THE LONELY CROWD

As I approach the first anniversary of my relationship with the garden city of India, I decided to give it an acknowledgement, for being the city that showed me the joy of being independent, content, and dreamy and obviously the luxury of lovely weather.

I don’t know anyone who has lived in Bangalore and has not had a secret affair with the extremely romantic and cheesy weather that makes you want to curl up into a ball inside a blanket (It definitely gets better if you have someone to pamper you).I am talking about a city that can spoil your guts and at the same time put you on your toes day and night.

While I could draw my conclusion (my version of understanding I mean) in less than a month about Mumbai city, it took me a whole year to even start comprehending Bangalore.She was so unique and mysterious (in a very naughty and sweet way) to me that I had to learn a whole new language to even start the communication with her, and for me, I loved the thrill and excitement of getting to know her better each day.

At the first sight, this place looked like an illusion, a dream, with pretty faces and youth everywhere. I saw no pain, no misery. Everything lookedpolished, neat, pretty and classy. I wandered about in amazement, for I had not seen lives this perfect. And then the obvious happened. The darker side unveiled. As I got closer to the soul of the city, I found a bunch of happy faces, living in a crowd, carrying lonely minds and frustrated souls. I could relate to the ‘life in a metro’ shown in movies better now. Here we have ambitious youth, striving to find themselves as a part of the numerous corporate giants, that spoil you with perks and load you with foreign money. Here we also have the generation that have great stories to tell, about culture,tradition,art,craft and much more,which sometimes cease to exist today.

There is some style to this city, which cannot be categorized or defined. The style does not come from the majority of young crowd and high paid jobs alone. It also does not come from the posh restaurants and pubs in every nook and corner of a street. The style is so contagious that it takes over your life. Hence we call it lifestyle. This city gives me happiness that Mumbai could not give,majorly because I did not see poverty and struggle. I saw prosperity.But was there happiness?...that remains a question still.

It felt like technology ran in the nerves of each and everyone here. Everybody is learning, doing, creating and achieving something new in technology every single minute, giving it the status of ‘startup capital ’.This ever hungry city enjoys and appreciates food like no other place.Thanks to the young population, open to new experiments and variety of tastes, Bangalore has been the most welcoming place to almost all food giants including ‘taco bell’ and ‘au bou pain’. Hence, it swept the title of food capital of India. I had a very simple explanation to the Bangalorean love and obsession for food, which is the lack of other comfort zones like beaches and the stress that makes you want to resort to the comfort of food every now and then. The basic underlying fact here being that everybody wants to feel good, but they mostly fail to figure out their path to true happiness. In the efforts to find it, most of us end up conquering everything that gives us comfort and luxury, but there still remain some things that cannot be bought with all the money in the world like companionship and love. I see longing in the eyes, broken smiles and empty hearts.I see lonely crowds.