Bangalore quality of life degrading

[Wisepanda]

personal exp to those rosy eyed about R2I::eek:

I moved to BLR in 4Q-2004 through an internal transfer with the intent to
settle there permanently. wife didnt have a job and son was few months old. those days on saturday and sunday it was feasible to drive comfortably on roads (esp sunday), parking space was reasonable chance on MG Road or thereabouts, and luckily I lived within walkable distance of work.

cut to 2007, last yr I changed my job and my wife after a long struggle found a job in her field (non IT) so we moved to a better gated apt since our son and main would alone. we moved to koramangala near 4th block. we purchased a apt on ORR through a "reputed builder" in 2005 and delivery
was promised in late 2007.

the situation for me is:
- dropping my wife in north blr(ORR) and back to my office in
morning takes 90 gruelling minutes
- our driver left after spending most of his time demanding advances and
bonus so I drive myself now
- taking 'shortcuts' through narrow lanes has resulted in 3-4 small accidents
as rash drivers or rocks get at my car
- koramangala IRR is impassable if one doesnt leave at 8am or come back
by 5:30pm else its a 30 min wait sometimes
- BMC water isnt too good, we are buying water so are all our neigbhours
- our colony in Kmangala has watery broken roads that make driving out
a real pain
- in-laws are living with us to look after the child
- our apt mired in legal problems and late by 3-4 yrs surely
- the noise on roads is enough to unnerve anyone
- zero HR/career dev at workplace, managers just interested in squeezing
people and building their empires
- being a MNC, the circle of people close to power center in CA get to
eat their fill before the scraps are thrown to us natives
- cant go anywhere much due to lack of parking and blue smoky pollution
- got my car hammered on bad roads going to ooty :emsmilep:
- for technical people (who dont build a people-management empire as
a "success" criteria) it doesnt matter if you put roots in here early or come later. seen both types.
- if you are a people manager and need a big team BLR _is_ the place :D

I am writing finis to my R2I campaign for now planning a R2U in few months.

No amt of $$ can insulate your from the general chaos outside whichever
gated community one chooses.

I suggest if people want to R2I select a less overcrowed and hyped-up
place than BLR and test for themselves first what their commute will be.
maybe other places like Noida or Pune would be better? some people are
worried about "south indian" or "north indian" cultural ambience - pls forget
about it. gates apts/villas will be a mix regardless of delhi/mumbai/blr.
school will again be a mix. there is no real culture for indian upper classes
(i.e us!) other than worship of money, work and aspects of indo-western
society.I see parents never seem to teach their kids native tongue here.
always angrezi onlee. we first taught our kid his mother tongue now he is
learning english fine though not as fluent like the "born angrez" in his
playschool.

anyway, good luck to those brave enough to soldier on. I am retaining the
apt in the hope that it will be completed, and PRR/STRR and other much
hyped projects will convert BLR into Noida/Delhi infra std..hope to return
after some years. tough to waste best years of my life here.

[DosaiLvr]

I agree that BLR traffic has to be experienced to believe it.

Just y'day, on a Saturday, a short ~30 km drive to Banerghatta took more than 2 hrs. This was at a non-peak hr - 11 AM when there was no rally, procession, detour or infrastructure dev. related construction work on the roads.

I wonder how travel and commute will be in BLR in the next 2, 4 or 10 yrs?!?! No amt. of infrastructure development is going to even moderately alleviate the problem.

[javaj2ee-r2ier]

Sorry to hear of the problems in BLR. I am R2Ing soon to BLR and reading your post, disheartens me. I hope you can take a deep breath, relax , take a break, recharge your batteries and renew your committment to continue in India... remember, it isn't always all rosy eyed here. You haven't mentioned the positives like being near family, being in Indian culture and attending festivals and being near loved ones when necessary. We in the US, tend to miss all this... so when you are back, are you again going to long for all that??

Also, you mention that PUNE / NOIDA will be better than BLR. Have you considered giving those cities a chance yourself and relocatinhg there before taking the extreme step of R2U?

[b2b]

Agree with the post. No further from truth. Just been to Bangalore and the traffic was testing my patience every time.

