The difference between Bangalore
and Kolkata
A few days back i met a person who is Bengali by origin but had gone to Bangalore to work for a software company ten years back and now is settled in Bangalore for good.Almost the whole of his immediate family lives in Kolkata but he does not want to return back.He says he’s fallen in love with Bangalore so much that he can’t leave it now.On the other side of the spectrum,I regularly come across people from other states who are forced to stay in Kolkata due to work and are looking forward to going back to their home state as soon as their situation permits.(there are exceptions like people from UP,bihar,jharkhand and north-east but that’s understandable for obvious reasons).These people i meet absolutely loath staying in Kolkata and have a thousand complaints about the city and state…food,politics,red tape,infrastructure,locals,etc..I too in some way belong to that group.This contrasting experience prompted me to write this piece.Why are there such extreme feelings regarding the two cities? I’ll try to explore in the next few paragraphs what contributes to this phenomenon….
I’ll start closer to home with Bangalore.I spent all of my childhood and did all my schooling in Bangalore up until i joined medical college.I have wonderful memories of my childhood in Bangalore as childhood memories ought to be.I went to one of the best schools,got a wonderful set of teachers to teach me and had an incredible city to enjoy my school days.For me Bangalore was the best place on earth for the simple reason that i didn’t know any other place.It all changed once i went to Mysore to pursue my M.B.B.S.;I got the opportunity to observe Bangalore from a different perspective since so many of my classmates were from different parts of the state and country and belonging to different backgrounds.I observed that people from outside Bangalore disliked Bangaloreans generally.The reasons were many.Bangaloreans tended to be the spotlight of the class and leadership roles were taken by them naturally.They generally tended to have an air of superiority about them.Add to the fact that we Bangaloreans have an affinity for speaking good English also used to get their goat.This was inevitable as we came from places of better facilities and greater exposure to the outside world.Initially i was shocked by the hostility of the others in my class but gradually they saw the foolishness of their grouse and we eventually mixed well.But my point is Bangalore has separated from the state of Karnataka in pure cultural terms though not physically or politically.
I was one of the people who celebrated with the rest when Bangalore was fast becoming the IT capital of India.But i didn’t realize the effect it would have on my beloved Bangalore i left behind in 2002 when i went to Mysore for further studies.Of course i used to regularly go home every few weeks.But i saw first hand how Bangalore went from good to horrible within the span of 6yrs i was in Mysore.It came to a point when i failed to recognise the city i was brought up in.The whole city had changed.Some said it did for the good since so much infrastructure came into being.The congress govt earlier had invested in a lot of flyovers,roads and tax reforms for IT companies to open shop in Bangalore.They said it was all good.People in Bangalore had more money in their hands,better standard of living and more happy as a result.Huge shopping malls cropped up in every street,exotic hotels started popping up,all the latest cars started zooming around the city,in short everything was looking so hunky dory at that time.Even i believed the half truths at the time.But in time i realised that all that infrastructure could not keep pace with how fast the city was growing.Roads got worse,public transport was a nightmare,the land prices and cost of living shot up and inevitably Bangalore could not promise a great life to everybody.The unstable governments of Devegowda, Kumarswamy and Yedurappa only added to people’s woes.There was a nearly non-existent public transport to contend with;people had money so every house had two cars and two motorcycles.That in turn resulted in more traffic problems and the vicious cycle continued.Sometimes when i got to Bangalore it was difficult to believe i was still in Karnataka as almost every corner of India was represented in the city.This cosmopolitan nature of the city is not something i hold against Bangalore.I’m proud that we have always let people from other places come to our city and make it their home without even a hint of resentment.That i believe is a credit to the open mindedness of the city’s people.But what I'm hurt to note is that we haven’t preserved our culture.We kannadigas don’t seem to have pride in our language and traditions.Increasingly even local people are speaking to each other in english and hindi rather than kannada.People in Bangalore somehow feel ashamed to speak publicly in kannada.There are people living in Bangalore for nearly 25 yrs and still don’t know to speak in kannada.Our food,lifestyles,weddings and festivals are conforming to north indian sensibilities.That for me is a failure on our part to preserve the most precious asset of the city:it’s culture.Recently when i saw MLAs in Karnataka legislature creating ruckus inside the Vidhan Sabha with one MLA even tearing away his shirt to expose his bare chest I wondered how civilised we can call ourselves.We are slowly resembling the legislatures of Bihar and UP.This was just waiting to happen.With so much money coming into Bangalore we have let go of decency and courtesy,the bulwark of Kannadiga tradition.The average auto-driver in Bangalore speaks so rudely to the passengers that he would have you believe that he’s doing you a favour and auto-rickshaws are costliest form of transport in Bangalore beating even the airlines.Today your regular Bangalorean when he takes his family out he sometimes can’t afford both the cinema tickets and the restaurant food on the same day.Forget everybody else even i don’t have the courage to go out when i am in Bangalore.This is the Bangalore that the Bengali I spoke about earlier has fallen in love with for it’s almost indistinguishable from New York,London,Paris or Tokyo other than the people living there.I don’t so much like this version of Bangalore.
