Koramangala - Oasis or the Desert itself?

Moved into a new office today. In the middle of Bangalore's hullaballo-est places-- Koramangala. This used to be at the forefront of IT Boom way back in 90's when an idyllic, faraway village made way for snazzy boxes to house software professionals. Over the years, lanes stayed lanes and drains became lanes. A memorial to greed, near-sight and unplanned progress, Koramangala today is synonymous with pollution, water-logging, traffic snarls and some more traffic snarls. Yet, it continues to play host to some of the best IT companies, funkiest shopping malls, grooviest "north indian" food joints and yummiest ladies in Bangalore. As a happening address, its value cannot be beaten.

The silver lining is the very jazzy office interiors that they came up with. Once inside, the walls and rugs reflect the company colors. Spacious cubicles ensure that some of us walk miles to meet our supervisors. A cool cafeteria and table-tennis table might seem overkill for just 26 guys... but then we plan to become 70+ in a blink. The state-of-the-art lab occupies over 50% office-space and is something we all are mega-proud of. Photos will be uploaded soon.

So far, we cannot dare travel to work in an auto or bus for fear of being held ransom to "double meter, saar". The extortionist auto-drivers and stunt bus-drivers force even eco-conscious commuters to use private transport. The new CM, HD Kumarswamy, is doing some great work in terms of making the roads and infrastructure of Bangalore more human again. Next he *must* focus on multi-level public parking and organizing public-transport. I shudder when I imagine traffic on these crumbling roads by March 2008...

In the past few weeks, we have started noticing many subtle but strong positive changes in Bangalore. More power to him!!