Strings attached to the City

Melting Pot

Samarjeet Ghosh moved to the City from Assam over a decade ago. According to him, Bangalore has changed immensely over time and he plans to be here in the years to come.

“I’m happy here and I plan to stay on for at least another 15 years or so,” he says. His wife, Sangamitra Rakshit Ghosh, moved here from Tripura, and she expresses the same sentiment. 

“When I first moved in, I used to live in Hennur, which was at the end of Bangalore. There wasn’t a Ring Road or a flyover and when I first saw it I thought it was a ‘gaon’. For the first two or three months I was very depressed because the infrastructure was bad and there weren’t any shops. We had this idea of how college life should be and this wasn’t it,” says Samarjeet. But soon, he got used to college and the City. 

“I found the food difficult to adjust to at first but later I got used to eating South Indian food. Now I have to have idli and dosa in the mornings. But my favourite is pongal,” says Samarjeet. He adds that now that he’s married, there is a wider variety of food that he gets.

Samarjeet says the reason he moved to the City was, “In my state, there is a lack of good universities so when I wanted to pursue my graduation, I had the option of either going to Delhi or Bangalore. I didn’t want to go to Delhi because it’s too crowded and there are other issues, but Bangalore is known to be the ‘Garden City’ and even my parents wanted me to come down here.” He adds, “Now I’m a Bangalorean!” Sanghamitra says, “There are more opportunities here than any other city in India.” 

The Bangalorean met his wife while he was in college and the two have made a life for themselves here. “I was the president of the Assam Society for three years in a row and I work a lot with them, so that keeps me busy. And most of our friends are in the Kamanahalli area so we usually hangout there,” says Samarjeet. She adds, “I call myself a Bangalorean even though I’m not fluent in Kannada. We have relatives, family and friends here. We are very attached to the City.” 

What do the young couple like to do in their free time? “There isn’t much to do in Bangalore; we can’t go to a mall and chill for two to three hours. 

We usually go to restaurants and pubs on weekends. Sunday is our day for sleep and have good food. We like Chinese food so we usually go to Mainland China or Chungs,” he says. He adds, “We enjoy travelling a lot so whenever we get a holiday, we go out, even its a day to Nandi Hills.” 

The couple say that they love Bangalore for its weather but despise the traffic. “The traffic is better in the mornings, when I’m fresh, but in the evenings, it is impossible. And when it starts raining, the traffic goes for a toss! Bangalore has no drainage system so if there are heavy rains, everything and everyone gets stuck,” says Samarjeet.  

But it’s their love for the City that makes them stay. “I can never leave Bangalore. Even if I get transferred, I will stay here,”  adds Sanghamitra.