Bangalore opens windows again, clicks new file

Unknown to him, some streets away, mobs demanding Cauvery water are menacing rush-hour traffic. Ishoni’s markets, like so many transnationals in Indian tech’s home city, are based not at home but in the peace of sunrise markets like China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

Mansingh has the dollars ($25 million in investment earlier this year from Dutch multinational Philips), the technology, multinational backing and—despite not making any money in four years of existence—a confidence that doesn’t need to be brought to local attention.

Others aren’t so lucky. Outside a stall in the shadow of the faux Tudor 115-year-old Bangalore palace, the man in the Roman warrior’s skirt and Rajput warrior’s helmet, is fidgety and clearly uncomfortable. ‘‘Oh, he’s just to attract attention for us,’’ grins the girl at the stall of Hew Software Technologies Pvt Ltd, one of the garden variety software companies that abound in Bangalore’s suburbs.

To them, being at the fifth annual edition of India’s largest annual technology jamboree is vital.

Still, Vivek Kulkarni rubs his chin and acknowledges that there’s a buzz missing. ‘‘We have more or less as many as last year,’’ says Kulkarni, Karnataka’s go-getting infotech secretary. ‘‘Our best year was 2000 though.’’

All that is history. This, as the pundits say, is supposed to be the trough of disillusionment.

Not here, not now. Despite the angry mobs that suddenly formed on Bangalore’s streets today to protest the release of Cauvery water, despite the absence of Bangalore’s big names—save for Infosys—the cross-section of people walking into the palace grounds indicates that in this city, hope in technology springs eternal.

Locals still stream in, energised by technology’s promises.

Visitors from foreign lands congregate to tap into its silicon lifespring. And the influences of the fair’s products on diverse aspects of Bangalore’s life are quietly and steadily growing.

At one of the most popular stalls, Muniraju is patiently telling the stream of visitors about the benefits of networking and online records.

The stall belongs to the Bangalore police, and Muniraju explains how Rs 10 lakh has landed in the police kitty in the 32 days since they began using digital cameras to record and send home traffic violations.

He points to the grim countenance of Jabhi, alias Chor Jabhi, the 100th criminal to fall victim to the police’s online fingerprint system. He also explains how some of the 82 networked police stations in Bangalore can now take e-mail complaints.

But who is receiving these e-mails? ‘‘Why people like me,’’ Muniraju says indignantly. With his grey safari suit and impeccable English, it’s easy to forget what Muniraju really is—a Bangalore police constable.

IT has of course rubbed off in a major way on Karnataka’s government, which proudly displays Bhoomi, India’s largest online compilation of land records—more than 20 million of them instantly accessible and printable.

It’s this enthusiasm from the grassroots that adds to Bangalore’s 1,000 tech companies and continues to catch the world’s attention.

‘‘We’ve had lots of medium-sized companies looking for partners, for European companies that want to outsource,’’ says Daniela Pickl, representative of gotoBavaria, a German state agency.

Over the last year, she says, the province of Bavaria has seen 33 foreign companies set up shop. Of those 10 are Indian. The continent, Pickl notes, is also a great place for Indian companies to try out cutting-edge tech skills.

Like the Germans, there are the English, Danes and Belgians, who hope Bangalore’s tech boys will give up on the recession-plagued American dream and consider language-unfriendly but short-staffed Europe.

There are Koreans selling all manner of technologies, even swarthy Russians—some looking distinctly like former Soviet government scientists—selling crudely made but high-tech encryption circuitry.

All manner of ancilliary industries are here too, hoping the tech sector’s slow crawl out of the trough will cascade into a race of opportunity for them.

There are construction companies, promising swimming pools, ‘‘gracious living,’’ but above all, ‘‘network-friendly’’ environments, meaning fibreoptic cables and power backups. There are housing finance companies.

There is Accident Relief Care, which offers techies medical help upto Rs 1 lakh for no more than Rs 365 a year. ‘‘Volvo people just signed up this morning,’’ says the gentleman selling the policy.

And there is K. Muddaiah of Alath-Cad Estate Bungalow from the heart of coffee country in the district of Kodagu.

He rents out six rooms and his wife cooks home-style meals. ‘‘This is very much my target market,’’ he says with a grin.

Across town at Ishoni, Mansingh, comfortably ensconced in his office in the suburb of Basavangudi, reveals how he’s finally been looking inwards: He’s offering his cutting-edge wireless and microelectronic technology to Reliance, Bharti and other companies trying to build nationwide telecommunications networks.

From the roof of his steel-and-glass building, the coconut palms still stretch out to the horizon, like the Bangalore now lost to progress. On most days the crimson slashes of a Bangalore sunset light up the sky above.

It is a place where you cannot miss the big picture.