Bangalore Rant

So, I’ve been on the Bangalore sub for a while now. So, I (22F) was born and raised in Bangalore; mom’s family has been settled for 4 generations in Bangalore — grew up in Malleshwaram and then Chandra Layout — dad studied in IISc and roamed around Indiranagar like crazy in his youth — the whole scene. I was mostly surrounded by Bangaloreans as a kid, and except for a few very judgemental Gowda uncles, they were chill only. But now, it’s a whole other story. There’s this Punjabi family (retired army people) who’ve lived in the same street in Chandra Layout as us for more than a decade now. Decent, non-assuming people. They mind their own business, and sometimes invite us to their home. Normal, right? Apparently, no. Our next door neighbours (read: the non-chill Gowda family in question) started yelling at the old Punjabi aunty during a Ganesh Chathurthi celebration, telling her, “Go back to your own desha/state.” As a kid, kids and their parents thought I was arrogant because I only conversed in English (it isn’t even like I don’t know Kannada, but they used to just mock my Kannada as a literal 4 year old non-native Kannada speaker and I got so ashamed and embarrassed that I stopped trying.) I’m Tamilian, by the way. Growing up, and especially considering that my mother, grandfather and that side of the family speak, write and read Kannada FLUENTLY (I’m talking about some aunts literally composing poetry in Kannada and discussing DVG and Masti Venkatesa Iyengar and Girish Karnad during family meets), I never bore much of the brunt of linguistic discrimination, except for the fact that everyone perceived me as a “westernised spoilt brat.” But now, when I scroll through Instagram and other platforms, I see extremely unsettling, blatantly racist comments against Tamilians, calling them “Konga” and all that. Blud, what? Also, as a kid, Cubbon Park and Indiranagar/Church Street/Richmond Road were places my family used to constantly go to every weekend. They even had those nice benches and an actual wide pavement with lots of greenery. Whenever I visit now, it just feels like they’ve ruined my childhood and what Bangalore meant to me at one point. Also, there was this one time I was coming back from JustBLR with a junior of mine, and when we went nearby to get a smoke, a middle-aged pot-bellied uncle literally looked at me and asked the equivalent of: “Aati kya?” I’ve hated hanging around in Central Bangalore ever since. Also, if I wore a normal kurti and jeans and spoke in Kannada, people don’t view it weirdly. But when I wear a dress or a pair of any clothes that are “western,” people reply to me default in English even when I speak Kannada. I don’t know, man. Anyway, thanks for reading till now, if you have. RIP Bangalore.