JOIN USIt is difficult for a person to uproot himself from his hometown and settle into a completely different surrounding. If the person in question happens to be a true-blue Punjabi with a special love for Punjabi street food, a shift to South India should have been especially different. But for Patiala-born Amulmeet Singh Chadha, it was love at first sight with namma Bengaluru.
“I first came to Bengaluru in 2009 for a 6-months internship at DRDO Labs in Indiranagar and fell in love with the city! Its weather, its cosmopolitan culture, the opportunities it offers — the place charmed me no end,” says Amul, as he is popularly known.
Such was this charm that he came back to the city, after the internship, to start his career with ZipDial. Having been part of successful startups like Redbus and Freecharge, Amul is now the co-founder of on-demand driver service DriveU. A designer by heart and an engineer by mind, Amul believes Bengaluru provides chances to anybody who wants to build a career here. “And the city also has a lot to offer for anyone who wants to have an active and social life. The weather is only the icing on the cake,” he says, smiling.
Having been in the city for so long, Amul has had his share of experiences and anecdotes. When asked if he can recall any interesting one, Amul narrates this. “One of my favourite stories from my time in Bengaluru is from 2009. There was a day when I was feeling particularly homesick and I really wanted to have rice pudding, which is popularly known in the North as ‘Kheer’. Nandini has the same logo as Verka, a popular chain for dairy products in Punjab. You can buy packaged kheer there. Assuming it would be the same here, I went to M K Retail, looking for it. I asked for ‘Kheer’ and the attendant just replied, ‘second floor’. I asked her if she could get it for me and she looked at me puzzled. After 10 minutes, she returned with another attendant named Keer!,” he says, with a big smile on his face.
“But yes, I did struggle a bit with the change in food when I came here initially. I really missed not having street food like back home but now things have changed. I am pretty happy adapting to the cultural shift now,” he adds.
There is another reason why Amul is only too happy with Bengaluru and it is the stuff Bollywood movies are made up of. He recently married Vidya, a Tamilian working with Thomson Reuters here. The family have made Koramangala their home base with their beloved cat, Flash and their Beagle boy named Hash. “I met Vidya at Toit last year. We hit it off like in the movie ‘2 States’. Our families were almost similar to the ones shown in the movie. In fact, almost everything was the same — except that the match was made in Bengaluru,” he adds with a grin on his face. A happily married family man now, weekends for him are all about hanging out with Vidya and friends, running errands, cuddling up with his pets and catching up with work. Sundays are reserved for taking his dog to Cubbon Park, followed by a South Indian lunch at Nagarjuna. Amul also enjoys his weekend trips to places around Bengaluru like Coorg and Kodaikanal. He often visits Goa for longer trips.
Talking about the difficulties people face in the city, Amul says, “Every city has its own problems and according to me, the issue of traffic is the city’s biggest problem of all. The metropolis is evolving way faster than it was planned to handle. In fact, I founded a transportation startup as I figured that this difficulty could be alleviated with the help of technology. It is my way of giving back to the place that gave me so much,” he says.