Bangalore Experiences - Part 1

Warning: Involves lot of blore bashing - so if u r localite/someone who loves blore, plz stop here!

It was a gloomy afternoon in March in NJ when I got the call saying "glad to make you an offer"! soon had told all my frndz and whoever I talked to would keep praising blore like it was paradise on earth and there is no place which even comes close! So I pack my bags, those huge ones folks travelling to the states carry, land in bbay and after a brief stay take another flight land at the blore hawai adda...i am finally in the Silicon valley of India! from here I start the inevitable comparison with Bombay! bombay airport at that time sucked royally (only marginally better now), but this was even worse...is this the image we convey to the outside world..to people coming from the real Silicon valley? the ones who have brought all this business here??!!

over the weekend, my cousin showed me around bangalore, whatever he could and the 2 places we saw first are what most people usually see...yup M.G. Road and Brigade Road!!! i thought to myself..this looks promising...should be a gud city to be in (little did i know how wrong i would be!).
anyways, the next step was to find an apt...and the first place i picked was koramangala...saw a few houses, which looked either like kholis (bbay lingo) or were really huge places...but the rents they asked were ridiculous...moment u tell them u work for an IT company, that's it! be ready to shell a fortune to rent one...anyways, i ended up in a place close to where one my friend's stayed...the area reminded me of the place in south bombay where i grew up and in a jiffy i agreed to rent the place...

once i settled down into my new place, and got into the (now boring) daily routine, issues start cropping up!

first come the auto guys: either they refuse to come to ur destination, or if they come, their meters are faster than their autos! u try to reason/argue with them and they will pretend they do not know hindi! a normal conversation wud go like:
me: aapka meter fast hai..
ag (auto guy): %$#@$# (something in kannada)
me: kannada gotilla (the only kannada word i knew then)
ag: hindi gotilla!!
me: meter fast...paisa nahi dega
ag: (miraculously starts understanding hindi!) meter correcta, paisa do!
me: nahi dega!
ag: meter correcta, $%$%#$(no clue wat he uttered!)
me : (fed up by now, come to mandvali) itna chahiye to lo!
finally he takes it and goes!

this became routine, till one day i finally got fed up and stopped arguing with them and started giving them what their meter showed! after all, who wants to start the day with an argument!
also, they never come short distances, usually very rude, never return small change, loot u when it rains and then it got so bad that i wud have to walk almost 1 km from office b4 i wud finally get one guy to agree to come to my place (after promising him 10 bucks more than the meter!!)

to compare this with bbay, no auto dude will ever refuse(very rarely they might), even for 500 mts they will come, are polite and always return the smallest of change!

next come the shop owners:
they seem to be one lot who are not interested in making money! you go to any shop, and in true indian style start bargaining..u tell him that u get it cheaper somewhere else and u will go n buy from there, they are least bothered! of course, all this is assuming he shows enough interest and shows the whole range of stock in his store! the nightmarish experience i had when buying a dvd player and then finding it not working..whoa! the store manager ( a localite) ended up fightin with me over the phone and even had the nerve to cut the call! i then talked to the store owner and blasted him off and he apologized to me but the manager didnt! i was like, dude, watever happened to the fundas of "customer is the king" and "customer is always right!" ??

again comparing to bbay, u go to any store, and u will find that they religiously adhere to the above 2 principles..even after hrs of haggling, if u dont buy anything from them, they will not mind! in fact, the competition is so fierce there, they go out of their way to make life easier for u...for eg, in case of provision stores, u call them and order say just a bread packet, they will deliver it at your doorstep in no time and free of charge! and if the stuff is not gud, they will take it back, get a gud one and re-deliver!! that is customer service! and the same applies for medical stores, ice-cream parlors, hotels...the list can go on and on!

to be cont'd.....