For whom Bangalore tolls. Review on Bangalore

Bangalore was once known as the Garden city, and Retirement city. Not sure how apt those names are today! I would say Bangalore now suits the young crowd (the under 30's) due to many reasons.

1. Traffic: I lived in Bangalore for over 6 years. Two years back I came to Hyderabad and could get a change to go back to Bangalore only some months back. And I was appalled by the state of the traffic. The infrastructure just cannot take the volume any more. I'm not even sure how helpful the few flyovers are.

There are some critical roads that are permanently jammed during office hrs. example being Hosur road. It is said that in order to reach office on time traveling on Hosur Road, one has to leave 1 1/2 hrs ahead of time! Don't know how true this is (my friends constantly crib about the traffic, though!!!). I did have a taste of the traffic there when I was stuck in Hosur road. I covered about 3 km in more than 45 minutes, and this was at around 11 am! God help any old people stuck in the traffic jam.

2. Pubs: The number os pubs that are mushrooming up are quite impressive. Needless to say, the young crowd benefit the most. As I'm not a pub-hopper, I decided to put to rest the looks of amazement people get when I tell that in my 6 years in B'lore I never went to a pub.

Therefore I went to one, Purple Haze and God! It is not an experience I would like to repeat. The young crowd might like the jammed packed place with the insanely loud pulsating music designed by ENT specialists so that they get regular business! Not me! I survived the assault on my ears and lived to hear another day. Ya, I can hear the experienced B'lore pubbers say, ''Dude, what a waste! You went to the wrong pub!'' Wrong or not, Pubbing is not my style! Live and let live...esp for the sake of my ears!

3. Roads: Now I traveled down Bannarghatta road for a good part of 2 years plus. That time itself the road was a mountain rally driver's dream road. Once the digging for the flyover started, even dogs started avoiding using the road!

Now I've heard it is better, but a few months back it was in such a state that cars had to go for daily maintainace after traveling down that road. I guess the Municipal Corp wanted to give the people a free roller-coaster ride experience.

For a pedestrian, it was an amusing sight to see people in cars bouncing up and down the road. Don't get me started on other roads! If you ask me, the roads in B'lore has detoriated to a large extent. I don't know how people manage during the monsoons!

4. Work: IT.. IT... IT.... This is the buzz word. It is as if no other word exists when talking about B'lore. This is to a large part true. Bangalore is existing only on its IT sector currently. Now, compared to the pretty or handsome young techies, what chance do oldies have. Come on, if you had a change to recruit a 24-25 yrs old, fresh out from a good Management/Engineering Institution, who looks as if he/she has stepped out of a modeling magazine and a 45 year old balding and paunched guy with 20 years experience, who would you choose? (From my experience, 45 yrs old balding and paunched guys get hired as Administrative or Security Officers !!)

There are more reasons, but that?s it for now. I'm not saying that Bangalore is bad. It had its good points. Why, I loved that place when I was there, but I am shocked by the change for the worse in the past 2 years from what it was earlier. Everything said and done, I would still recommend Bangalore to people as it is a great city to be in....only if you are young!