Namma...?

Have you felt the need to take in the experience of a megacity with a difference? Have you actually wondered what it feels like to live in the software capital of India, namma own Silicon City? Here’s a teaser…

This is the city where entertainment stops for the commoner at 11:30 p.m. If you are a big money boy, you could try your luck at the five star joints...at least that is what one senior government official has said they would be looking to do…

This is the city where it takes just one major rain to give you the lowlife experience – water all round, and filthy too to boot, and no boat around, of course…

This is the city where auto drivers charge you obscene rates, after having their meters fixed, of course, to take you home after 10:00 p.m. If you are lucky enough you could have this privilege hurled at you by 8:30 p.m.…

This is the city where you are the quintessential ‘naarth Indian’ despite dutifully paying your taxes to the state coffers each year for the past decade… Where people smile at you when you speak in Kannada in amazement, as if you are the pet dog that not only knows how to shake hands, but also howl hallelujah do a cartwheel while doing so…

This is the city where you pay obscene amounts of rent for houses that would normally cost a fraction of the price elsewhere. And for your added privilege, you also get the chance to play the Good Samaritan – make the landlord richer by paying a 10-month deposit or an outrageous lease amount. Some of them have nowadays asking for a 15-month advance… am wondering if that is a reflection of an improvement in arithmetic…

And the latest attraction! Multi-hour power cuts – today we were privileged to live without electricity for over 5 hours and counting (there is no power even as I squint at my laptop keypad and type out this post…

Now, if I was a copywriter looking for inspirational ad copy to woo visitors, the above would definitely not be what I would write…

What makes it all the more difficult to take is that despite all this, I still love this city. I like the countless friendly people I have met here who take a liking to me because of who I am, and not just because I am an outsider who can speak their tongue. I like the simplicity that most of the people here tend to show…

Do not get me wrong; I feel proud to be able to speak Kannada, considering it is so different from my native tongue or any other language I know – English, Hindi, et al. And yet I hate it when I get the compliment of being able to speak like a localite… however well-intentioned the compliment, it seems more and more patronizing.

While it may be easy for someone reading this post to say ‘If you are so pissed take a walk dude…’ it is not all that easy. This is a city where I have spent more time than I have spent in my hometown. A city that I have grown to love and then hate and still love…

Where do I go? Relocate to another place after growing roots here? Go back to my own place, which seems more alien with each passing year? This, I believe, is the essence of the diasporic sensation, of rootlessness, compounded by being stuck in a place that you have got used to, with all the negatives…