Roaming…

Since my phone has been on roaming for the last few days, I decided to name this blog the same. First it was Pune for IndiaSoft 2011 and then Bangalore. Although, I really like travelling but then there are times when you get bored and decide to open up your laptop to write a blog! In the train cabin of 4, there are 3 women and me. Two of them are busy playing cards while one has been reading some fat boring novel since she boarded last afternoon.

Bangalore and Pune have both been amazing, especially for someone like me who belongs to IT would love to get a glimpse of the functioning of humongous IT companies that are located in these two cities. In Bangalore, I had a chance to visit the Electronic City at Hosur Road. I must say HP literally owns almost half of the place. The other half goes to Infosys! But in total there must be hundreds of companies in and outside the area.

There are a few things that I would like to mention in this blog. These are especially the ones that got my attention while my stay in these two cities. So here goes,

The Bangalore Metro Project

My last visit to Bangalore was in 2009. Two years later a lot of work for the Bangalore Metro is complete. It felt good to see the MG Road Metro Railway Station in its completion phase. But I think it will still take a couple more years for the metro to be fully functional. I was totally amazed by the traffic authorities of the city. Since a lot of construction work is in progress at roadsides, it is normal to have jams but thanks to the sincere efforts of the traffic authorities, you neither find jams (slow moving traffic is a different story) nor so much of dust (particularly in comparison to Indore’s BRTS which is probably one of the worst example of a city’s public transport construction project)

The local language

I was taken aback by the acceptance of English as a local language in both Bangalore and Pune. The local population of these cities, Bangalore in particular, is very comfortable speaking English. I am talking about the people that belong to the lesser educated group here, the salon hairdresser, the taxi driver, the bus conductor who speak Kannada by default, can easily understand English. So language is not that big of an issue, as an outsider, I believed it to be.

Security force on roads!

This is something that instantly gives ‘The Expendables’ feeling. But I am sure it is because of the terrorist attacks these two cities have faced in the recent past. If you visit the Osho Ashram area (near the German bakery) in Pune or the Infosys office in Bangalore’s Electronic City you are bound to give two looks at the commandos sitting in the firing position all the time! Also, did I mention their guns are huge? The expendables again! 😁

There are a few other things worth mentioning but I don’t want to make this blog any longer so I will keep them to me. Oh and by the way, as I close my laptop, two are still playing cards and one is still reading her fat boring novel named ‘Eclipse’. I wonder what kind of book it is, maybe I should join the two playing cards 😉