“Hey guys, let’s go out somewhere tomorrow evening!”
“Where?”
“We’ll decide tomorrow. Hopefully some movie and a dinner.”
“Okay sure.”
“Count me in!”
“Me too!”
“Sorry but I cannot come.”
“What?! Why not? It’s Friday!”
“That’s why I cannot come. I need to go to Mysore.”
“Again? Dude you went there last week too. Can’t you skip this week?”
“No.”
“Oh come on. Just once. You go there every week.”
” And I will continue to do so as long as I can.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
When a city booms, it leads to a loop that somewhat follows this order: influx of talents -> influx of companies -> more development -> influx of more talents and so on. Although this is a near perpetual cycle, it requires a high up-front cost. So when Bangalore (No, I don’t want to call it Bengaluru) exploded into popularity as the go-to destination for all your IT needs, there was a humongous migration of people and companies from all over the country and sometimes, even from different countries. That led to Bangalore being the IT capital of India. Of course when a city advances at such a pace, there is bound to be crazy changes in the lifestyle and culture of its inhabitants. Gone were the days where you could see the whole city in different shades of green (Green City of India, anyone?). Now they were replaced by this drab concrete jungles. Gone were the days when you could go from one end of the city to other end within an hour. Now you have to pack food worth for two days to even go to Majestic from Kengeri. But our economy boomed, so it was a precariously balanced trade-off. With these new generation of techies, the city adopted a more lenient and modern lifestyle compared to its surrounding cities. When a city becomes more modernized it leads to a weekly lifestyle: slog your ass throughout the week, so that you can do something in the weekend (Please don’t quote me on this or ask which studies I referred. I just told what I observed). But for a techie, the “something” boiled down to one of the three things:
- Stay at home and make a piss poor attempt at getting back his sleep and thus, his sanity.
- Roam the city. Bangalore provides so many things to do its not even a joke at this point.
- Go on a trip for the weekend.
And it was all well and good.
Until the Fire Nation attacked.
Mysore (I definitely refuse to call it Mysuru. It’s an abomination and must be destroyed at all costs) is one of the closest and most important city near Bangalore. It’s a 2.5 hour drive from Bangalore, 5 if you consider the traffic. It was the capital of Karnataka before independence so it is quite influential and it is one of the most important historic cities of India. Due to its proximity, these people started traveling to Bangalore for jobs and other things (I’m joking, Mysore wasn’t this late into the party. Its inhabitants were one of the first to be captured by Bangalore’s beauty). And Bangalore accepted them because its motto is: We will accept anyone no matter what. We may not have space left to walk but hey we’ll just haphazardly expand and build some buildings at the outskirts. What about dealing with proper organization and well structured city? Like a great programmer once said when asked about documentation and commenting the code: We’ll do it later.
Coming back to point, Bangalore happily accepted the Mysurians into her Majestic arms. But these were of a different species from the rest of the immigrants. You see, although these guys (and gals) came here for the jobs, they were still madly in love with Mysore. And most of the Mysurians had never traveled for more than 200kms in their life. The ones who did, found nothing could compare to Mysore. This led to them having this wild urge to go back to Mysore at every chance they got. Every. Damn. Chance. So they would go back to Mysore every weekend, holiday or even for remote work (Nothing says Work From Home like actually traveling to home and working). These legendary creatures crossed the minimum threshold to be called a separate group and were started to be referred to as:
The Weekend Mysurian.
A study was conducted to note down the behaviour and the life of The Weekend Mysurians’ (hereby called as TWM). The behaviour of the subject is similar to a typical Bangaloreans on weekdays. But the difference is found as the we approach the weekend. As the week crawls over to its end, the subject experiences uncontrollable bouts of homesickness where it feels as if it hasn’t been to its home in a very long time. The subject starts experiencing withdrawal symptoms as the week draws to a close. On a Friday, the subject finally succumbs, packs its bags and goes to work along with the bags. It was found that a typical TWM usually leaves at 4.30PM on a Friday evening in hopes of catching the train to Mysore. The train is also the most important one in the life of a TWM. It is called Chamundi Express and it is the train it finds even remotely suited to its taste. Although there are many who take up other means of transportation, bus from satellite bus stand being the next most popular mode, this train makes up for a huge chunk of it. If by any chance you have a friend in Bangalore who is from Mysore, you can expect 3 out of 5 times that he/she will be in this train. The Chamundi Express gets around 50-60% of its revenue from this single ride (6.15PM from Bangalore). The subject then returns to Bangalore late Sunday evening or early Monday morning.
There are subspecies in these too. There are many TWMs which go back to Mysore on a fortnightly basis rather than a weekly one. But when they do, they still go in the Chamundi Express most of the time.
The reasons for this behaviour are numerous. We discovered a few of these reasons in our studies. The subject might be homesick; it doesn’t want to spend time with its friends or it doesn’t like doing its laundry. It was also found that the ones doing their own laundry usually left every fortnight. The study also found that the subject will schedule its life in such a way as to not disturb the weekly ride back to Mysore. The author also made an startling discovery that the reason it might go back to Mysore every weekend might be its feeble attempt at clinging on to its golden memories for as long as physically possible.
Although these creatures are magnificent, they have a very short lifespan. The lifespan averages to 2-3 years after which, they morph into a typical Bangalorean. Whatever the case may be, enough can’t be said about their determination to go home week after week no matter what is happening around them.
The author of this study also wishes to convey that he is in fact, one of them.
