First impressions:Bangalore

The city is great. Though I wish I knew a bit more about it or at least knew Kannada. What I mean is inspite of spending my entire lifetime in Pune, if I were to live in Mumbai; I wouldn’t have too much trouble majorly because I know Marathi well.
But being the quixotic being like all KDs of the insane world are, I tried to learn Kannada to solve the problem. After all, how difficult can it be considering the fact that I am a Mallu who actually knows how to read and speak Mallu.
I simply can’t stand being ignorant, that means not having knowledge about something I’m involved in. It just drives me crazy.

So the first day at office and I begin my quest for learning Kannada. I started off with a normal watchman. Why a watchman one would ask. Because, Bangalore has loads of roads and cross roads and I got kinda lost when going from my PG to the office. Happens, I suppose to everyone new in the city and who has got a short term memory loss problem. Pretty normal huh? I asked him “Aditi Technologies Enge ?”, and wonder of wonders, he asked me “F1 na, F4 aa ?”. I got he required address and moved on.

Inspired by the progress I made, I decided to up the ante and moved on to the cafeteria. Do you know that there are people who point blank refuse to talk to you in Kannada ? Well I apparently didn’t and went up and spoke to the cafeteria manager. Well here let me describe the typical cafeteria manager for your benefit.
1. He has an air of great responsibility and authority.
2. He is guards the sweets section of the food with great caution to make sure that no one takes more than their share(SIC guys will surely agree on this)
3. He has a constant frown on his face, which rarely disappears, as if he is making sure that no one takes him lightly.

Anyways, this is more or less the individual that I encountered there as well. I plainly asked him how much would a lunch cost, in what I sincerely hoped sounded remotely like Kannada; “Lunch enge rupe ?”. He gave me a what’s-wrong-with-you look, but answered nevertheless “25 rupees”. Not being one to be let down, I forayed on, I asked him how would you ask the same in Kannada. He just looked at me a look which seemed to confirm his suspicions and plainly shook his head and continued his work with the frown intensified. A bit demoralized I asked for lunch in normal Queen’s English and was met with a prompt response. But I swore all the same that I would learn the language during my three month stay here and then I’ll shown him who’s the boss around.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful, but what I’m really curious about is how the whole Kannada learning mission shapes up. Adios for now. Will keep you updated on how it works out.