Life beyond the code

 

 

Want a cobra shot? Come to India's Silicon Valley. Step into the pub on Residency Road in Benguluru once famous for giving cobra shot to its clients. “A dead cobra inside a whisky bottle.” A heady blend. Mike, a 24-year-old IT professional, narrates his experience. “What a shot that was,” he recalls. So was the price. The owner charged Rs 1,500 per peg from the bottle. As Mike goes on with his story about the pub, his girlfriend, Neha, another IT professional, looks on. Mike whispers, “You want a cobra shot? I can organise one.” On a journey to write about the state, the TSI team was not too keen to share that particular “thrilling experience.” Moreover, to put the record straight, raids by the police and forest department officials have reportedly stopped the snake shots.

In the course of the journey, one meets Neha at MG Road. The 22-year-old is an associate programmer at IBM. Hailing from a traditional family in Rajasthan, she finds this city “full of opportunities.” Yet, for Neha, life in Bengaluru “is too fast paced.” Clearly, she isn't the type who would fall for the glitz and glamour of a shining new Bengaluru.

Our next stop was “Soul Deli Café,” a famous hookah bar on MG Road. A woman sat alone in a corner. For the past two years, she has been working with Dell. Unlike Neha, she likes the city. “It’s a lovely city. I like the greenery all around. And I like the people and the cosmopolitan nature of the place.” She identified herself as Anita George. Was she lonely? “I have friends. But I need my own space. At times I want to be all by myself and that is why I am sitting here,” she explained. And of course she “loves smoking hookah.”

Following its rapid growth, the city has become a hub of expatriates of all hues. With over 3,000 IT companies (both big and small), people from Korea, the West Indies, the US, China and Nigeria have trooped in. The city has over two lakh techies employed in the IT sector. As for the numbers, during 2006-007, software worth nearly Rs 50,000 crore was exported from Bengaluru. The city is also about big money. And the young IT professionals with fat salary cheques are living it up all the way. It all started after 1995. Till then Bengaluru was merely a good old Garden City. “We never thought the city’s culture will change so dramatically,” said Gopalkrishna Jayanthi. He looked around and added, “The ice cream parlours have virtually been replaced by bars, pubs and coffee shops.” Perhaps gone are the days when little children clung to their parents licking their ice cream cones late at night. The TSI team met Jayanthi in the famous Lake View Ice Cream Parlour.

The middle and lower middle classes are fast disappearing from the face of this city. It is also evident that the rapid rise in house rents all over cannot be stopped. Once a one-bed room apartment would cost Rs 2,500 a month. Now the rent for the same kind of apartment is at least Rs 6,500 a month. As for property prices, a 1,200 square feet flat would cost anything between Rs 3 to 4 lakhs. Today not even a two-bedroom apartment is available for less than Rs 40 lakhs. For the posh areas, one has to have at least a crore in one's kitty. This is the impact of the IT industry's growth in Bengaluru. Big money has been rapidly changing the city’s lifestyle. Consumerism has grown with the mushrooming of malls.

“True, the city has made its mark globally,” someone said. But the growth has also created a social divide. The city isn't confined to its glitzy parts like MG Road, Koramangala, Electronic City, Brigade Road or Church Street. Life exists with equal fervour in areas like Srirampura, Shantinagar, Viveknagar and Okalipuram. A huge population dwells in these slum areas.

The next destination was Cohiba Club on Church Street. Salsa was in full swing. Young couples, all techies, were swinging to the beat. Life was beautiful in that upmarket Cigar Lounge & Restaurant. Salsa fever strikes every Friday and Sunday nights. “People from all walks of life come here to enjoy themselves,” C.Pradeep Kumar, assistant manager of Cohiba, smiled. We meet some top IBM men, an ex-orthopaedic surgeon, a former software engineer, a film director and a microbiology lecturer—all in the age group of 20 to 30 years. Most of them were from the Mezclao Dance Academy.

Anup Thomas, a top IBM official, and Alex Diaz, a farmer and a software engineer, founded the dance academy. They explained that these sessions are organised “mainly to help people unwind after five days of hectic and stressful work.” For some of these young IT professionals, Anup has assumed the status of some kind of “guru.” And, of course, for some of these stressed out and highly paid professionals, “those who live in the slums of the city probably have a better, more enjoyable life.”

Alex Diaz is a first generation Cuban American. He quit his job last year and became a salsa instructor. “Financially I was much better off back then. But, in terms of happiness, I am infinitely richer now,” he beamed.

We reach the final destination of our journey, NASA, a pub on Church Street. Meet the famous DJ Ajay, a final year student at St. Joseph’s. He wants to earn while he learns. “Boys and girls come here to freak out,” he says, swinging to the beat of the blaring music. “Some jazz, a dash of Indipop with a bit of booze, life could be really cool,” says Ajay.

A programme manager from Infosys was sitting alone, enjoying his drink. “I am fed up of Bengaluru. I think in Bengaluru it simply isn't possible to retain your own space and life." True birds have probably flown away from the garden city.