Well if you think people sell their kidneys only to buy iPhones then you’ve probably never taken an autorickshaw ride in Bengaluru.

Hello folks, welcome to CCB, this is your host preetham_raghu. Well, this post might feel a little offensive to some of you. So here are my apologies upfront.

Going back to the title of this post, I was born in Bengaluru but had to stay elsewhere for few years due to my parents’ occupation. I moved back to Bengaluru when I was in grade six of school. I’ve spent decent time in Bengaluru since then and I’ll be turning 26 this April and I guess I’m qualified enough to write this post.

Well at the start of this post I mention about rickshaw ride, right ? Hell yeah, rickshaw rides costs a bomb in Bengaluru and the reason is most rickshaw drivers don’t use the metre and if you are someone who doesn’t know to bargain then you may have to shell out a fortune. Rickshaw is considered Premium Economy in Bengaluru. The public buses fall under economy and taxi service is considered business class. Full sized premium SUVs can be considered first class. So if you are someone who is planning to move into Bengaluru make sure you know to drive a vehicle provided you are 18+. Also mileage of your vehicle matters if you are middle class. I have an acquaintance who owns a bike that costs six figures and still uses public transport because of the wallet and mileage issues.

Now comes standard of living. Well, if you are someone who is fond of Louis Vuitton latte or Canali closet then Bengaluru doesn’t disappoint you. You do get fancy stuff in Bengaluru but yeah finding a job that pays you to get the aforementioned is hard, to be honest. Earlier I mentioned that rickshaw rides cost a bomb but surprisingly that bomb isn’t sufficient to buy large McSpicy meal. The last time I had a large McSpicy meal it cost me ₹360 and the rickshaw driver after toiling for an hour in Bengaluru traffic makes around ₹250. Yeah, you are right if you said ‘UNDER EMPLOYMENT’. And peasants like me who feels rickshaw rides are expensive, guess what we make.

On the contrary you do spot Lambos and G Wagons in Bengaluru quite often. And in majority of the cases they happen to be landlords. The only job most landlords have is to collect mighty money in the name of rent. People who own at least 1200 square feet of land in prime locations make over 6 figures a month provided they’ve developed the land into multi-storey residential or commercial space. When Burj Khalifa came up, a single square feet in Burj Khalifa used to cost around ₹37000 back then according to a popular newspaper and at the same time you had spaces prised at ₹68000 / sq. ft. in one of the parts of Bengaluru.

The high demand of land in Bengaluru also means too many scams. My dad happened to be a victim of that. Even the filthy rich usually go for a bank loan before purchasing a property in Bengaluru , just because banks do the verification of land details in a better way.

Racism. Well I’ve faced racism in Bengaluru. Bengaluru is inhabited by n number of people from variety of places, backgrounds etc. So if someone tells you something there’s a high probability that she or he isn’t a native. So don’t blame Bengaluru for that. I’ve been to few other states in India and I personally find Bengaluru to be more people friendly. People usually don’t praise others’ mom and sis before starting a sentence. Well, if you are a traffic violator then there might be an exception because someone might lose their mind and say something. Disclaimer : I don’t intend to hurt anybody’s feelings. Sarcasm should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Education, some top names like IIMB, IISC etc. are located in Bengaluru. Moving forward good education is expensive in Bengaluru. It isn’t a surprise if you are charged six figures for grade one of primary school.

Development, if you stay in one of those posh localities then everything’s good. I wouldn’t like to mention the others because I guess you’ve got it by now.

Safety, Bengaluru holds a spot among one of the safest cities. Something you need to keep in mind is, not all data makes it to the news. The locality I live in is also called ‘Chic Lane’ and I find people of all genders chit chatting or smoking a cigarette even post midnight. Sometime back there was a gang called ‘Dandupalya’ in Bengaluru and they were into bad stuff, currently there isn’t anything like that as per the best of my knowledge. One of the local news channels runs a show called ‘Warrant’ and it usually contains the crime happenings in Bengaluru. Currently I don’t watch that show.

Conclusion – Well Bengaluru is amazing. If I cleared CAT and got an option to choose between IIMB and IIMA, I would go with IIMB in spite of IIMA having a better score. When compared to all metropolitans of India, I think Bengaluru has a better climate at the time of writing this post. Global warming and all the rest of the bad stuff may change this answer in the future. Saying that I’d be drawing the curtains down to this post. See you next time with a different one, this is your host preetham_raghu signing off. Byeee 🙂