As someone who wasn't born in Bombay but has lived here for the last 6 years I'd like to step into this, both fists whirling:)
1. I'm not sure who the "everyone" is who advised you Kiran against drinking the local water. My family (and about 5 million other families) have managed very well thank you without resorting to Bisleri in our taps. 2. The trains run, as far as I know, for about 20 or 21 hours in a day - not much less than how long they run for in other of the world's top cities. Yes - if you happen to be in that small part of Bombay where autos are not allowed to enter - you have to take a cab. No different from anything in any of the other top cities of the world. And getting from one end of town to another will cost you Rs. 400 by cab only if you choose not to use an auto that you can easily do once you cross the cab-auto border (at about Rs. 100 in fares). But try taking a cab in Tokyo or San Francisco or even Delhi to see what that sets you back. In the non-restricted 90% of Bombay, auto rickshaws work round the clock and very economically too, with no overcharging, with prices based on meters all the way through. 3. I've heard the price thing about Bombay and think the claim is ridiculous. 3a. A firm I founded - Pinstorm - currently occupies about 2,900 sq ft of prime space in the geographical center of town and it's most 'happening' suburb - Bandra West - and we pay Rs. 32 ($0.65) per sq ft per month as rent. This is up from Rs. 29 ($0.60) we paid last year because of a built-in 10% escalation clause in our contract. I don't think I can find a place in Bangalore for anything like this amount anywhere in the middle of town. 3b. Starting salary for an engineer here is between Rs. 7,500 a month ($160) to Rs. 12,000 ($275) - unlike twice the amount paid to people half as talented in Bangalore. Ditto for salaries of most other people at most other levels. Talent for talent, Bombay is the least expensive place to find or hire people in India, from technology, marketing and operational fields - and I say this after looking at over 6,000 business plans and personally funding 15 startups and guiding an equal number of others in the last 6 years. 4. I also run a fund - Seedfund - and I have consistently found startups from Bangalore unfeasible to fund because of the ridiculously high salaries paid to completely average people who have no appetite for risk-taking - making such startups economically unviable. My view's not alone - most VCs have come to believe that there simply aren't good enough companies at reasonable enough prices to back in Bangalore. A fellow VC (based in Bangalore by the way) and I were discussing last week that any single batch from IIT Bombay produces more decent startups with real, innovative technology than the last 5 years of people out of IISc Bangalore - who, by the way, have begun to expect starting salaries of Rs. 15 lakhs ($35,000) in addition to equity. 5. Bangalore's prices have also caused many corporates - Levers etc to move out from the city because it has simply become the most expensive city in India to do business from. 6. With all this the street food - someone mentioned that on this list - is great and costs next to nothing. Rs. 5 or Rs. 10 ($0.10 or $0.20) will buy you a stomach-filling, healthy snack (20 million people don't get ill on it) at hundreds of places all over the city, for 20 or 21 hours in a day. 7. If you were to look at the numbers lately, particulate pollution in Bangalore is multiple times more than that in Bombay. 8. Yes, the city is crowded - but that's because it works - not because it doesn't. Bangalore or Chennai don't have 20,000 people a day streaming into the city to try their livelihood and hopefully make their millions in this bastion of capitalism. 9. Yes, the infrastructure sucks (it was basically 7 different islands till someone silted them over some time ago). 10. Yes, the city alone pays 42% of the country's income tax but only 2% of the country's tax revenues come back to the city to help build it. So if other cities and states feel good about their infra, perhaps they could doff a hat to who got conned into paying for it so far. 11. We're wising up to this now and we've got more money now and stuff's getting done (like it always does in Bombay - politics or not, stuff gets done) and some bridges, some flyovers, some rail tracks are being built. It's too little, yes. But not too late. All of this is not to say that the city is wonderful, perfect, or great. It's not. Far from it. But I'm a little tired of people who live in Bangalore or Chennai suddenly picking on a city that just works, no matter what the rest of the country throws at it. Bombay is India's Hollywood, India's Wall Street, India's Fleet Street, India's Madison Avenue and arguably India's Silicon Valley all in one city - a feat no other city in the world matches. It's a big weight and a tall order - but hey, we're managing somewhat well, thank you. And, yes, you don't like the city, that's ok. Live elsewhere. You just aren't going to get the life-changing and world-changing opportunities that this city will offer you, crowded metros and all. Fists back to rest. :) Mahesh -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kiran Jonnalagadda Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 7:30 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [silk] ryanestrada: Monsoon Season in Mumbai! On 04-Jul-06, at 6:30 PM, Devdas Bhagat wrote: > At least the city does not have major problems with power, with > potable > water, with transport facilities. Stuff which the rest of the country > appears to have problems achieving. Really? The last time I was there, they were having rolling power cuts. Everyone in Bombay has universally advised me to not drink publicly available water. If it's not filtered -- if the establishment doesn't make a fuss over how they filter it -- it's not drinkable. And transport? Oh joy! You know what? Let's go catch the late night show at Sterling. It'll end at about 1 AM, we'll walk over to VT, and oops, no more trains. Taxi? Uh oh, your Rs 10 train ride home has blown up to Rs 400. And that's if you can afford such luxuries as "entertainment" and "spare time" after you're done with the two and a half hours of being packed tighter than a can of sardines each day. At least I didn't need to iron my clothes. Bombay works only if you can afford it. The city is overrated. -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://www.pobox.com/~jace
