Having lived in New York for the past 17 years I have become competitive as a means of survival. In a city so beloved by so many of us resources are scarce, and seemingly more often than not, we are required to fight for what we need and want. We elbow our fellow passengers to get onto a subway car during rush hour, we set our alarms for 6 am to be the first to sign up for openplay at the baby gym so that we don’t get shut out, we kiss up to everyone and anyone to get our kids into 2’s programs and put up with group and individual interviews to get a spot, we fight over who hailed a cab first, we put down 3 months deposit on a hole-in-the-wall apartment sight unseen if it’s a good deal on rent to beat out the other renters, etc. You don’t need me to go on, you live this everyday, ridiculous as it is.

It is in the vein of competition that I would like to highlight a few ways in which Bangalore is better than Brooklyn. It’s well-known that one can get all sorts of luxuries and services for cheap in this city, but I want to go beyond the $10 US in-home massage or the full-time cook for $150 US per month. In a sense, this is my apology to India for the hundreds of times Dan and I have turned to each other during the last 10 days when a frustrating or seemingly ridiculous situation arises (like when hospital registration requires one to fill out 5 different forms, one for each family member when the only varying information is the name of each family member; or like when the nightly power outage session exactly coincides with the baby’s nightly crib vomiting session and you’re trying to clean her and the crib while holding a flashlight in your mouth because you only have 2 hands and your husband now works until 9pm; or when you have been prescribed a week’s supply of pills for your ailment by your doctor at Columbia Asia hospital, but after waiting for 30 minutes while the hospital pharmacy staff looks for the meds in the basement you are told that they only have 3 pills and is this fine?) with shoulders raised and palms up in resignation and said, “Fucking India,” which is to say, “what are you goin’ do?”

Reason 1 Bangalore beats Brooklyn:

Amazon.in: The box that my swimming goggles box was packaged in was just slightly larger than the goggles box itself instead of being the size of a refrigerator like my Brooklyn Amazon orders. Way to save the planet, Bangalore!

Reason 2 Bangalore beats Brooklyn:

Plastic: It’s outlawed. You can barely buy Ziploc or cling-wrap (believe me, I know, because for some reason this was very important for our driver to try to find for us) let alone get your groceries packaged in plastic bags. I know this plastic ban is in the works in NYC, but so far, Bangalore is in the lead. Although what I wouldn’t give for a Glad trash bag right now to put the baby’s vomit-soaked sheets in.

Reason 3 Bangalore beats Brooklyn:

Classes: Instead of signing up for a class on the second day of sign up and being told that it’s all full because everyone else had the same brilliant idea to spend $500 for a one-day a week 1 hour art class, you can just call up the instructor and are registered for a mere $30 US for 2 kids for a week-long class (and that’s a rip-off).

I’m sure there are a million other reasons that Bangalore beats Brooklyn, but at the moment I am feeling a bit resentful at the power outage and the vomiting to be any more generous with my new hometown.