Delhi V Bangalore

I recently shifted my base (actually my whole body including the base :) from Delhi to
Bangalore. Though I have visited almost whole of south India earlier (in the capacity of a
musafir), this is the first time that I have actually come here to stay for a longer period.
I used to fear staying here - nightmares regarding the food, the language, the people... But
after spending about 2 weeks here, I feel that my apprehensions were unfounded. May be because Bangalore is full of north Indians. I guess, the nationalists will bicker with me for raising an LOC between the two parts of this beautiful nation. I will offer to say this in my defense – I am a firm believer of the tenets enumerated in the preamble of our Constitution referring to the underlying unity of the nation. And I don’t feel shy in admitting that it is the ‘Bimaru’ states of north India that are responsible for the very low ranking of India in almost all the listings released by the UN. But the fact remains that I am a hardcore north Indian and love the “chalta hai” attitude. I miss (not really) the ‘sarkari’ culture that is an integral part of a delhite (I offer my sincere apologies to the many hunkies working in the mushrooming IT companies in the NCR regions of noida and gurgaon). Everyone in delhi (or ‘dilli’) is (or claims to be) close to men-in-khadi (no less than the men-in-black). Now that is what speaks of your status. A Bangalorean would argue with me. But alas, that is the rule here. I found that the people in Bangalore are less status-conscious. When I landed at the Bangalore airport, I felt that I am going to have a hard time making the taxi-wallah lead me to my hotel. But to my surprise, he was talking to me in fluent (and grammatically correct) ‘angrezi’. On my way through, he acted like a tourist guide (of course with no extra bucks other than the taxi fare ;) telling me every detail of leela palace, lal bagh, bull’s temple, kemp fort…. Though I had visited most of these places earlier (on a bharat darshan tour), I listened to him very earnestly. I got a taste of the wary traffic on the airport road. Delhi was not much different some five years ago, but full marks to Shiela Dixit (the ‘fly over’ CM) for easing out the traffic snarls to a great extent. I dreaded my days ahead and decided to avail an accommodation as close to my office as possible.
The best thing about Bangalore is the weather here (no extremes like dilli). It rains quite a bit here and that is problematic for poor guys like me on 2-wheelers. The burgeoning IT industry has made Bangalore a crowded city. I wish that the state government takes appropriate measures to expand the city to the outskirts. Parking has already become a severe problem out here.