Infact, I would never have thought that this would be possible, but I think I would happily move here and have a ball of a time doing it! I have made good friends and great connections with the place and its people. This doesn’t mean or indicate in any way that I am contemplating moving out of good ol’ Bengaluru anytime soon, I have way too much invested in there to make that shift, lots of friends and also the great hometown advantage that I am not ready to lose just yet :p

Yesterday, Shilpa and I, along with two of Shilpa’s ex-roomies and frequent interspersed visits by my good friend Samira, spent the day roaming the streets of Bombay indulging in Shilpa’s favourite passtime (shopping of course!) and I began to think about how much this city had to offer and how Bangalore, which started with promise has now disintegrated to a very badly run and organized place which, if you look beyond the gloss, has very little to offer!

Its really time to take Bangalore back to what it once was and promised to become and make the most of what Bangalore can offer! and it offers a LOT.

More to come soon.

I have been an amateur musician for about 8 years now and a large part of my education as a musician happened playing in the various venues in and around Bangalore. These were either college fests where my band Phenom competed or pub gigs where we played for measly sums of money, some places where we even had to pay and play but play we did! and we loved it and it was well worth it!

In a city where venues to play musc are few and far between, the few places that allowed bands to play were our saving grace! to us, the 20 people who were our audience, most of them friends we had dragged there, were the closest we would ever get to those videos of our favourite bands who would woo stadiums filled with people!

In one swift and stupid move, my city was culturally slaughtered last month! in a very strange twist of events, the Bangalore police banned live music in places that serve alcohol. Bad enough, they had banned dancing in clubs, they had to go do this ..

In many ways, I got out of this situation with my band now playing largely outside Bangalore inspite of being a Bangalorean Band! but its the worst feeling for those kids who put their heart and soul and every penny they can muster into their music. Like Girish Karnad, one of the finest playwrights from Bangalore had to say at the protest last weekend, “How on earth will listening to live music cause anything untoward to happen?” and just because accidents happen on the road, will you ban driving?

This is the 21st Century and we live in a free country but are still subject to such ridiculous restrictions that it makes me question the ability of the people who we have elected into power!

A bunch of us have put up a petition for online signing that we would like to take further once we have enough people supporting the cause. So if you feel what is happening in the city now is unfair, please head to http://bengalurubleeding.com/petition and support us!