Wednesday, March 29, 2006

When change was the order of the day

This is how I saw Bangalore after 5 years of living in that gem of a town called Mangalore.

Bannerghatta Road : Could not recognize it. Right at the entrance was the new Infosys Pride apartments (which was then changed to just Pride Apartments after Infy made a fuss. I have no idea why it was called Infosys Pride in the first place)

Jayanagar Fourth Block : This was total let down. Traffic, hordes of people everywhere.The old Pavitra hotel was torn down. There was hectic work going on for renovation, but all the charm was lost. Cool Joint was doing brisk business as usual. Adigas was getting a foothold into the big league, moving on from the tiny darshini that it orginally satrted as.

Kanakapura Junction : Wow, this was something. When i'd left Bangalore, the ring road ended here. We'd heard about something being in the pipeline about extending the road. When I was back, the road had extended all the way upto Mysore road, eliminating the need for people in South Bangalore to circle round the city, and going via KR Market to get there.

The Weather : absolutely rocked. Mangalore has horrible weather, throughout the year, and coming to Bangalore to see the Mercury dip to 7- degrees in the night was like stepping into a refrigerator. Not to mention driving a dilapidated bike in the early morning fog that reduced visibility to bare meters.

The Food : Getting decent idli sambar in Magalore was a pain. So was getting good Masala Dosa. But out here in Bengloor, that's the least of your problems. Just pop in to any one of the Darshini's and all your idli dosa dreams come true. I recommend however, SLV Ragigudda for Idli sambar and Dosa Camp, Jayanagar for Dosas of any kind. And if you have time and patience, Vidyarthi Bhavan in Gandhi Bazaarserves the most amazing Masala Dosa. (When i'd been to VB once, i found a glass that had the follwing words inscribed on it : "Stolen from Vidyarthi Bhavan"...Nice way of shaming people into not stealing their tumblers)

BMTC Buses : When i'd left, they were red monsters, and called BTS. When I was back, they were a more pleasant blue and cream, and called BMTC. The level of service had also improved, and by then, BMTC was the only public transport service in Asia to be making a profit.

A lot more things exist, but they do not come to mind right now. Watch this space for more updates.

5 comments:

dharmu said...

First to comment kini:)
Masala dosa at hampankatta Tajmahal gets my best rating anytime, secially the roated one.

I agree with Idli sambar but the Mohini vilas poori kurma is heavenly.

And mlore weather might be hot, but anyday less pollution free.

But the blog was info.

Aparna S Mallya said...

gem of a town is right. Boy! do i miss m'lore!!

but hey, in yr whole post u have only spoken bad things abt m'lore (frown).

make sure u write a post on why u called m'lore a gem of a town.

Vinayak said...

@Apy and Dharmu
I mean no disrespect to Mangalore at all. I still believe that Mangalore serves much better non veg than Bangalore does. But, sigh....the same cant be said of idli-dosa type of food.

But hey, that's my opinion. Dharmu seems to have a coupla good leads :)

Scoot said...

ha yeah am looking out for updates in here.
and yes,i don't like the standard of dosas in mangalore.they have got to improve

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