Tackling problems with ease

Ferns & Petals

A private person, who’s friends with most of the City. And in keeping with this trend, she lives in two cities, shuttling between Bangalore and Chennai. Utterly happy with her single status she says, “Being solo is carefree. You really aren’t tied down by anything or anyone. You are free to make as many changes as you like.” But, of course, things are never that simple. A single girl in the City is apparently social responsibility.

Reluctantly she confesses, “The only issue about living like this, really, is that it’s difficult for people to digest that somebody is not married and it immediately becomes their moral duty to counsel you. Once an autowalla told me not to marry a random person. He told me to marry a friend. And if that wasn’t enough he went on to plan my family with instruction that I should not have more than two babies.” She seems completely unfazed by such behaviour, handling it like somebody who’s been there and done that.

Once the portal to the realm of autowalla stories is opened, one can hardly stop with one.

The story which started with “Safety is a concern” was quite a hair-raising account. “I was on my way to Accenture late in the evening once and was talking on the phone, then suddenly I realised, I was no where near Accenture. When I asked him where we were and insisted on being taken to the company, he told me that he’s on his way home. I had to walk by myself on dark, lonely streets.”

If not for this one concern, Aishwarya seems mostly content with her life and the City. Comparing Bangalore with Chennai, she says “Bangaloreans are naturally more friendly, even if you know nobody it won’t be long before you find somebody on your wavelength. Socialising is very important to Bangaloreans. But in Chennai, meeting somebody for a cup of coffee is an event. Also Chennai is so much bigger than Bangalore. So travelling is terribly expensive.”

Almost as if she has some sort of a mental weighing scale, she seeks balance and argues. “Chennai is culturally more evolved. More cultural events happen there. Also people are more self-contained. In Bangalore, the moment men find out that you are single, they seem to believe it’s their birth right to hit on you.

In Chennai that doesn’t happen so much.” The argument with herself continues with “In Bangalore, a girl can just sit by herself, get a cup of coffee and read a book. I’ve never seen that happen in Chennai.”

But the one thing that Bangalore has and which Chennai can’t trump is her sentimental attachment with this City, it seems.