JOIN US'I was hesitant to move here'
Sharon Gupta comes from a small, beautiful hill station called Siliguri in West Bengal. She left home after her 10th standard for further studies. Ever since then, she’s hopped to cities like Delhi, Dehradun and Pune till she got married. This new phase of her life brought her to the metropolitan city of Bengaluru where she wasn’t comfortable at all in the beginning.
She says, “I’ve been living in the City with my husband and his family for the past five years. I was very hesitant to move here, especially because I’ve been accustomed to the lifestyle in the North and had no friends here. It’s not that easy to become friends with your husband’s friends either.” But all such notions changed once she started working in Jain College as a Lecturer and made some new friends.
Though it was initially a struggle for her to adjust, she says her parents-in-law were very kind and supportive. She says, “It wasn’t easy for me to move to a house like this because I have been away from home for a very long time. But we travelled back home a number of times for the small after-marriage rituals and after each return, I started getting used to this lifestyle.”
Sharon’s husband, Vikas Gupta, is a businessman who is born and raised in Bengaluru. Two months ago, they had a beautiful baby daughter named Shanaiya. They say, “We are excited to raise our daughter in this City as it’s a great place to be in. There’s a great mix of people and it’s wonderful to know that she will be exposed to various cultures as she grows up.”
Talking about her life in Siliguri, she says that she had a wonderful time in the small town. Everyone knew each other and during the seven days, everyone would be out at least 10 times. She recalls how she had the freedom to tell her father to not go to work on that day and he would stay back. She explains, “My dad is a businessman as well who would usually come back home before 6 pm every day. My mother, on the other hand, is a homemaker, but a huge socialite. Actually, everyone in the town is a socialite as they meet each other almost everyday.” She further explains that all her relatives reside in Siliguri and the remaining population are their family friends. They would meet on a regular basis for get-togethers and play cards in the evenings.
Festivals are also celebrated in a grand fashion there. Sharon shares that the small town celebrates every religious and cultural festival there as if there is no barrier amongst them. Durga Puja in general is a massive celebration, but they also partake in the customs of fellow Bihari and Nepalese residents.
When asked how she likes the celebrations here, she says sadly, “It’s not good. For Holi, we go to a property or hotel where they’ll have rain dance and water colours to play with. And for Diwali, we play cards and burst a few crackers just for the sake of it. I never get the feeling of celebrating a festival here. But we made an attempt this Christmas to dress in red and took our daughter out for dinner. Though she doesn’t realise any of this, it’s our way of celebrating something.”
She says if she could bring something from her town to this City, it would be the happiness of get-togethers. “Siliguri is a town that can be covered within 20 minutes. That’s one of the reasons why everyone knows each other. It would be great if it’s possible to have half as many gatherings here as we did back home. I guess the traffic is one of the main factors that makes people not take up that offer,” she says.
During the weekends, the couple like to go to restaurants like Royal Afghan, Punjabi By Nature, Toit, Loft 38 and Smoke House Deli. On Sundays, as a family, they like to go to either Airlines Hotel or restaurants on that road for breakfast. They’ve also travelled to Mysuru, Ooty, Masinagudi, Bandipur and Chikkamagaluru for short trips. “My husband is usually busy with his business and since he’s seen every other place within the City, I make plans with my friends to visit those places. That’s how I ended up going to Nandi Hills as well,”says Sharon.
But with everything that the City has to offer, Sharon has adjusted well and does not see herself living anywhere else. She says, “I’m glad it was this City that I came to and I can’t imagine moving to another place and be this peaceful. It’s a very homely environment and it’s everything I could ever ask for.”