Love where you live, live where you love

02.01.2010, that was the date.I boarded my first flight and my father too. It was morning 06.50 AM flight, Kolkata to Bangalore, Kingfisher Airlines.

Now the airlines does not operate any more, so does my grainy memory,on the flight experience. Only things I remember are I got a window seat, saw the clouds above the sky and then the sky above the realm of clouds. In-flight idli-sambar-chutney did showed the upcoming trailer of the city cuisine.

And yes. I was strangely more excited than nervous, it was the first time I was out of the comfort zone of home yet I was surprisingly confident and charged up to see what's next.

7 years passed by ever since I landed up here in this city. 7 years which delivered the most critical turning points of my life.

First cubicle bearing my name plate,

First laptop I bought and hugged like a baby,

First time I braved to live alone in a flat,

First ticket I bought and I travelled alone,

My first blog- first grammatical mistakes,

My first guitar- first chord out of tune,

My first camera- first disaster in lightmeter,
My first child and how I met his father,

My first car and my hilarious confidence.

In 7 years  conversations like “ I am from Kolkata, live in Bangalore” has been slowly changing to “in Bangalore where I stay, life is…”.

My macher jhol ( fish curry) -rice has somehow got engaged with akki roti and green chutney and they are soon to be married in one plate one day.

Surprisingly at this point of time, I have less Bengali friends in this city than number of friends who doesn't speak Bengali. And that's wonderful. Over the years, living with them,sharing my room,my desk,cubicles,lunch table, weekends have made me realise language doesn't matter. For that matter I still talk aweful hindi ( yes the usual gender + verb problems of ‘ti’ and 'ta’) but that never made my day bad.

This city has taught me how to live baggage free, how to travel luggage free, how to take responsibility,pay bills,save money,look into the maps,plan trips overnight, search house,pack up and unpack your household again and again, live with anyone who's a stranger but as stranger as you, and also how to live alone if needed.

Bangalore is changing fast, so do I.

Greenery and open fields, those beautiful walking lanes of BTM and J P Nagar are converting to traffic lanes, 9 km E city flyover doesn't give the best view it used to give 6 years back, Corner House has increased their rates, 13th Floor is always crowded nowadays, the old lady of the kachori shop in HAL market is not there any more,and so is the 6th Ballygunge Place in Indira Nagar, amazing 144 happened last year and how it shut down life for 48 hours,Bangalore traffic time that surging like global warming, and so do the price of a mere 700 sq feet flat in residential areas.

Most of the old good friends have left the city, all scattered here and there. Facebook, Watsapp failed to bridge the gap between coffee cups we left in office pantries or over a weekend adda.

Memories always make me write same old nostalgic melodrama. May be 7 years made me old, not to blame my greying hair.

So ,here is the final line:

When life gives you “Bangaluru” , cheer up” Namma Bangaluru”