Welcome to another edition where we review another boring place. You can read the first edition here where I reviewed the iconic Brookefields mall in Coimbatore.
Salarpuria Greenage is just another apartment complex. Sure, it has more residents than most towns in Australia (7500 people) and more towers than some capital cities (11 towers). Yet, itβs just an apartment complex.Β
However, since it is located in Bengaluru, it is subject to what I call the Bengaluru Hype Cycle (BHC). The BHC is like the Gartner Hype Cycle but for all things Bengaluru.
Some would say there is nothing more Peak Bengaluru than BHC.
Third Wave Coffee is now somewhere in the Trough of Disillusionment. Rameshwaram Cafe is on the way there but hasnβt hit rock bottom yet.Β Many startups have crossed the trough and are now on the slope of enlightenment (or what I call the βmoney doesnβt grow on trees?β phase).
At one point, Salarpuria Greenage was part of BHC as well. Some have even claimed that it is the best apartment complex to live in Bengaluru.
But I am here with the real scoop.Β
TL;DR: Itβs overrated.
For the naysayers, here are my credentials: Iβve lived there for a couple of years and I own a house there.
So here is my unvarnished review of Salarpuria Greenage.
π³οΈ The Bommanahalli Pass
Salarpuria Greenage is located in Bommanahalli. If there was a competition for crowning the βarmpitβ of Bengaluru, there would be many pretenders. The strange black hole that is the Sony World signal or the Dune-like landscape of the outer ring road could be contenders, but there is only one winner. The 2km stretch that starts from Silk Board and ends at Bommanhalli qualifies as the most unwashed, stinky, fungal-infected armpit of this great city.Β
Once youβve conquered this stretch, you must do one final wartime maneuver to get to the apartment. Like Genghis Khan and Alexander who had to take the Khyber Pass to get from Central Asia to India, I used to take the Bommanahalli Pass to get to the apartment complex. Itβs a dusty, narrow service road but donβt be fooled.Β
In the 1968 film βCarry on up the Khyberβ the term is very clearly used as rhyming slang for βarseβ. My christening of the Bommanahalli Pass follows the same sentiment. Taking this road is much like getting it up the Khyber. The entrance is tiny and puckered. Once you penetrate, itβs congested and pretty shitty. Your vehicle is another discarded husk from the intestines of Bengaluru roads.Β
Try sitting in an Uber Go sweating (the driver of course doesnβt turn on the AC), for hours in the traffic to get through a congested, noisy, and incessantly soul-sucking stretch only to have to navigate this hellish stretch before you get home. When I lived there, every time I was stuck on this road hungry, tired, and dreaming of being home, I had a single thought: βNo money is worth this.βΒ
But also it taught me a valuable lesson: βAlways get a job you can walk toβ.Β Havenβt commuted for work since 2015.Β
β The Axis of Inept
Greenage is managed by a bureaucracy of gnomes from Discworld.Β
Way back in 2012, when we were buying the house, this bureaucracy slapped us with a fine because weβd not paid the last 1% of the payments due. We didnβt even know that a single percentage point was left. This led us deep into the underbelly of Salarpuria where we met one of the many βofficersβ who worked there. After thirty minutes where we failed to negotiate, I realized something. Everyone who worked there had agreed to a voluntary donation of the logic section of their brains for research. So we just paid.Β
Ever since we have been engaged in this dreary dance with the builder/association. Spurious demands and charges would crop up like a bad pimple without warning.
Most recently, tenants wanting to vacate were blocked from doing so because there was an unpaid Rs. 500 from back in 2015. All this for Rs. 500? From way back in 2015? Why are hearing about it now? Who is this man who decided he had the authority to stop our lives for a paltry sum of 500?
There was such a man. We only know his name and from his emails which are written much like NYT cryptic crossword clues. After blocking our tenants from moving out his email said βPending dues, please clear.β Then the man disappeared into the ether. After multiple follow-ups, he came back with one nugget of information: βRs. 500β ignoring all of our other questions the most important of which was what the hell is this? We tried calling him, right from the apartment association and the phone kept ringing. βYeah, he can never be reached,β said the association manager in a tone that made me think of some dark Grand Wizard in a palace of illusion casting spells.Β Β
Hereβs a chart to confuse you more:
There is an Axis of Inept in Greenage which consists of Security, Association, and a rather pompous sounding title called Estate Manager. Trying to get them to coordinate is like having a 4-year-old child, a dog, and a chimp work together.Β
Quite recently, painters for our apartment were stuck at the gate, and Axis of Inept swung into action. Security wanted permission from the Association which needed the Estate manager to give permission. In turn, he needed this Grand Wizard (whose existence is still unknown) to validate if we had indeed made the above-mentioned payment. We had. But turns out, our grand wizard was now on vacation (or dead, who knows), and had to come back, pull up my email with the receipt, cross-check this against our dues in a database buried deep underground to the fourth decimal point, and then uncast the spell.Β
We told the painters to come another week.
Parting thoughts
Put 7500 people in one place, is bound to create a subculture of all the politics you see outside. However, the most annoying aspect of living here would be if you ever read the resident forums. The darkest threads of 4chan might leave you less disturbed. Between bitching about house help, dunking on other residents for doing something wrong, fighting over pets and children, and arguing about who threw the cigarette butt from the balcony, it is Twitter but somehow more petulant.Β
You may now have a question - why is this guy, who bought a house in Greenage, now dunking on the place? Itβs a mystery to me too. Sometimes I worry that everything that comes into contact with me is eventually just fodder for me to write stories about.
There are some positives to take away too:Β
It has a lot of space inside. Donβt step out into that service road hoping for a walk though. Β
Youβll find most needs met inside, thereβs a department store, fresh grocery, multiple gyms, pools, etc.Β
It is now well connected with a metro station right outside. Thatβs one way to avoid the puckered Bommanhalli pass.Β
It is close to some of the startup hubs like HSR or Koramangala which honestly can be a negative or a positive. Β
Last, but not least, it used to have a samosa shop inside right next to the tower I lived in. I have eaten many tasty samosas from there. And this itself, almost made up for all the other shit.Β Β
Could be Worse,
Tyag
You may also enjoy this:
You would think that once you are past the unholy nexus of traffic management, shitty roads and even shittier drivers that you can get peace and quiet but no - some or the other event happens in apartment complexes like this raising its own raucous chaos and similar messages asking to reduce volume and then of course the association - any large community has it and letβs not forget the recent Jan 22 saffron flag march across the complex
is your tenant a subscriber of your substack?