Vijay Mallya and perverse nostalgia.

I have thoughts on Vijay Mallya. And Bengaluru.

Bengaluru sucks. Here is an advice to college students. If you are middle class, just don’t come to Bengaluru for college. Figure out another place for yourself. Everything is expensive. I realised this yesterday. A friend from Christ Yeswanthpur, who gave me her shirt, had forgotten it with me. So I had to rush. Let’s do the calculations. A Cancelled metro ticket. It wouldn’t have bothered me but the government decided to hike it under the guise of “everyone in BLR is an IT Employee with lots of money”. So, 70 Rs dead there.

Then an auto ride. I don’t like autos honestly, it is overpriced. But then, it was an emergency. 150 Rs. Then, I reached Auntie Fungs, only to be greeted by death stares from her mother and brother. Rushed back on a bike taxi at 45 Rs. And again 70 Rs on the metro.

If you were a working employee, which probably means, you are older and might have a means of transportation, this is regular change. It shouldn’t be in an ideal scenario. But for a student. You just gobbled up a quarter of ya pocket money in a single ride. And that is the problem with Bengaluru.

The last ten years have been messy to be a Bangalorean. The government is run by guys who don’t care about the people. The city is losing it’s identity. And the cool flashiness of an IT Hub is slowly fading away. And no number of pubs, cafes and book stores is going to quench the burning hole of living in a city, where you don’t have savings at all.

The last week has been even more tragic. The RCB Stampede. I genuinely hoped that this would force our beloved government to step down. But hey, who am I to them? Do they even know we exist? Everyone, except for the government, were royally challenged. Police forces were suspended, KSCA was suspended, the management was jailed. But well, who’s grandchildren wanted to take photos with Virat Kohli?

It is funnier that RCB winning the IPL should have been a moment of pride for Bangaloreans who dearly loved this team but this exposed the rot within Bengaluru. This reminds me of Mark Renton’s rant in Trainspotting.

Bengaluru is dead. It is now a city run by the most sociopathic politicians, who think that being corrupt is a way of life. The burden. Us middle class folks who are genuinely trying to survive. The cost of living is high and nothing, and I mean nothing has changed. Maybe, the people. Maybe our problems. With all honesty, the city is dying.

Now, in the midst of death and emotional turmoil, we are reminded of nostalgia. Of times, where Bengaluru still had some soul to it. And that’s where I bring Vijay Mallya to my story.

Vijay Mallya is the closest thing we will have to a Trump like figure. Because, he was truly the king of good times. People act like, the sympathy drive that Mr Mallya is seeing is abnormal. Yes, Indians don’t have the best attention span, but I believe, it also has to do with how fascinating of an individual Mallya was. He was unashamedly open about being rich. Those parties, those models, those calendars, Siddarth Mallya dating Deepika Padukone. This man was probably the first guy you could call an actual “sigma”. Are we allowed to use it on a thinkpiece, editor?

But also, without Mallya, Bengaluru wouldn’t have this thing called Night Life. Now, let’s elaborate on that. Bengaluru wasn’t supposed to be this monolith of an IT Hub cum Techbro paradise. It used to be the pensioners paradise. You came here because you wanted a piece of mind. It was affordable to live here. And unlike metros like Mumbai and Kolkata, the population density was low.

Then SM Krishna’s ambitious tech revolution happened. This happened due to many reasons. The presence of institutions like the Indian Institute of Sciences, BHEL, DRDO and ISRO existed in this city prior. The setup of Texas Instruments during the Rajiv Gandhi era of India, was a boost to a city that already had a lot of growing sectors within. Karnataka was quick to adapt to the post liberalisation swing, and offered many incentives to these companies. The development of sectors like Electronic City and Manyata Tech Park made Bengaluru more cool for the folks to live here.

But where does Vijay Mallya come here? Well, it was the flamboyance of Mallya that made partying and boozing super cool. At least in this city, the structures he built along the road named after his father, has been essential in setting up the nightlife culture. Besides, Mallya was a genius in marketing. He pushed hard onto investing in marketing, making Kingfisher the beer you picked when you wanted to booze. In fact, for a period of time, any big event in this city, like a derby or a tennis tournament - it had Kingfisher all over it.

Mallya made Bengaluru cool. If Narayana Murthy gave the techies their 30k, Mallya gave those techies the booze to burn their money. But most importantly, Mallya pioneered the idea of the new Bengaluru. Not the pensioners paradise, but a hedonist tech hub where people from all over the country can booze and die.

And yes, Bengaluru has lasted this overhype phase. The city still has the shine of the early 2000s, but it’s slowly dwindling. In the midst of all those “Can I survive in Bengaluru under 90LPA” memes on quora, there is a city that is under constant chaos.

Let’s face it. Vijay Mallya is a fugitive. Who blatantly ignored the plight of his own employees, used money from his failing Airlines to fund his own ambitions, divert money into foreign banks in obscure nations. A podcast won’t change my opinions. No one is black and white.

The podcast was still a sanitised one. Like Keshav Bedi said, there were some questions that had to be pressed hard on. Yet, it wasn’t fulfilled. Mallya was a marketing genius and some of his entities (the Royal Challengers and of course UB) are still going hard. But it didn’t save him, from the complete annihilation of public character.

We are in a time, where the government practically forgives the big billionaires from paying certain debts (Adani cough cough Ambani) and it does feel harsh that Mallya was thrown to the dogs. But that’s politics. Like DK Shivakumar said “I don’t drink Royal Challenge”, that’s how politics are. You are just one misstep away from being outcasted and vilified.

That being said, it is our nostalgia playing mindtricks on us. Of course, it always does. Retro jerseys are super cool. Post, the lockdown, we have been so mentally oriented towards the doom, that we look back into the good days when things were simpler. During the bad times, we are always reminded of the good times. And well, this is where the King of Good Times strike.