When in India...swami style reflections in 2011

I left India 16 years ago. With every annual visit back to my hometown, Bangalore, there is a new version of the past created. The past becomes highlighted when the present changes. And changes are aplenty. Roads are constantly being expanded with colossal pillars for the fast train emerging smack in the middle. The guts of Bangalore are being opened up for the NammaMetro, “our metro” fast train, designed to control and digest the 7 million strong city residents. There is constant talk of the “center” being moved, given the construction of luxury gated communities and IT parks along the outskirts of Whitefield to Hosur road, with the future rotating around the new airport shaped after much championing for a new global image for this hybrid city.

And hybrid city it is as 60% of the residents come from across the country and NRIs (Indians who settled in the West) are making their way back to etch their place in this perceived dynamic market and simultaneously be close to their aging parents. The new ambition balances with traditional family values, working well for the Indian economy. On the other hand, the “center” remains entrenched and persists with the small fry shops that I grew up with, small corner comic book libraries, sweetstalls and jean shops surviving the onslaught of the new mall virus spreading across Bangalore. Within the last 5 years, malls have made their presence felt from 3 shopping complexes to now about 40 mega-consumer parks spread across the city. Marks & Spencer, Lush, and Nokia rests non-ironically with home grown stores within these new leisure park spaces, wrapped within the larger experience of masala popcorn and Bollywood in IMAX style.


Everywhere you go, you feel the presence of change. Sikkimese hairdressers, Malayali nurses, to Punjabi business people create the surround sound of the city. New policies emerge to streamline this dynamism be it new bank policies to stricter rules on getting a SIM card for the cell phone. Security measures have beefed up yet India has the knack of displaying ironies in the most entertaining of fashions. Pirated DVD shops, once hidden, now gain legitimacy as they take over a large shopping complex in the heart of Bangalore, selling “original quality” pirated movies of Sex and the City to Salman Khan’s latest big hit, Dabangg. What else? This city continues to hold the title of the “Garden City,” in spite of the systematic felling of trees and the “Pub city” in spite of recent year changes to pub timings to 11am, killing the liquor business to a great degree. Simultaneously, this city is being considered a serious contender from the typical Mumbai hotbed of cultural innovation, for Italian fine cuisine to fashion, expanding its reach beyond the software and call center nodes that represent it. With the New Year, new changes are felt. The city is a beast, consuming and being consumed at a faster rate than ever before. It is a lot to digest after all.