Sated in Bangalore

There are many reasons to love Bangalore, but one of the most important ones is that people are a lot more polite here than in any other city that I have lived in. Includes Singapore.

I used to attribute this to the great weather. Which could not be better as I type this. The table with my laptop is just beside my bedroom window, and the dark clouds, pregnant with rain, and the cool breeze blowing in, make me feel happy that I am here and not in humid Mumbai or hot Delhi.

Anyway, so I thought the weather was responsible for the general good mood that I find most people in. My earlier experience of knowing a city in the South was at Coimbatore, which normally has great weather too. At least during the short periods I visited it for. But then I went to Chennai. Have been there thrice and am going again this Monday. Though my interaction with people outside my clients' offices has been negligible, I have found the people very polite whenever I have gone out.

It's still too early to pass a verdict, but right now I feel that this is a common trend in this part of the country. Is there something in the food? Are people here brought up differently? I don't know. We could come up with reasons in anthropology, history, and a lot of other subjects. But that does not matter. We are what we are today.

The thing that inspired me to make this post was of course the interaction I had with the restaurant that I ordered my lunch from. I had ordered food from them last weekend too, but had done it through this website. I should be one of their most frequent customers. A few of my batchmates had started something like this in Delhi a few years back, but I thought it wouldn't work. I don't think it did. But now I see the utility of a service like this. I believe there is another attempt in Delhi at something like this again.

Man, I digress a lot.

So, I ordered food from them indirectly last weekend. The service was very prompt, unlike most restaurants here, partly because of the traffic. And the delivery man was extremely polite. I am one of those people for whom the quality of the food itself is probably not as important as the service and the cleanliness. Their food was packed neatly, and had huge portions (always a delightful thing). He also gave me his restaurant number, so that I could order directly in the future. The first restaurant I have ordered from to do so. Coming back from the movie (and no, I am not going to shoot off on another road describing the movie now) today, I thought of calling them up so that I could have food by the time I got back to my home.

The person at the restaurant who took the order was extremely helpful and polite. Spoke proper English, which is such a relief after the irritating experiences I have had with call-centre guys here. And by the time I got home, the food was here. The delivery-man had to wait for me, but he didn't crib about it. And I am having the steamed momos, which was part of my order, right now. Great taste as well.

So, if you are reading this somewhere in the Indiranagar area in Bangalore, try out Kim Lee sometime. I can't vouch for their premises because haven't been there, but the food is good and the service is fantastic.

I am not saying everyone in Bangalore is like this. And hell, the delivery man is a Nepali guy anyway, but that is the general trend here.

By the way, the movie was The Dark Knight. Yep, it's as great as everyone's saying it is. Scary in its violence, not in depiction, but in intention. The acting is top-notch. From every single person. And no, I don't think Heath Ledger should get the Oscar. Because there will be better performances this year. He's great, maybe worth a nomination, but in an average year in recent times, there have been better performances. This is no Anton Chigurh.