As RRK said in another thread you need to R2I anticipating these 'hardships' in India. There has to be a strong +ve reason for R2I. One should not seek R2I because of some false sense of better life in India. And certainly not to vent frustrations in present outside India work / life. Those may continue or get worse or you would face another set of daunting issues in India. I have seen few example personally where people jumped on the R2I bandwagon for better job prospects, economic progress, better life with maids / drivers etc just to realise slowly the day to day life issues. There is lot of difference between short stays / holidays to India and living regular life. I am not saying negative things about R2I but people should manage their and their families expectations. And continue to focus on strong positives for which they decided to R2I e.g. proximity to friends and relatives, care of old parents, cultural aware ness for kids, kids education. People need to be convinced in their own minds that these are positives for them than going by someone else's convincing or examples.

[b2b]

I dont know about many other cities buyt I found Pune, Mumbai, Hyd also more or less similar. It is a case of grass being greener otherside. So dont jump to other tier II cities for these reasons. And with that you would loose other positives for which you R2Ied e.g. proximity to relatives etc. Pune probably is worst. Road conditions is pretty bad. City has grown like octopus - no plan, no structure to the growth. In Mumbai even the natives are tired of living - there simply is no life - specially if you have to commute a lot to get to the work place.

One thing you can try is work on the option of 'working from home'. Many companies today allow / encourage that option. That would take some of the pain.

[yessireebob]

Agree that life in Bangalore is getting more challenging.
I think the answer is to keep the expectations in check. Pick the items that you do most often, Drive to work, pick up kids from schools, classes, relatives places etc and ensure that these are closy by, or there is infrastructure set-up to make this happen (school bus comes to the complex, teacher comes to the complex etc etc)

Everything else is on a need-to-do basis and 2 hour drive once a week or so will not look so bad and might be managed.


Every place is going to have its challenges and rewards and it is up to us to figure out if it is a station we are passing through or the terminus. (-;)

[direstraits88]

OP: Your wife works in North Bangalore and it appears that you work around MG Road.

Move out of Koramangala towards N.Bangalore and within the city. Your life can be lot better. Or even Malleswaram should be good.

A few apt complex that come to mind..

Embassy apt near 18th cross, Malleswaram.
Shriram White House in R.T. Nagar.
Renaissance in Malleswaram.


In bangalore, location matters most in today's traffic.

[desihometown]

Man. The traffic is a killer. I visited B'lr last November an I'm going there again in Nov. Its total hell. But a friend of mine who has been there for the last 4 years (after R2Iing) told me that it really wast a big deal. I guess after a few years you become used to it.

The point is, if you want to live there for the sake of family (up-parents or down-kids or lateral-relatives/friends), you have to suck this up.

I still wonder. There are so many 2nd tier cities in India. Why dont software companies move over there ? There are zillion people coming to B'lr from these second tier ties 'coz there are no opputunities/options there. If these guys
expand move to those cities, the congestion can be greatly reduced.

I shudder to think what will happen when Tata comes out with their Rs 1Lakh car. Already the mentality amongst people is its safer to drive a car than a bike in B'lr due to the high probability of getting hit by a bus or whatever. Now, everyone who can afford 50,000 for a bike will start thinking about buying the 1Lakh car.

God save B'lr and tier one cities in India.

[yessireebob]

I still wonder. There are so many 2nd tier cities in India. Why dont software companies move over there ? There are zillion people coming to B'lr from these second tier ties 'coz there are no opputunities/options there. If these guys
expand move to those cities, the congestion can be greatly reduced.

.

The same reason why a lot of companies are head quartered and started-up in the Bay Area, despite it's high cost of living and traffic issues [those familiar with the Bay Area will recall this; during the hey days of Dot Com, we had people staying in hotels in Pleasanton, because all the hotel room in the Valley were sold out!]

Yes as these issues impact productivity more companies will ask questions on locations and 2nd Tier cities, and the politicians might find out that they are killing the goose that lays them their golden egg

[tejasvee]

#1:

sorry to hear your problems/frustration. Traffic seems to be your biggest headache with dents/traffic snarls/wait time etc.

Have you considered driving a 2 wheeler to work during weekdays? From my experience, 2 wheeler travel in Bangalore cuts down the commute by half easily. It is relatively safe if you don't get into road rage kind of situation. Switch to car only during weather issues.

If I were in your position, I would have surely driven a 2 wheeler even when needing to drop wife to the other end of the city. In Manhattan, I see even CFOs and Directors of big companies walking to work from train stations/bus stations without any 'dignity' that forces them to drive their cars to the city. A car drive to the heart of Midtown Manhattan from one of the popular suburbs during peak hours will easily take 90-120 minutes one way.