Bangalore is a haven for all sorts of jobs in the country. As colleges continue to churn out tech graduates, the city of Karnataka is overflowing with freshers who come into the city with a glimmer of hope in their eyes and pockets starting to fill in with pennies- self-made ones, for the very first time in their lives.
So what do you do when you get your first job and move into a big city? Well, as pop culture would have you believe, you get a nice little place, get colleagues together, and host a housewarming party with food and beer.
Upon landing in the Silicon Valley of India however many realise the stark contrast between fiction and reality. For starters, beer is the costliest among all Indian states and it’s very lonely in your first few months. But what takes the cake for being the most unbelievable is the amount of money landlords ask as a “security deposit”.
For example, the security deposit for a one BHK room in the city could be quoted anywhere between Rs 60K to 2 lakhs. That’s more than a fresher’s quarterly salary! And that’s how these freshers are sent to the unimaginable hell hole of PGs or Paying Guests. Because the only place a newly arrived person could afford in the city is a few inches square of space with two other dudes.
The food, water and sunlight
The biggest gripe people have with Bangalore PGs is not the space, however, it’s the food. Rice and some liquid masala – for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner! Slowly but steadily, it drowns all your energy if you have any left after staying in a room without sunlight.
The bad food in Bangalore PGs is why most of the residents spend a significant chunk of their salary on Zomato and Swiggy – not their stock but the actual app that delivers overpriced food around the clock.
Apart from a lack of space and bad food, PG residents in Bangalore also have to make do with a lack of social circle since they can’t bring their friends to the PG. This leaves them with loneliness that eats them up from the inside.
In a lot of these PGs, the water is also bad adding to the hairfall woes of the residents. This is one of the biggest reasons why people coming in from outside start getting hairfall problems in Bangalore. It’s because Bangalore’s water is not suitable for washing hair – it’s too hard.
This is not a rant but rather advice and a heads-up to people moving in Bangalore for jobs or education. These are the basic things that you need to have a solution for before moving in what is certainly one of the best cities in India if you know what you’re dealing with.
