Closing the Bangalore Chapter

16^th July, 2003: I reached the company guest house in Jayanagar, wet, tired & hungry. Things could've gone only better from there.

And how well things turned out to be! As the time for me to bid adieu to Bangalore is sneaking close, a mix of melancholy & nostalgia is setting in. When I first came to Bangalore, I was a fresh out of college, wide-eyed kid of 21; tired of scraping my time for the degree & bumbling with anticipation towards the corporate world. Coffee machine & the biscuits in the office pantry excited me, so did the free stationary (I did build up a mini ball pen collection of my own) & the wall-to-wall carpet in the office. I already had some of my closest buddies working in Bangalore then and later on I made many more good ones, at work. Sadly, many of them are no longer in touch. Not everything was as rosy though; coming from the soggy & warm Mumbai to wet & windy Bangalore, messed me up bad and I was in-n-out of viral fever for about one month. Then I guess, I just got used to it. The rains in Bangalore, though no lesser in the vigor, don't last for as long as those in Mumbai and they have assuring surety of schedule, unlike the ill-tempered rains in Mumbai which visit at the most inappropriate hours.

In last three years, Bangalore has given & taught me a lot. I have changed jobs twice since my first company and finally acknowledged that this is perhaps not what I would want to do all my life. The software industry, with all its lures & charms, failed to excite me for long; but it wasn't just the job. I was feeling a bit jaded for a while, by the city, by its people, by the mundane routine. Almost all the people I know in general, have one tiresome similarity - all of them are software guys! And the city, it has perhaps the greatest weather in India, but I think I've had enough of Bangalore. Nothing against the city, but I guess I would relish the change right now. Incidently, Bangalore is the city where I've spent the second longest continuous spell of my life (After Mumbai, where I spent four years of college. So much for being a Jaipuri :-) ). I guess, the wanderer in me is still not ready to settle. At the same time, if Calcutta wouldn't have happened, I guess I would've stayed back in Bangalore for another year or so, and happily. Who knows?

Change comes with a price tag; you need to get out of the comfort zone and go through the ordeal of settling up yet again, in a new rhythm. To accomodate new people, you need to get away from the existing friends; to venture new places you first need to leave the comforts of your home. Ironically, often we seek change to get rid of the monotonous rhythm only. It seems contradictory, but such is life.

There is just less than a week before I fly out of here, and yet the feeling isn't sinking that I'm leaving Bangalore. I guess it would start settling once I leave the city & its heavenly weather, to get roasted in the ruthless Jaipur summers :-) So here's me, off to yet another new city.