A few more small Bangalore experiences...
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"Corporates" are a different kind of creature here. Our team went to play Paintball a few weeks back, and the instructor was telling us, "these guns have been modified to fire with a little less force, because we have mostly corporates here as customers, and they don't like it when it hurts." Every hotel worth its salt (excuse the pun) has "special offers for corporate parties." When we - my office gang - go to a movie, we're offered special "corporate packages". All these are basically offers for people who are on expense account but must not be asked to take any pains or suffer the tiniest discomfort. Something tells me investment bankers were the first 'corporates', before us IT folks went that way.

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Went to a lovely Udupi place called Mahalaxmi Tiffin Room over the weekend. It's close to National College, in the Basavanagudi area, in case you're interested. They serve something called a Kali Dosa, which is worth going all that way for. There's no menu and no billboard, so the only way one would know they serve it (the way I did), is if a local resident has raved about it to one (the way my boss did, to me). Go there, enjoy it.

On a related note, my wife's now mortally terrified of going to Mavalli Tiffin Room - the famous MTR - because, get this, they have food that's TOO delicious. After a recent excursion at lunch time, her exact words were, "Badhiya khaana khilaa khilaa kar maartey hai yeh log. Ban kar dena chaahiye inhey." it was just coincidence that they happened to be serving both Pongal and Bisibelebath in that same meal - each of these are dishes my wife usually eats as a complete meal.

Somehow a lot of people who don't belong to Bangalore - Delhiites, Puneites, Mumbaikars - have zero interest in going to these traditional parts of the city. Part of the story is that most new-generation types aren't interested in the traditional parts of their own cities, either. Finding your way around the old city anywhere can be quite a chore. But I think it's also to do with the Americanization of the average IT guy in Bangalore - he's even less likely to be interested in going into tiny places full of lungi-clad uncles eating dosas. Comments?

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The one item that comes into discussion every single day, in 90% of the conversations with friends and coworkers, is buying a house. Several times I'm the one bringing up the topic. Even though committing to paying a huge loan for years on end gives me the jitters, somehow I can't get the inevitable step out of my head. It's made worse because all my colleagues who shifted to Bangalore in recent times are searching for places to buy - some of them have houses in their own places, but they've looking here, too, either as investment or just to have another base. Perhaps it's part of the Bangalore effect.