Life in a Metro

One lazy summer evening of June 2016 was when me and my friend decided to travel to Bangalore for nothing but leisure and pleasure. Little did I know that my life were to change completely from a country side lad to an adult languishing. in a metro. At least for me it was a change in life I never foresaw, for he had been a product of a gulf nation, trying to adapt himself to the country ways, and would probably have wished to have things happening differently.

My qualifications to thrive in a city outside of my native prior to reaching Bangalore were, the decent level of English and manageable level of Hindi proficiency I boasted of, having visited Chennai once when I was in school time, being in Bangalore for two days during a college IV and a professional degree certificate that could earn me a decent job or the possibility to enrol for some courses. I was neither a wannabe nor a hustler.

On reaching Bangalore and having spent hardly two days in the city, we both realised that there were hardly anything we wanted to do or knew of other than to hop from Bars, cafés, pubs and malls in constant hunt for a thrilling experience we have ever endured until then. Sadly, the thrilling experiences we endured were getting scammed by rickshaw walas and by an empty pocket in a matter of hours. But we were two clueless frustrated novice adults with optimism sky rocketing. “We are too soon to judge a place. Let’s find up something and be here for a couple of months”.

Sooner, we were in the same city but with also the prospect of getting a job and survive here as long as it takes until we feel and live the fun and exciting Bangalore life, along with a couple more of our friends who were as equally desperate. It wasn’t leisure any longer but few wannabes trying to live on their own in a city unknown.

How and where to live

Having de-boarded at Madiwala, with luggages as big as we were, we needed a place to stay. None of us having a friend settled in Bangalore or a relative ‘cool’ enough for our endeavours living there, did no help to our cause. Options were quite limited back then, either find a PG or get an apartment for rent. Even though living in a PG was more affordable and feasible, we decided to stay in an apartment, for we didn’t want our licence to thrill have conditions applied upon. After meandering from one block to the other and back, also with the help of Online Real Estate, we found ourselves a place to crash and live for the unforeseen number of days ahead. A dinky service apartment, on the fourth floor of a six floored building, with a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen area, a bathroom and two windows that open to a white concrete wall of another building and the other opening to the hallway of our own apartment. All these features at a quarter lakh rupees per month with a bunch of rules and regulations. None of these really mattered to us, for we were in one of the most happening cities. in the country and life was outside of those four walls.

Our endeavours and quest for thrill didn’t last long as our pockets ran empty from the exorbitant Uber charges and the money spent on booze, fancy food and cheap thrills of luxury mall gaming arenas. The dark and dinky room with just enough ventilation soon became our bar, mall and area for entertainment. Days and nights passed by. All of us lost the distinction between a day and a night and we soon started living the Bangalore Life the Bangalore way without any of us realising. Our experience expanded unconditionally over the years. We were warned for being a nuisance, kicked out for being a nuisance, scammed for being too naive and emptied pockets to sub zero levels. Over the course of years we realised, living with content in Bangalore had to do more with sheer luck than money.

How to travel within the city

We were freshers just out of college. Our possessions were a smart phone, few clothes and a degree certificate. None of us had a bike or a car that could be taken along. All that few of us had back at our homes were mopeds that made more sound than it’s own horns. Oh yes, a plagiarised comedy, but true nevertheless.

In this fast yet slow city, we had fewer options than present for commuting. One could either book a cab, board one or multiple BMTC buses, board the Metro train if the route aligns or bargain and fail with a rickshaw wala. Buses were slower for our likes. Metro station wasn’t near and only a few stations really aligned with any of our destination of interests. Kannada was still an alien language and rickshaw wala knowing only a handful of Hindi and English, made Rickshaw’s only a final resort. Thus, Uber cabs were our horseless carriage. We would hire one for our short trips as well as our longer trips to another part of the city, all costing us more than a hundred to thousands on a varying basis. Another way of money outflow that we hadn’t foreseen.

Life in this metro taught us another fact, distance is not measured in kilometres or miles here, they are measured in hours. Anything less than an hour was always a nearby place. A stark contrast to my country style life, where an hour worth of journey was considered an outing or a picnic for a day.

As we grew poorer, day by day, we figured out that, saving time is a luxury that we couldn’t afford for long. We started taking daily passes in BMTC. We would happily watch a movie or listen to songs while we traveled. in buses to places ten kilometres away.

The happening city

Coming from a place where getting booze is a challenge of its own and seeing girls in western attire as an oasis in desert, this metro city on the face shown us endless possibilities. From bars that stunk of vomit and constant high raised slanders in mother tongue by men from near by tables, we started seeing places of exquisite aesthetics that served the same booze or better ones and neighbouring tables with men and women in fancier clothes, laughing, hugging and trying to get laid with one another. Something the very few of us have heard about and seen from the Hollywood movies.

At nights we would stand outside of those bustling pubs, guarded by men who are not short of a giant, and hope that we would get picked by single ladies to get inside as a couple. Stags were always neglected, sadly. This information or misinformation of being picked was also given to us by someone and we were too naive to believe them. We would wait for hours and finally pay an amount, not too small, to the guardian giant and get inside. Our calculations would begin the moment we get the access. Should we go stand by the counter and drink while some girls would come by and get along? Or we would all sit together, drink till we are shameless enough and start dancing in the centre and wait for someone to join? And the optimistic of all, we would just stand by the counter or wherever, pose with an attitude and wait for a girl to make the move? The night grows older, we get more drunk, we dance for long till we can’t even speak to one another and then hopelessly call it a night. The same would happen for multiple iterations for few months and we slowly realised, it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Apparently, it wasn’t even a cup of tea of more than half the guys and girls. The pub waiting would all too soon reduce to boozing from our dinky rooms. The place to check out girls would be by a walk through a happening street and the possibility of befriending a stranger woman would depend on a lucky right swipe on Tinder.

Half a dozen years have passed by. We have all moved on with our lives. The fire for a thrilling night is still alive in some and for others its all bones and ashes. We all did jobs in call centres, as service personnels, daily wager jobs, dreamt of starting a company, some starting one on their own and some did just nothing. It was all a life in this metro. The metro never really shown us what we were promised of, the city never really gave more good than the bad for many. But, our lives have changed. The metro had changed us all and we didn’t know until late when we were all back to our country side and we all missed getting back again to this city that had never been kind. The metro was not just the city and the possibilities, it was also the people. It was us, the excitement and thrill we all shared that makes it our home away from home.

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