Tech and Techno
BANGALORE: SPIKING THE OLD WITH THE NEW
For decades Bangalore was a quaint city of red-tiled bungalows and green open spaces. But the tech boom of the 1990s turned it into India’s “Silicon Plateau.” Now, boxy glass and steel towers are rising beside old Greco-Roman facades. The software giant Infosys has built a majestic campus on the city’s outskirts, with manicured grass lawns skirting a tinted-glass facade.
With the influx of tech jobs have come young dot-commers—and a crop of nightclubs to entertain them. The owner of Spinn preserved his building’s colonial facade but gutted the interior to make way for a disco floor, a terrace restaurant and a bar bathed in dim blue light. At 13th Floor, patrons gaze out from a terrace while sipping vodka and rocking to a techno beat. For a more soothing night, head to one of Bangalore’s exquisite new tea bars, like Infinitea, which offers oolong on the rocks or setting saffron, a frothy cold brew. The drink, like the city itself, is a bit of old spiked with the new.
—Sudip Mazumdar