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India diary: Day four - First impressions of Bangalore
I sample the local nightlife and end up in a Wild West-theme pub

By Andy McCue

Published: Tuesday 01 June 2004

silicon.com reporter Andy McCue was on assignment in India from 14 to 23 April investigating offshoring efforts in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and New Delhi. This is his diary. Articles and commentary on IT offshoring and BPO in India and elsewhere will be appearing on silicon.com over the coming weeks. You can find them all here.

17/4/04: I've booked all my internal flights through India's Jet Airways - one of the private airlines set up to compete with the national airline Air India - and check-in at Mumbai's domestic airport is not the headache you would imagine, even though the trolley touts snub my 50 rupee tip and try to charge me £5 to push my luggage 20 yards from the taxi to the terminal. I grab breakfast in the plush modern airport restaurant away from the crowds downstairs, giving the anaemic grey chicken sausages a wide berth.

One thing you quickly get used to on the internal flights - which are pretty good value for money at around $100 to $200 - is that you'll get a meal (usually a nice curry) every time, even if it's only one hour (which it is to Bangalore), and the service is impeccable. As we take off it quickly becomes apparent that it's only in daylight from the air that you can get a true impression of the sprawl of Mumbai. Dozens of slum neighbourhoods suddenly become visible as we rise through the choking brown layer of polluted haze.

Bangalore is just over 500 miles inland and south of Mumbai. The flight takes us over arid and rural lands which are a pleasant change from the concrete jungle of Mumbai. I step out of the air-conditioned airport at 10.30am into 30 degrees of heat - with the local paper saying it is expected to hit 38 degrees later on.

The journey to the hotel takes us through wide, tree-lined streets with remnants of colonial architecture - it is a legacy that Bangalore, more than any other Indian city, seems to have clung onto. The first hint that we are in the heart of India's own Silicon Valley is a huge new Intel complex we drive past in the city but the main developments are out of town in the high-tech area called Electronics City.

After meetings with LogicaCMG and local Indian firm MindTree Consulting, who both kindly take time out on a Saturday to meet up, I venture up to the bustling Mahatma Gandhi road shopping area, risking life and limb walking on non-existent pavements and dodging traffic to cross the road. I pass the rundown Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant that was famously trashed by Indian farmers when it opened in protest of the potential harm to their livelihoods. I suddenly realise I've become immune to the constant backdrop of the sound of car horns hooting.

In the evening I decide to sample a typical Saturday night here and check out the unique pub scene in Bangalore that all the locals have been telling me about. It's sprung up to service the well paid - by local standards - and thirsty IT and call centre workers and relieve them of some of their hard-earned cash. One aspect that many people don't consider is just how stressful some of these jobs are, and the demands of working long and strange shift patterns, so the pub scene gives them all a chance to cut loose.

I avoid the 'Underground' pub - decked out like a London Underground station - and head in search of a Kingfisher beer at the imaginatively named 'Pub World', which bizarrely combines a traditional English pub setting with that of a Wild West saloon bar, complete with swinging doors. It's heaving with groups of young Indians drinking pints of lager and downing shots of Tequila while dancing to awful house and techno versions of obscure western chart songs. In fact it's a scene most of us are probably familiar with at our regular weekend drinking haunts apart from the gang of incredibly polite white-shirted and bow-tied bar staff running around delivering armfuls of drinks to tables.

Chucking out time is not much different to the UK and the last stragglers stumble out of the pubs at around 11.30pm. The streets are busy again but there's no trouble as people head off home on their motorbikes or grab an auto-rickshaw or taxi.