I lived for five years in Trivandrum where I worked. The place has its fair share of IT population, businesses as a result of IT and a whole lot of manipulative people. Most of the locals with whom I shared my working environment were the normal helpful people one finds everywhere else. I made some very wonderful friends at work from the place but step out of technopark and the vultures pounce on you.
Leading the pack would be the auto drivers. You never paid them less than Rs 15 for the smallest distance. And the rates could go as high as Rs 200 for longer distances. Auto wallahs all over the state are the same, but only in trivandrum would people refuse to take you if it were a Sunday evening. [Sunday evenings they return to their homes I suppose]
A lot of folks from the other states complain that tvm doesnt have pubs or discos etc. Since I don't frequent such places I never found that an issue, however decent hotels with good food seem to be a rarity in the city. And if there are any such hotels they definitely are not easily accessible in the evenings. Most of them are tucked into small lanes as if they would rather not have any customers.
Speaking of rather not having any customers, the experience of shopping in some places in Trivandrum is truly eye opening. I have been to several shops where as soon as one enters the sales people stare sullenly at you. If one manages to avoid the obvious hatred and picks out an item, it gets almost hurled at you by the sales person. Customer satisfaction doesn't seem to exist in this district.
So ruling out food and shopping what do we do to pass time on weekends? Movies are an option with tickets only Rs 35. But this is also affordable to the Sunday afternoon drunk who wants to pass out in a theater as well. If you can overcome the snoring drunk, the hard seats and the stench the movie is worth your money.
Else the beach seems to be a place where you can go to. Though you would have to bear with a lot of stares and snide remarks from the peverts at the beaches. But are other places any different? I guess they too would be the same, but I refuse to acknowledge that they could be any worse place than Trivandrum.
The high class society is a snob. Their establishments are not worth dealing with. I had an unfortunate experience dealing with several society ladies running a tailoring shop. They misplaced one of my cloth and when i tried to reason with them they retaliated with a vengence. You would think people with education would have the sense to talk reasonably. But whoever said education guarantees sensibility. Middle aged ladies have no sense of queue while waiting for autos. They just try to outsmart you and get to the auto first.
Once they know that you are from Technopark, you are gullible to be robbed. If you haggle with any person they would say, you are getting paid so much why are you being so stingy? If I had such a bad time, I dont even try to imagine what the out of state folks would begin to feel. But bargain we did as we did our own cooking as the food in this neck of the woods is not for everyones palate.
With the advent of IT in the city, the land prices have gone up. Everyone blames IT for it. Who do we blame? We have to pay these high rates too for renting houses which are barely big enough for two people to comfortable live in. The area around techno park, houses spring up like mushrooms. Everything from a studio flat to houses without kitchens for bachelors are available. But the quality of the construction is another matter.
I spend several years in Palakkad which is even smaller a town than the capital city. Add a couple more shops to Palakkad and enlarge the roads a bit and submerge them in water in the rainy season and it would become Trivandrum. But in Palakkad I never saw any angry salesperson nor did i ever see strangers who refused to help. I ran away from Palakkad thinking never again would I live in a town as small as this and landed in Trivandrum.
Do I miss anything about Trivandrum? Was there anything worthwhile in the place that I would recommend to others? Honestly I dont. It should never have the distinction of being called the capital of the state. Nothing in the city reflects that. Before I left work was going on laying pipes. So every road was dug up and then left with piles of mud everywhere. So the place didnt look pretty as usual.
Some advantages of calling Trivandrum home is pollution is less compared to the other major cities. Traffic is not as bad as others. The weather is pretty good most of the year around. The cost of living not as high as other cities. Does this offset any of the bad experiences that I have had these past years? This tip of god's own country is not my cup of tea.
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