India diary, day 14: Bar-hopping in Bangalore

Saturday 17 February - Bangalore

My last day in Bangalore and in India.

Time to grab some souvenirs from the shops on Brigade Road and Mahatma Gandhi Road in the morning, while steering around the hawkers with their wooden snakes, dodgy Rolexes and giants maps of India.

Special Report: Inside India

In February silicon.com's Steve Ranger visited the Indian tech hotspots of Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad to explore the exploding Indian offshore tech and BPO industry. Keep up with his daily diaries here.

♦ India diary, day 1: Cyberbad on Sunday
♦ India diary, day 2: Emergency calls and rural life
♦ India diary, day 3: Inside the outsourcing campus
♦ India diary, day 4: Hyderabad's tech park
♦ India diary, day 5: Margaritas to Mumbai
♦ India diary, day 6: Prime Minister's question time
♦ India diary, day 7: Mobiles in Mumbai
♦ India diary, day 8: Pune or bust
♦ India diary, day 9: An auto-rickshaw ride and a catwalk show
♦ India diary, day 10: Lost in Pune
♦ India diary, day 11: I heart Bangalore
♦ India diary, day 12: Searching for the next big thing
♦ India diary, day 13: Thirsty in Bangalore
♦ India diary, day 14: Bar-hopping in Bangalore

The fortunes of the Indian IT industry are followed almost as avidly as the fortunes of the national cricket team. Even the guys in the souvenir shop have an opinion on the India tech industry. Pune is the next big boom town, they tell me.

For the afternoon I'm off to the Wipro 'Sparks' event at a big stadium in Bangalore. It's part corporate sports day (football, cricket and relay races), part pub quiz (with some fiendishly tricky questions) and part live gig. There's even a few celebrities - including cricketing legend Kapil Dev - thrown in.

Thousands of Wipro staff are watching the action and, as we take our seats, company chairman Azim Premji arrives and I'm surprised to see a good number of employees thronging around the side of the VIP box, trying to get to take his picture.

Few CEOs would attract the same sort of interest - especially from their own staff - in the UK.

Of course, creating loyalty through events like this is a tremendous way of fighting the huge staff churn. But many of the employees are really enjoying the day and getting behind their teams in a way I can't see cynical UK workers doing.

But all this sitting in the sun is thirsty work and the PA is turned way up so we head into town for a beer.

I'm not overly excited following my disappointing foray into the Bangalore night life yesterday. But we head to Tiger, a bar that quite a few people have mentioned to me.

It doesn't look good to start with - we go into one of the many mini-malls just off Brigade Road and take the lift to the second floor and then head up the stairs to the floor above.

But when we reach the bar it's worth the wait. What I had seen the night before were the first generation of Bangalore pubs. Taika is part of the wave of new lounge bars popular with the bright young BPO and IT crowd. It wouldn't look out of place as the latest swanky bar in London or New York. Just as the offshore operations have matured their offerings in the last few years, clearly the Bangalore nightlife has matured too.

The bar is split into three sections - a bar, a dance floor and a lounge for drinking and eating. It's eight o'clock and the dance floor is empty but I'm assured it will fill up pretty rapidly - it will have to as everything closes at half eleven.

The cliental is smartly dressed and well behaved and there are quite a few groups of girls - unlike in the pubs last night.

After some rounds of beer and delicious Thai nibbles it's time to call it a night. As we're heading for the door we take a peek at the dance floor - as predicted it's absolutely heaving with Bangalore's bright young things, shaking off the stresses of another week in the IT capital. It's an image of energy and youthful enthusiasm which is a good one to end my tour round India's tech hotspots.

Everywhere I have gone I've been impressed by the energy and excitement, and the sense that something very big and very important for India is coming out of this technology revolution. It's not just about individual entrepreneurs - there is a sense that the success of the IT industry is a catalyst for bigger change in the economy.

And sure, there's a long way to go. And the impact of this change is not just being felt in India. The effect of India's growth on the people working in the IT industry in the UK is something that will be addressed elsewhere in this special report. But whether you're a willing convert to the new world of offshoring and the global economy or diehard sceptic, you can't ignore it.

So what have I learned in the last couple of weeks? Enough to know, at least, that I've barely scratched the surface of this giant country. And that I'm eager to learn more and return soon.

Have you visited India to check out the outsourcing options? Or have you been affected by offshoring here in the UK? We want to hear your stories and thoughts about offshoring. Post your comments below or email editorial@silicon.com.