Life in Bangalore: Lifestyle

Here is a quote from a recent article in a supplement to Outlook magazine called Right Time: The World's Finest Watches:

Throw in the fact that financing options bring the effective cost of a Rs. 1 lakh watch to within Rs. 4,000 a month, and you're looking at a market size many multiples of 70,000 strong...

Rs. 4,000 a month on a wrist watch. That ought to give an idea of the lifestyle that is possible in India. Given the right income (or the right spending style), nothing is out of reach.

In Bangalore, there are malls big enough to put many in the US to shame, with European, Australian and American stores. There are banks that will give you credit cards and loans and financing options tailored to your needs, whether you're looking to buy a Rs. 1 crore penthouse or a Rs. 1 lakh wrist watch.

There is a whole new kind of telephone directory published by Getit (the Yellow Pages people) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. called The Official Consumer & Houseld Yellow Pages advertising everything from washing machines to electronic goods to high-end jewellery and designer clothes.

There are multiplexes where on weekends, the lowest price for a movie ticket is Rs. 150, and one Gold Class movie ticket will set you back Rs. 500 (it includes dinner while you watch a movie). On weekends, it's impossible to get a ticket for the Hindi or English movies, even the Gold class ones, unless you've booked days in advance. And forget about walking in and hoping for a ticket. If you're lucky to find parking for your vehicle in the parking lot, you still may not be able to set foot in the mall itself. The stores are overflowing with people who spill out on to the walkways, escalators, stairs and some even just hang out at the entrances. The malls are so jam-packed, you can easily justify having a separate temperature gauge for mall interiors on weekends.

Almost anyone you come across on any given day has a cell phone. Some have two or three phones with different calling plans for different purposes, one for roaming, one for areas where other phones don't have coverage and one for daily use. There are restaurants where a dinner for two will cost Rs. 1000 and where reservations are still hard to come by.

Then there are restaurants positioned strategically near call centers and BPOs that advertise packed dinners ("why cook when you can take home ready-made dinner?").

And the kids are not far behind. There is a new kind of a top called a bey blade that is all the rage in Bangalore now. Cost: Rs 325. All of N's friends have this bey blade. Nothing fancy, just a plastic top that has a plastic strip that spins the top when you pull it out forcefully. I checked the price of the good old wooden tops (bugris) we used to play with. Cost: Rs. 10.

There are at least 100 television channels that our cable service provides including channels such as Star World (home of Oprah, Desperate Wives, the soaps, etc.), HBO, ESPN, BBC, CNN, CNBC and the Hallmark Channel, and indigenous TV products such as NDTV, Zee TV, etc.

If you live in America and are looking to move to Bangalore, there is nothing you will lack in terms of wordly goods. Grocery stores stock peanut butter, cereals, pancake mixes, toilet paper, Betty Crocker cake mixes, zucchini, red bell peppers, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, pasta, pasta sauce, salsa, pesto sauce, chocolate chips for baking. You name it, they have it. It'll cost you, but it's available. In fact, there is nothing that you will need to hoard in your suitcases. I am sure my Australian and European friends will echo this.

New book stores in the style of Borders stock all publishers and authors (else there is always good ol' Amazon). You want branded clothes? Bangalore has them.

If you're in the market to buy a house, there are floor plans and options to match your quirkiest requirements and even some you haven't even thought about (servant's rooms). For a price you can pretend there are no power cuts or water shortages (many new apartmens and communities come with 24 hour water supply and electricity). These houses are not filled with old retired couples who have worked all their lives (they had the misfortune of working in and retiring from the old economy and so cannot afford them), but with young, double-income couples working in the IT sector.

These services and facilities exist because there is a demand for it. These amenities cater, however, not to the entire population of Bangalore, but to less than 5% of its population, most of it comprised of returning NRIs, MNC employees and expats.

The rest of Bangalore lives on as if nothing had changed. Activist groups estimate that 40% of the population would be classified as poor, without access to basic amenities such as water and sanitation. Income figures from the 1991 census data indicate that 24% of the population shares 8% of the income whereas 4% of the population shares 19% of total income. There is no reason to think that this disparity has not widened in the intervening decade.

What is the point of all this?

The point is that, just as must be the case with many of the big cities around the world, Bangalore is a city of disparities.

There are days when you can simply forget that you are not in some European or American city.

There are days when you look around and see how much the city has changed in the last 15 years - the city has grown; the pace of construction is nothing less than crazy; traffic is near-impossible to navigate in rush hour (which is pretty much all day except for may be an hour here or there in between) there are homes, shops, and buildings the likes of which I never thought I would see in Bangalore; there are a lot more people, and people from all over the world; there are more slums; and everything is at least 10 times more expensive.

There are days when you realize that all of these changes have benefited not only the engineering and management graduates, but also the workers such as maids, laborers who work at construction sites and on infrastructure projects, and drivers (there is a whole new industry in transporting the call center employees to and from work).

Then there are days when you realize that for a large segment of the population, the malls mean nothing, the grocery stores mean nothing, the bookstores mean nothing, the huge houses mean nothing, the restaurants mean nothing. The whole IT boom means nothing. Except may be a higher cost of living.

There is no judgement associated with this. In Bangalore, this is what it is.