Bangalore Vs Everywhere Else

Living in Bangalore spoils a person for anywhere else. So, though you'll hear everyone cursing the traffic jams, they never move out but only add happily to the honking.
It is not just Bangaloreans, everyone living everywhere else also simply raves about Bangalore. One imagines Mumbai or Delhi looking over their shoulders sulkily, asking: 'What does Bangalore have that we don't?'
Central AC for one thing.The weather, even with climate researchers tut-tutting the gradual decline, simply puts it on top of the list of must-feels. While Delhi busies itself with a year-long sartorial festival of summer clothes, winter clothes, mid-summer-winter clothes and neither-summer-nor-winter clothes, Mumbai sports a drizzle-to-downpour-in-seconds skyline. One cannot deny that certain pockets of these two metros have green heavens strewn about, but
greenery is the norm rather than a self-conscious VIP-area effort in Bangalore. Statistics may not support this statement but apparently gardens boost population - an idea aided by scores of Hindi films where flowers neck freely just before heroine delivers baby.
Whether this was the first city in India to popularise pubs or not, pubbing is definitely an accepted pastime here. College kids to the elderly water themselves at the multiple pubs flung out all over. Not to brag or anything, but when it came to women, no one ever thought that only a Rosy or a Ruby could be seen with a drink in hand. And if
anyone thinks otherwise, he can go wear pink chaddis.
In many other cities - we won't take any names here - men feel free to leave whatever serious business is at hand to just stand back and stare at...women. This makes everything a bit of a slow motion for the woman; public transport, going for a walk or even asking for directions. Here, eve-teasing is so rare that the one-odd man who tries it is dispatched back to concerned mother/wife over a friendly chat on tur dal prices.
The good news if you belong to the fairer sex is that pencil-thin females are not flattered for their foodlessness, but are instead bullied by the rasam-rice mafia into flooding their food with ghee. Even the fattest of women will only admit to "a little paunch'', thus exempting herself from the mania for super-slimness afflicting non-Bangaloreans. When women in the rest of India keel over dead on pavements, their last thoughts full of dinner plates, Bangalore will only observe a moment of silence before going back to their buffets.
No song and dance on occasions like Karva Chauth either, with women going about their business real low-profile. If henna is to be applied or fasts to be observed or large sieves to be obtained to peer at equally large faces of husbands, there is a hush-hush quality to proceedings. Baraats don't live under your window whole nights with their frisky horses, bright lights and disco music. Of course, people get married here too - it's a very legal place all said and done - but they do it without involving the society at large.
The city is laidback enough to engender peace (sans never-ending siestas like Goa) and proactive enough to radiate energy (minus strike calls, agitations, etc. at a moment's notice). Nothing clannish about the Kannadigas. Outsiders can have an opinion on any topic under the sun - for or against - without being quarantined, unlike say in Kerala or Bengal.
Within its borders are exclusive cuisines, health/ beauty spas, holiday destinations, international schools, on-the-spot dental revamps and shopping malls at every corner catering to shopaholics desperately in need of a fix. The rampant racism practised in rice - some like it brown, some like it white, while still others like it red - is tempered with the sheer creativity one brings to this foodgrain. There is vaangi baat, puliyogre, chitranna, bisi-bele baat, tomato rice and curd rice, to name a few successful alliances where rice mates with just about every grocery item it meets.
The new airport is a thing of beauty. And the fact that it is two hours from any major hub makes it appear even more beautiful than it really is. You travel for miles anxiously hunting for 'airport' signboards and just about give up all plans of being airborne when there looms the sprawling oasis. The distance to the airport also makes Bangalore feel more spacious than it is as one can reach Singapore in less time than it takes to board a flight. One does miss the con artists, the cranks, the molesters, the chain snatchers, the JNU types, the contact wallahs, the well-connected social climbers, etc, but then every address is a give and take.
So that's it; Bangalore is bliss for all - except maybe the asthmatic. There is the pollen that can aggravate. But that brings us to the city's high-tech medical tourism. All illnesses are welcome here, everything is treatable. Especially, anti-Bangalore symptoms.
The writer is an author and compiled the recently released anthology, 'Kerala, Kerala, Quite Contrary'