Life in Bangalore

The use to be garden city and now the IT capital of India. I do not want to elaborate on how trees are being chopped or how the population and pollution is increasing. Its also not about the traffic in bangalore which is similar to 8 people in an auto and all of them discharging gas through the opening at the lower end of their alimentary canal. Its not about the goverment which is as stable as a unicyclist with a flat tyre. No its not about the roads or the infrastructure, Its about us.

Bangaloreans (this word is quite difficult to define, any person who resides here (own/rental house) with atleast one blood relation or himself/herself earning in the city of bangalore for atleast the last 6 months), May i ask what life means to you? I am no scholor but to my sight its all about work and money. I have a friend who sells imported glass tumblers and he was telling me about how he sold a few glasses to a star hotel for double the normal price. He never realised that we were sitting in the same star hotel and having a coffee which was priced ten times its cost. At the end of the day a person who decieves the best is richer. And why does he want so much money ? believe it or not its for pride and status in the society. Another very strange incident was once when i had been to a BPO for an interview. I came across an employee of that company who had a 6600 nokia handset which was priced around 12k at that time. But he was dressed in bathroom slippers for office. Hotel Empire is the only resturant in bangalore that is open till late hours and for that reason they charge Rs. 15 for a small cup of tea and we call it the most happening place. The most important thing here is not good times or good friends or your mothers smile or your dad's health, its all about wealth which is either not used or used in something that really does not matter too much.

My dads stories about life in bangalore in the 60's and 70's makes me wish i was born at that time. No computers, Mobile phones, Television, washing machines, not even an electric stove. People use to live at that time too rather i should say people use to live LIFE in those times. Born in the eighties i have not experienced it but i am very confident that it was much more peaceful then. You would hardly see any cars on the road, it use to be much cooler (considered as a hill station at that time) and lots of sports. Once my dad was walking to his college (2 km away from home) on the way one of his classmates of the opposite sex was going on a bicycle. As she passed by my dad she shouted out " HOP ON". He still remembers this incident and even today it makes him blush. In todays times hop on has a totally different meaning. There is no charm left when talking to someone of the opposite sex. My basic point is that we are going too fast and we give a lot of importance to things that are not very important. We buy phones for their looks and features where as its basically used for verbal communication and sms. Dont we all realise that we are getting conned. We are being decieved by advertisments and our minds are being hypnotised. We all goto pubs almost every saturday but fail to take our family for an outing for months together. Im sure respect for elders would be the next to be attacked and we (25-35 years) would be the victims.

I would like to end by saying that warren buffet who was the second richest man in the world, cheated people , made a lot of money and gave it all away to charity. Is that all life is about?