JOIN USWhen they first moved here from Chandigarh, Sameer Sharma and Abhilasha Sivana had the usual first impressions — the weather is nice, there are lot of places to explore and traffic is a bummer! Fifteen months down the line, this city is now home and has given them quite a few memorable experiences and interesting memories.
“We have had some fun times here,” says Abhilasha. “From getting drenched in the rain while travelling in an auto after a late-night party to figuring out how to communicate with maids and vegetable vendors, we have had some amusing episodes here.”
Sameer had a startup in Chandigarh and when it got acquired by Little App, he came down South for the marketing process. Abhilasha has her own startup which is into hyperlocal content.
So what do they miss about their hometown? “Authentic Punjabi food and the fact that rainy seasons are a much happier time there,” says Sameer with a laugh before adding, “But we both are pretty open to exploring the different cuisines here. We eat South Indian food a lot now though it is much spicier as compared to North Indian food. I try to stay away from dosas but I look forward to having idli — I find it very healthy.”
“Also we are frequent visitors at ‘SodaBottleOpenerWala’,” chips in Abhilasha. “We know the manager very well now and whenever we go there, we ask him to play Punjabi songs for us. So friendly is he that he obliges us and plays typical Punjabi tracks, including Honey Singh and all. So we are now regulars there.”
Sameer adds that apart from places like ‘Big Brewsky’, areas like Koramangala, HSR Layout and BTM Layout are their favourite haunts. But they don’t restrict themselves to the city limits and hit the road on the first chance they get, a desire born out of a combination of a love for travel and a desire to explore the Southern part of the country that was hitherto unknown to them.
“We try to go somewhere every month. So far, we have covered a bunch of places like Coorg, Ooty, Puducherry, Kanyakumari, Mangaluru, Agumbe and so on,” says Sameer.
Asked about some of their impressions of Bengaluru, Sameer says, “Though finding an accommodation is not a challenge, the owners here ask for almost 10-12 months of deposit, which is opposite from the practice in the North. Otherwise, people have been very supportive. I had heard that locals here are not very friendly and there is some kind of North-South divide. But my experiences have proved this to be untrue.”
“I missed the empty roads when I first came to Bengaluru but the weather and the culture here made up for it. It’s a chilled out place. I will give you an example — people in the North are too decked up all the time; even for something as simple as a visit to the mall. Here I can go in my pyjamas anywhere and I love that fact,” says Abhilasha.