–

After stepping back onto the plane from a work trip to Bengaluru, I was sure this essay would write itself. As the plane climbed out of Kempegowda, I looked through the window to say goodbye to the city that shimmered like a galaxy on land.

I felt captivated by its charm and even started daydreaming about moving there soon. However, I’m not sure what I’m about to write can do justice to the true spirit of a city that dwells equally in the archaic and the ultra-contemporary.

In the one week I was visiting, I walked everywhere I could, noticing how people kept their routines while banyan trees, some with aerial roots more than 200 years old, stood witness to the life bursting around them.

I began each day passing professionals dunking their idlis in ghee and posting it all on IG. I ate my yummy breakfast alongside them and tipped 10 rupees to the guy waiting to clean my table. Too much and too little all on the same street, yet never cancelling each other out.

Since I was working US timings and didn’t have to report until noon, most mornings I sat on the side of the road, walking every few minutes only to stop again, to stare at dog walkers and their voluptuous dogs, young people studying for exams in parks and buses, and parents walking their kids to school.

The city is dusty thanks to the metro construction everywhere, but the slogan “Namma metro” makes the nightmare oddly endearing. When you read “My metro,” you think this is for you, and somehow you become okay with the torn-up roads. Man, what a marketing campaign LOL

I rode pillion on a friend’s Royal Enfield Himalayan, the Harley Davidson of India, because God knows when I last rode a two-wheeler. As we stopped at every traffic light or traffic jam, I would look around into cars to see Ganesh sitting on every car dashboard, keeping an eye on humanity. That’s India for you – you don’t look for God, he comes looking for you.

We passed through Koramangala at midnight as storefronts struggled to close and young women rushed into cabs en masse, hoping to reach bed in time to wake up for the same sales-girl rigor the next day.

The surge of new India, financially independent, technically savvy, and unbound by the sun was right in front of my eyes. The Vitruvian man of Leonardo Da Vinci will not be able to understand how Indians biohack so efficiently if they’re not following the sun, and their 24 hour body clock.

At Bier Garten, a rooftop bar, our party dropped 25,000 rupees in four hours, the equivalent of my dad’s monthly living expenses in my village, Poranki. Minutes later, I was walking by street shops barely 50 square feet, selling ghukta to destitute men because Shah Rukh Khan, the billionare celebrity who endorses it, wouldn’t touch it himself.

I met businessmen, corporate leaders, teachers, doctors, friends and family scattered across the city, doing their best to make life work and even thrive amidst this raucous chaos. At a cafe, I spoke to a 25 year old Ms. Bhattacharjee, an assistant professor who said she was looking for a more challenging role and asked if I might hire her. I chatted with men and women in metros and cafés, the thriving young blood of India, willing to do whatever it takes to pursue their grand dreams.

“Hello, your chunni,” a woman told me gently on the metro, adjusting my dupatta onto my shoulder. Back in 2023, I had realized that women had long given up the duppatta (a scarf that was supposed to protect their modesty), but I wasn’t quite ready to surrender mine to the march of feminism. Slender and well-dressed, she was watching YouTube yet completely unbothered by the push and pull of the crowded train. Even when we bumped into each other, we asked for help, smiled at strangers, and went back to our screens.

Young women doing things at 25 that I couldn’t even imagine only 20 years ago. At their age, I was already a mother trying to understand my place in the world. Times now are different and glorious for any young aspirant who wants to conquer the world. I would smile thinking, wait until these dreamers have children, if they choose to. Then they’ll understand what vulnerability and fear is.

One of my favorite sights was my mother, my small-town Andhra mom, transforming into a smart, app-toting grandma. She ordered everything I needed in one quick Blinkit purchase. “It’ll be in the hotel lobby in ten minutes,” she declared. “The front-desk guy will call you. I already tipped him on the app. Swiggy bought Blinkit in 2024,”  she informed me proudly. “at one point, I had both apps on my phone.”

One evening around 10 p.m., as I left the office, my Uber driver looked too frail for his seat. As we crawled in traffic, he said he needed to stop for something in the trunk. He returned with a dirty ziploc bag and took his medications with water. He told me he had promised his daughter he wouldn’t forget eating or taking meds. He’d forgotten them in the morning because he hadn’t eaten all day. I scolded him gently. He smiled without looking back at me. When I handed him a 500-rupee note at the end of the ride, he cried (clutching the note tightly) and so did I before I walked away.

My dad’s friend lives in what is considered one of the wealthiest suburbs in India. One room in their luxurious home has no roof, and I can’t explain how breathtaking it feels to stand there and look to the sky. You can spot the signs of India’s upper-middle-class everywhere: a sweet at the end of every meal, or in their case, a Swiggy delivery of all our favorite ice-cream flavors in under five minutes.

In the rear-view mirror of any cab leaving Electronic City, Whitefield, JP Nagar, or Indiranagar, I watched home after home with bougainvillea spilling over tall compound walls and iron gates, and gardeners sweating through their shirts to tend perfect lawns that no one would ever walk on barefoot.

From hotel room to friends’ homes to restaurants to office, I hopped around with the attitude of a true Bengalurian. One of my team members infused me with his mindset, “Didi (sister), it’s ok. Sit in the cab, start working, and eventually you’ll get to Electronic City in 90 minutes.”

The last evening as I walked past street stalls lodged into walls, cobblers hammering away, and destitute women on pavements, the city broke the heart it had already stolen. I wanted to adopt everyone, the same way the city had adopted me. But I’ll tell you: every little gesture moves the scale. If you feel the need to do something, do it for the love of humanity, even with your perfectly manicured nails.

And how can I conclude without giving a shoutout to all the gardeners of this city. Bengaluru is breathtakingly green, almost impossibly so. From the wall of green at the international airport to the meticulous lawns in the executive club at Indiranagar, someone must be fretting incessantly over their wellbeing. And the result is a sight to behold, lush green shrubs, trees, flowers bushes abound.

During the flight, I sat between two men who also belonged to Bengaluru briefly without meaning to. To my left, a Jamaican-American who works as an Ashley Furniture consultant set a 13-hour timer on his phone for “billing purposes” and spoke of Bengaluru like a lover he wasn’t ready to leave. To my right, a middle-aged enzyme production manager from Wisconsin stared out the window and whispered back to me, “This is gorgeous, isn’t it.”

That’s when I realized we’d all become accidental hostages to a city we weren’t ready to leave. Somehow, in the end, this essay wrote itself, because Bengaluru has quietly lodged itself in a chamber of my heart. Does anyone lose by loving unconditionally?

Bengaluru, I will forever tread on you, just like you’re treading on my heart. And I know, neither of us will ever resist.

– 0 –

Riding The Royal Enfield

One Picture to Sum up Bengaluru