Solpa adjust madi

I leave Bangalore in December 2006 when it was still called Bangalore and now in April 2008 i will be going back to Benagluru. It all started with Mumbai. The British named the city Bombay and today even by mistake you utter the word Bombay there are people waiting to beat you up. My question is why are we all so culturally biased. Where did the ever pervasive saying 'Iam an Indian' go. Now it is 'Iam maharashtrian', 'Iam Kannadiga'. I am from a small city in Tamilnadu called Coimbatore. The population of coimbatore is cosmopolitan. It has,apart from Tamil speaking people, Gujarathis,marwaris,punjabis,kannadigas,telegus,malayalees. I went to a school which had all sorts of students but we never felt biased. Even today i have never seen a cultural riot breakout in Coimbatore amongst the so called tamilians and the rest of the indians except for the hindu muslim tussle that happens once in a while. Similarly i have never come across hyderabad having similar problems though it is in par with Bangalore with respect to everything. Why cant the local population adopt to the changes happening in their city. Ok i agree that the changes are happening by the blink of the eye but can we do anything about it. The other day i heard a news about an IT professional who was beaten black and blue by some local people near the whitefield bangalore and you will be surprised as i was on hearing the reason why he was beaten, not to mug him off his expensive gadgets,gizmos or the money but because he is from IT and the IT clan is responsible for the lifestyle changes in Bangalore. Agreed that the IT boom was responsible for the big change in the city but is'nt it the reason that put bangalore in the global map. Doesn employment oppurtunities increase when the city develops. Well it definitely does, now with more developments like Metro in the anvil it would open more avenues to the people.
When i was working in a bank in bangalore i never had a problem with the local language, i mean most of the customers speak english,hindi or tamil still i want to learn Kannada which would make me feel part of the city. Iam not going to do this in fear of the things happening in the city especially me being a tamilian. When i was working, i had this customer who happens to be an IT professional. He started talking to me in Kannada and i abrupltly stopped him apologising that i dont speak Kannada, he felt humiliated (i wonder why) when he was about to leave the bank he told me 'If you intend to stay in Bangalore for more than a year, learn Kannada' I was not shocked i knew he is just another localite who is seeing his city in which he grew up pass by to become something entirely different. If such educated people cant change their attitude then they will stand to lose all the goodness that the city has to offer. Do you want to see your life pass by mourning for something which cannot be changed, as a matter of fact need not be changed,just by changing the name of the city. can u?

Bengalooru...whats with you?

Last night my husband's friends had come over for dinner. This couple work in the same organisation as my husband. They are based in bangalore and are here in UK for project. So me and my husband were inquisitive about the present status of bangalore and were happy to hear that the express highway is coming up well, the flyover from banargatta road to the e.city has been opened which has reduced the traffic on silk board junction. But the news that kind of took me aback was about the small theatres closing down. To our shock, the symphony in MG rd is closed and Rex is going to be closed soon. The reason being the slump in business because of the multiplexes. With Forum,garuda mall's multiplex grabbing the market share of the theatre industry in bangalore, the small ones are unable to sustain the competition so they end up closong down and selling the place for yet another mall to come up or a multi plex to open. But my question is, can every bangalorean afford to go to PVR paying rs.180 per ticket. Agreed that the city is cosmopolitan and people have fancy jobs but are we running entertainment and recreation only for the upper class section. Are'nt they depriving the middle class and the poor section of people from India's most popular mode of entertainment, the movies. Is there nothing as consideration for the people who have always lived in bangalore, growing up watching kannada movies in these small theatres. Are'nt they the people who made bangalore. Are they responsible for the city to become so busy that it fails to recognise its own people, people who nurtured it from the begining. Is bengalooru becoming selfish.