Desperately needing a break from the busy life, I was handed a golden opportunity to visit the Garden city - Bangalore right before Diwali break.
It was a five day trip, more about work than play, but I was hardly complaining. Heck, how many people get to travel on college expenses besides?
The trip had a pretty serious agenda - Placements. Judging by the current scenario of a global slowdown, recession and what not, it was very much needed to say the least.
The journey
Getting to Bangalore (or shall I say Bangalooru?) was not as much fun as I had expected it to be. We (there were 3 of us - two other girls and I) had to swallow the bitter pill and travel by bus on a dull Sunday afternoon to make it in time for a meeting the next day. Raj Travels, I was told was a good way to travel and sadly it turned out to be anything but that. We had the last row of seats to ourselves, and while it was fun chitchatting and all that, the bus in itself was old, rickety and dusty! So dusty that every time it hit a bump, some dust would fall from the overhead luggage shelf. The air conditioning barely worked, and being the cheapskates that they are, they turned it off at night! Some grand service for 1300 odd bucks I’d say! And to top it off, I was covered with dust by the time I woke up in the morning. To add to the misery, the bus didn’t even get us to our destination within the promised time og 18 hours, as a result of which we couldn’t make it for the meeting. So much for customer service.
Thankfully the rest of the trip wasn’t even half as bad as the trip to Bangalore.
Bangalore - the Garden city
The city sure did seem quite a bit different from my last visit here, which was roughly two years ago. The city has some vintage charm which I very much like. On reaching our “booked” cab never really arrived, and after a lot of haggling with the auto mafia (read: auto drivers who extort money as they please) we finally got going. At least the driver was nice enough to get us to our hotel, which was located in the heart of the city on M G road.
The hotel in itself was rather modest, very traditional by the looks of it. The rooms were dirt cheap (we had a stay budget of 500 bucks a day) so it was a steal. The girls took up a rather grand double room while I settled for a rather small single room which felt more like a room straight out of an old age home.
Does it not match the description?
Placement work
The placement bit of the trip went A-OK. Some of the companies were simply dazzling. Like that of a particular aircraft manufacturer where the HR head of its country operations was kind enough to let us in and give us a good amount of time. Similarly, it went from OK to pretty well with most companies. Although it left a lot to be desired on a personal level as this was something that should have been done a year ago. Sadly now we have to pay for those timely mistakes and live with it.
Evenings in the city
Being the not-so-adventurous bunch that we were, most of the evenings were spent in browsing through countless shops on M G road or usually in some mall or the other. While it does sound a bit sad, it was not too bad. I guess I probably enjoyed myself as it was a new city. Or something like that.
Somehow it was very different from Bombay and even Delhi. As I said before, Bangalore has its own charm, and I really liked that.
They didn’t have a T or a C unfortunately
I particularly liked what little I saw of the city. The offices seemed rather grand and awesome. The public transport - considerably improved (not accounting for the auto mafia who seem to have gained more notoriety) and the traffic was comparatively lesser than in Bombay.
At the end of the trip, come to think of it, I would certainly not mind being there for a couple of years. It seems like a pretty great place, and judging by the way Slumbay is degrading and dying a slow death, Bangalore might just be that perfect alternative (besides Goa that is :P).
Going home
Before I knew it, my time was up. It seemed awfully short (well longer than my last trip, but still) but it was quite a memorable one. Not only did it erase whatever bad memories I had from the last trip it also left quite a few lasting and postive impressions in my mind.
My favourite part of the trip was the food. I prefer simple food, and having just that throughout the trip was great. I especially LOVED the donuts we picked up for the return journey from this little donut shop on M G road. They were by far some of the most delicious ones I had ever had - something for which I wouldn’t mind coming to Bangalore over and over again!
Thankfully we had a better bus while returning home and it was a pretty comfortable journey.
All in all it was a pretty great trip, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to visit it and explore whatever little I could on my own terms.
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