when travelling - or from the
hotel roof tops.
Urbanization
has cast a cement spell on Bangalore that’s impossible to break.
This time,
since I was covering the air show, I traveled all over the city for the first
three days I was lodging in a place called Manyata tech park about thirty
kilometers from the IAF airbase at Yahlankha and next few days next to IIM
Bangalore in the middle sorties were made to pubs at Whitefield and church
road. So, I traversed the town pretty much. I saw the exasperation and despair
of every one - the foreign investor, the “techie” from rohtak, the cab driver -
all of them. Everyone looked at the traffic situation like we in Delhi look at
pollution with anger giving way to hopelessness. In many ways it is the reverse of China where
infrastructure was build big upfront on a debt mountain for business to follow –
here infrastructure has simply not kept pace with the growth and now Bangalore
has to mind the gap.
Techie talk
If I owned
an IPL team in Bangalore I would call it Bangalore arbitragers – for this is a
city that truly plays on the arbitrage.
It as we all know, crawls with coders. The main advantage is not that India
has a smart IT population that will change the world. It’s simply a matter of
price arbitrage. An Indian computer engineer with five years experience costs $20,000
a year - while his EXACT equivalent in the US of A costs $100,000. Foreign IT companies
have tried several destinations to crack this cost arbitrage they have set up
store from Costa Rica to Thailand but the quality and the ability to work that little
bit extra without whining , is only found in India - and especially in Bangalore.
I walked
around Manyata Tech Park a newish development that has 9 million square feet of
offices of IBM, alcatel, Nvidia; cognizant … you get the drift. The hottest
jobs in the next five years are going to be in Data science, in full stack development
and Machine learning. The cost arbitrage
is so huge a top US CEO told me – they do not mind spending a whole quarter of wages
for retraining fresh Indian grads in computer application skills given our degree
factories lack real world training. I also learned from another CEO a trade
secret - that H1B will have only marginal impact as a full 40 % of visits by Indian
tech firms are to inflate bills!! We can do a lot of the same job sitting right
here in Bangalore through conferencing and remote enabling software- the H1B adds
client confidence - after all nothing beats a face to face. It’s kinda you know, reassuring! BTW the rupee is expected to slide this year –
dalal street could yet give 25% rupee returns on some of IT stocks in 2019.
Polite city
For someone
from Delhi frankly Bangalore is a shockingly polite city. Even with all that
traffic there is rarely an argument. The shopkeepers are amazingly friendly a
go out of their way to make you feel happy. I always go to a tiny shop as you
turn into Church street that has the best superhero t-shirts from Lokie to
Hulkbuster they have it all. Try ordering even at tiny roadside food joints
there is a certain politeness which is amazingly for a city of this huge size .
Of food and watering holes
So I went,
as I always do over the years, to Peco’s everyone old favorite that has
pioneered the pub culture of Bangalore – legend has it that at least two
unicorn ideas came out of long drunken evenings here. I discovered that time takes its toll, but not
on the vibes, friendly crowd and excellent coorgi pork stir fry was had and beer
was enjoyed over some music. Now Peco’s may not be the in thing anymore for the
young crowd but for old timers it’s still the place to be. It is cozy, lived
in.
The next day
I reached a brewery which I think is doing a lot of good to the drinking scene
of Bangalore as it keeps experimenting Windmills in Whitefield, they have to work on their stouts but I
think on pale ales they are hitting the right notes. A Dry hopped amber beauty
which has a bit more character then typical English ale, I recommend it and @ 300
a pint this is a steal. The Kali Mirch chicken
is a revelation the wood paneled library setting with a very impressive variety
of books makes this an excellent choice for a fun evening with some quality
beers.
For ales, I
think the Arbour brewery on MG road is a must they had a special ale brewed
just for the air show – I must confess I relished its smoothness as I said
cheers and promised myself to revisit this fast changing metropolis.
