Banga-lured!

Pretty adventurous, the last few days have been... (No, this is not a conscious effort to sound like Jedi Master Yoda... it is purely incidental that he copied my style in his speech.)

I've been in Bangalore for a few days now, and I love the city already! It's a pretty different experience from Delhi, Chandigarh, or Jamshedpur. And a few key learning points I've gathered so far are:

a) Learning the local language - Kannada, is pretty easy. All you need to do is suffix every word with 'aa'. So sambhar becomes 'sambhar-aa', MG Road becomes 'MG Road-aa' and so on. No, I'm not saying this is all there is to it! It's just that if you manage this bit well enough, you're half-way there. I'll teach you the next half as soon as I learn it myself. Ok-aa?

b) The South Indian food that we are served up North is not authentic, not withstanding the claims of the restaurants. For me, it's a tough choice. I don't like South Indian food, and it costs nearly half as much as the North Indian fare at most places here. So, it is essentially a toss-up between starving myself on North Indian food, and bleeding my pockets dry, or starving myself on South Indian food. (Suggestions will not be appreciated!)

c) Autorickshaw drivers are as cheeky as anywhere in India. I was impressed by the fact that I just had to jump into an auto, and give the driver instructions. The fare would obviously be metered, unlike places like Delhi where these guys grin at you and tell you that the meter is defunct, so you'd have to bargain with them. Of course, my joy was short-lived, when I found that the chap was trying to round off a Rs. 33/- fare to Rs. 40/- just because he'd have to travel some distance before finding himself another passenger. (I resisted a strong urge to 'flip him the bird' and walked on, but not before he had charged me Rs. 35/-.)

Still, there are lots of things that I like. For instance, the weather, the nice and musical lilt of the local accent, and the city overall - to name a few. However, strangely enough, there is lots of piracy here. Every nook and corner seems to have a few hawkers selling pirated movies or books. I wonder what the 'enforcers' charge, to look the other way, and to allow this trade to flourish.

(I'll be writing about my Microsoft experiences later, because I expect them to be thrilling enough to write a few hundred pages.)

P.S. This blog is now 50 posts old. Hurray!