Bengaluru Days & Silicon Dreams – Fifteen Tales from the Garden City’s Beating Heart

Bengaluru.

The city of gardens that now wears a crown of glass towers. The land where filter coffee meets cold brew, where heritage homes stand beside luxury apartments, and where the monsoon makes traffic jams almost poetic.

Bengaluru Days & Silicon Dreams, the second book in my Heartbeats of India Series, is my love letter to this ever-changing city. It’s a collection of fifteen short stories that dive deep into the lives of its people—dreamers, hustlers, romantics, loners, techies, street vendors, poets, and everyone in between.

From the quiet lanes of Malleswaram to the buzzing chaos of Whitefield, from Metro rides filled with fleeting glances to the timeless calm of Ulsoor Lake, these stories explore love, loss, hope, heartbreak, and humour in equal measure. Each chapter is a little window into Bengaluru’s soul—sometimes misty with nostalgia, sometimes bright with ambition, sometimes heavy with secrets, and sometimes light enough to make you smile at a stranger.

Why I wrote this book

I’ve always believed that a city is more than its skyline—it’s the sum of its stories. And Bengaluru has no shortage of them. Over the years, I’ve met countless people whose lives carry the pulse of the city, each with a tale that could make you laugh, cry, or pause and think. This book is my attempt to capture those fleeting human moments before they vanish into the city’s constant rush.

What you can expect

You’ll meet a retired army officer who finds healing by a lake, a group of misfits whose Sunday book club hides more than just literature, a tech start-up founder chasing funding and love in equal measure, a chaiwala who dispenses life advice better than any CEO, and many more unforgettable characters.

The stories are not about the Bangalore you see on postcards—they’re about the one you live in. The one where you curse the traffic but still call it home. The one where every corner shop has a story, and every drizzle smells like hope.

For lovers of India’s heartbeat

If you enjoyed Maximum City, Minimum Time—my Mumbai tales—you’ll feel right at home here. And if you’ve never been to Bengaluru, this book might just make you want to pack a bag and catch the next flight (or at least the next overnight train).

So pour yourself a hot cup of filter coffee, curl up by a window, and let me take you on a journey through fifteen slices of life in the Garden City—each with its own flavour, rhythm, and heartbeat.

📖 Available now on Kindle and paperback. Part of the Heartbeats of India Series – capturing 100 cities, one story at a time. https://amzn.to/4n4gghx