Now coming to Kolkata where I’ve been staying since a little more than a year.When I first came to Kolkata last year to pursue my MS i was surprised and i admit even i was a little annoyed when people here refused to speak to me in Hindi or English despite them knowing the language.They expected me to learn their language to converse with them.This included my colleagues,seniors and faculty of my institute.I was forced to learn the language which I did in good time due to interaction with my patients and picking cues from the Bengali banter that went on in my hospital.I was not very impressed due to their refusal to consider my language handicap but i slowly realized that all this stemmed from a deep love for their language and culture which isn’t present in Bangalore.I even started admiring their passion towards their language,state and city.
If there is any advertisement needed for Kolkata culture you needn’t look beyond the Durga Pujo.This annual festival is celebrated with such fervour that it’s highly infective.Here I digress a little bit to describe the pujo.During the 5 day festival the people from the whole of Kolkata and surrounding areas are on the streets.They go around watching the endless stream of pandals on offer.There are usually nearly 2500 official pandals or 10,000 if you count even the smaller ones.Here you are exposed to amazing human creativity.The kind of effort that goes into designing each and every pandal is impossible to believe.You find it hard to believe sometimes that all these structures are temporary structures which will be present only for a week.It’s hard to express it in words what i experienced during the durga pujo for the last two years.The whole city is lit up and converted into one huge art gallery.You can call it the world’s largest art gallery as a matter of fact.I absolutely loved the experience.i tried to capture the festive spirit in camera but failed to give complete justice to my endeavour.
Coming back to the original theme of my treatise i want to say that Kannadigas have something to learn from Bengalis.They say Kolkata is a dying city but they have managed to preserve their identity and are not ashamed to display it.Whether it comes to language,traditions,food,weddings or festivals they have never tried to modify their culture the way we kannadigas have done.True the politics in Kolkata sucks.They have two political parties who spend all their time putting the blame on each other while they have let the city and state rot in poverty, low infrastructure,union problems and counterproductive socialist policies.Communism has long lost it charm and is outdated.This philosophy has impeded industrial growth in the state.They have several bandhs throughout the year for frivolous reasons.Their food is typically without variety and don’t offer consolations to people having other tastes.The main city still is replete with buildings belonging to the 19th century and pre-independence era.Roads and traffic are probably as bad in Bangalore.Their saving grace is the underground metro which though the best form of transport in the city is bursting in the seams these days.Add to that the barmy weather,red tape and old practices ,you have a lot to complain about.In more ways than one Bangalore is a much better place to live in for a person earning a decent salary.But my point is Kolkata is distinct by it’s uniqueness and they celebrate it with impunity.People here are less ambitious than their counterparts in the south of India but people here are happy living their lives in sync with Bengali ethos.This is something that you can’t hold against Kolkata.It’s truly a city of joy for them and what more could one want than that!
So in conclusion i would like to say that though Bangalore has been such a friendly place for all and sundry it fails to retain the regional flavour that Kolkata still permeates of.Bangalore is thus paying the price for it’s cosmopolitan nature which may not be bad in real terms but I’ve lost a Bangalore I really loved.
23rd October,2010 Raghuraj S. Hegde
