And one parameter is definitely missing here – something is of paramount significance when it comes to ranking cities by magazines or channels to calculate fancy parameters like “livability index”. This parameter relates to the opportunities available in the city for earning a living. However, for professionals like me, this doesn’t hold much significance because we do not go to a city searching for opportunities, but rather we go to the city where the opportunity we have already found, wants us to be.

Amongst other things Bangalore definitely comes across most prominently for its wonderful climate. The public transport is good with buses plying to almost all parts of the city. This is only to get better when the Metro is operational. Property and rental costs are on the rise, but all in all I would say, definitely less than Mumbai or Delhi. All kinds of foods are available, although for North Indians, it takes some time to adjust to stuff like curd rice and sambhar. The roads are good, albeit somewhat narrower in most of the interior areas. This probably presents the striking reality about Bangalore – the city was not planned to be what it has become today. While the corporates have come and set their big offices here, infrastructure has well developed in certain areas like the Outer Ring Road, Koramangala, Whitefield etc. This sudden development however has not gone down well with the planning of most of the interior but heavily populated areas. The roads in such areas are circuitous and not even broad enough to allow a two-way transport of cars. This often leads to some prolonged traffic jams, particularly during the morning office-going and evening home-returning hours, extending even to the main roads.

Take care of traffic chaos and you have almost everything you want in a modern city. Malls are there to cater to daily needs in every locality. One doesn’t have to go out too far searching extensively for a restaurant for any desired cuisine. And for the party lovers, there are plenty of pubs and discos too. For the cricket lovers (me being a self-confessed one), Chinnaswamy Stadium is a really good place to enjoy matches every once in a while. Apart from all this one also can retreat to a number of nice getaways around the city, most of which offer both natural beauty and soothing climate.

Amidst all this, something which is evidently missing is a feeling of culture or heritage. So far the identity of the city is mostly as the IT capital of the country. The city doesn’t have a iconic railway station building like Mumbai, Chennai or Kolkata. There are no special kababs, biryanis, or parathas that belong to Bangalore. There are no traditional dances or festivals which are a symbol of the city. And there are no old buildings or monuments which are the landmarks of a city (let’s exclude the majestic Vidhana Soudha which is as new as the independence of the nation). What we do have are the modern landmarks, like the airport, the tall hotel buildings, and the huge commercial and industrial areas, very often stylishly called as “tech parks”.

While the state of Karnataka does have traditions of its own, most of these are associated with the nearby city of Mysore, which was the centre of power and culture for long. It was only after independence that Bangalore became the capital city and even then it was well known as a “pensioners’ paradise” and it was no until late nineties when the generous grants of the state government coincided with the Indian IT revolution that gave its present shape to the city.

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What is interesting that while I did plan for the future, I never had a clear picture about the future itself in my mind. And neither was I sure about when that future would come along. That is until you realize that you already are living in that phase, which could have been regarded as the “future” sometime earlier. And when that transition took place, that saw the future creep in, it is hard to ascertain.

When does a boy become a man? When does a naive one become a responsible one? When does someone who has been cared for become someone who has to care for ? Why do we have these two meanings to the same life, when the individual himself does not realize that he has to change his life – to conform to the new meaning, rather than the earlier meaning.