Bengaluru: 72 hours at South Asia’s Silicon Valley
Bengaluru’s technology campuses first drew my attention. Its old forts, shaded streets, local food and lively evenings gave me more to explore during a three-day stay
The traffic was barely moving, which gave me plenty of time to look at the buildings.
Beyond the buses, auto-rickshaws and motorcycles stood the campuses I had come to Bengaluru to see. Company names I recognised from screens appeared above guarded entrances. Around them, people carrying laptop bags hurried to work, stopped for breakfast and waited to cross the road. India's Silicon Valley was getting on with its day.
I had read about India's technology industry for years. But travelling through the places where it operates felt different.
Coming from Bangladesh, I tried to see Bengaluru through a wider South Asian lens. Here was a city in our own region that had become a major centre for the global technology industry.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
A city of technology districts
Electronic City made the name feel almost literal. Established in 1978, the industrial area houses companies including Infosys, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Siemens and HP. It is not just a group of offices with a big signboard. Many businesses have grown there over decades.
As I moved through the area, I kept trying to understand how big it really was. There were entrances that seemed to belong to institutions rather than ordinary offices. Buildings stood behind boundaries, while outside, traffic and roadside businesses continued with their own working day.
What impressed me was not one particularly beautiful tower. It was the repetition. Company after company. Another stretch of the city organised around technology.
Whitefield, a major technology and residential area in eastern Bengaluru, gave me a better sense of how big the industry is. As I moved through the area, I kept trying to take in the size of the office buildings. The International Tech Park Bangalore alone covers 69 acres, with offices, a shopping mall, a hotel and other facilities. There was much more to the place than office space.
I also visited Mahadevapura, another area in eastern Bengaluru with large technology parks, including Bagmane World Technology Centre. Visiting both areas helped me understand how spread out Bengaluru's technology industry is. Each place was only part of a much bigger picture. I had read about the industry for years, but travelling through these neighbourhoods gave those reports some meaning. I could now picture the places behind the company names and export figures.
These areas are spread out. Visiting them also means becoming acquainted with Bengaluru's traffic.
As a Dhaka resident, I could hardly act surprised.
More than an outsourcing address
The industry is still growing.
In February 2025, Google unveiled Ananta, a major new campus in Bengaluru. With its flowing façade and glass that adjusts its tint, the building is one example of the investment global companies are making in the city. LinkedIn, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta also have offices and engineering teams here. Google described Ananta as one of its most ambitious purpose-built developments.
Reading about it added context to what I was seeing. These were not merely overseas sales offices with a few desks. Bengaluru had become a place where international companies were prepared to establish substantial, long-term operations.
There is also the startup side. In Startup Genome's 2025 ranking, the city rose seven places to 14th among the world's leading startup ecosystems. For someone arriving from Dhaka, it was a reminder that this was a city competing not only within India but internationally.
I stayed in Koramangala, a residential and commercial neighbourhood in Bengaluru. Its cafés and small local businesses felt very different from the giant technology campuses I visited.
Some people come to work for an established company. Others hope to build one.
For me, that was more interesting than simply collecting photographs of famous logos. What happens when skilled people, employers, universities and investors are close enough to keep finding one another?
Another question came into my mind: what would it take for more young Bangladeshis to find comparable opportunities at home?
The boom had a long beginning
Bengaluru did not become a technology centre by putting up modern buildings first.
The Indian Institute of Science was established in 1909, through the efforts of Jamsetji Tata, the Mysore royal family and the Government of India. Electronic City followed much later, in 1978. Those dates show how many decades it took to build the industry.
That was perhaps the most useful thought I carried from the tech areas. A campus is visible. The years required to train people, support research and build professional networks are much harder to photograph.
The city itself is older still. Kempe Gowda I established a fortified town here in 1537; a British cantonment developed outside the old town from 1809. Bengaluru had already lived several lives before becoming associated with software.
A break among forts and palaces
At Bangalore Fort, I exchanged the scale of the tech campuses for thick stone walls and a much smaller surviving piece of the old city. The fort began as Kempe Gowda's mud fort in 1537 and was later rebuilt in stone under Hyder Ali.
Nearby, Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace offered a quieter stop. Its timber pillars, arches and balconies drew my attention to individual details after the huge buildings of the tech districts. Completed in 1791, the palace made the city's eighteenth-century history feel less distant.
Bangalore Palace brought another change of scene. Its Tudor-style towers and turrets had a distinctly European appearance. I stopped to look at the façade, thinking how differently each period had expressed its wealth and power through buildings. Bengaluru's modern offices were simply the latest additions to a much older architectural story.
The city after office hours
Beyond the companies, I began to understand some of its everyday appeal.
The September weather felt wonderfully comfortable. Bengaluru sits roughly 900 metres above sea level on the Deccan Plateau. I did not experience it as a city without heat or humidity, but walking outside felt less exhausting than I was used to.
Bengaluru's appeal to the young began to make more sense: the possibility of a career, certainly, but also friends, music and somewhere to spend an evening after work.
Its beauty often appeared between buildings. A spreading tree, a shaded residential street, greenery softening another busy junction. That was the Bengaluru I wanted to linger in after looking at offices.
Food provided another reason to stop. Crisp dosa, soft idlis, chutney, biriyani and hot filter coffee offered a welcome change of pace. These are familiar parts of the city's food culture, far removed from corporate presentations about innovation.
The people made the place feel larger than its geography. Bengaluru draws workers from across India. That diversity helps explain its varied food and everyday encounters, although its cosmopolitan character does not erase its Kannada roots.
Its international connections also predate technology. Agha Aly Asker, a nineteenth-century horse trader from Shiraz, settled here; his grandson, Sir Mirza Ismail, became Dewan of Mysore. Much later, Iranian students established a presence in neighbourhoods including Kammanahalli and Banaswadi. These were separate chapters, but both reminded me that people had been travelling here in search of opportunity long before the software boom.
When the city turns up the volume
By night, Koramangala had a different kind of energy. The office campuses had impressed me with their size; the streets around the pubs pulled me in with their noise and movement. Music spilled through open doors, bright signs competed for attention, and groups of friends gathered outside, deciding where to go next.
This was the Bengaluru party scene I had heard about. Its mix of pubs, breweries and clubs has made Koramangala one of the city's established nightlife areas.
The reputation has travelled well beyond India. Time Out placed Bengaluru 17th in its 2026 list of the world's best cities for nightlife, published on 26 August. Based on residents' responses and expert votes, the list selected one city per country. Bengaluru's street life and casual bars were particular favourites among those surveyed.
In Koramangala, pubs and bars fill Jyoti Nivas College Road and the nearby lanes in 5th Block. Watching the neighbourhood stay so lively close to 1am, I could understand the appeal.
What stayed with me was how much of the evening happened outside the venues. People laughed on the pavement, took photographs and paused for food. Every time a door opened, another burst of music reached the street. Even close to 1am, the area still felt full of young people reluctant to call it a night.
After a day spent looking at workplaces, I enjoyed watching a city make room for pleasure. Bengaluru's appeal to the young began to make more sense: the possibility of a career, certainly, but also friends, music and somewhere to spend an evening after work.
I stayed a bit longer. Another group arrived, someone waved to a friend across the road, and the music carried on.
