Beginning of the End

Last Saturday was my full last Saturday in Bangalore and we celebrated it in style. First we went to probably the coolest party I've had a chance to see here in the entire four months I was here and then we partied till dawn on my roof top. We had the necessary enhancers to make the party (trip?) very memorable. That's good, because I decided somewhere in the small hours that this would probably be my farewell party.

It's always funny when you're walking around a city for the last week. You walk around and constantly think 'this might well be the last time that I come here and do this'. It makes you really pay attention to what's going on and what had become just mundane, suddenly gets a new dimension.

How does it feel? Bitter sweet, I'd say. I've been talking about leaving this place for the last month of posts now, but it's only when it comes to the crunch that you realise what you're leaving behind. I still have no regrets about going (Bangalore should not be my home) but I'll certainly miss some places and, more importantly, some of the people that have become my friends while I've been down here. Fortunately almost everybody I know that I've come to call a friend is also leaving the city, scattering around the region and indeed the world. That way when I got somewhere new, at least I'll (hopefully) have somebody that I already know there to show me around.

What becomes interesting now is to see whether I can build up a network of friends and acquaintances as quickly in the next place as I did over here. Truth be told, there were certain elements in my favour here that I might not have in the next place. First off all, the first guy I met (I talked about him at length a couple of months ago) really helped me by connecting me to dozens, if not hundreds, of people. In the literature about social networking that I've been looking at they call this type of a person a 'connector'. Some people just have an ability to keep a much larger social network than the average person. I'm hoping to become one of these people, but for right now I need to use those types of people to build up a network quickly.

So will I meet another connector in the next place I go? Let's wait and see. I'm definitely going to try. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed hitting a city not knowing anybody and within a few months having a phone book that's bursting at the seams. Not only do I enjoy it, but it has been tremendously helpful. I wouldn't have got even close to finishing this short if it wasn't for the huge number of people that I could ask for advice and aid.

I'm nervous and excited, both about the filming (this Thursday) and the road trip (this Saturday). I just hope there's nothing to be nervous about and everything to be excited about. Ultimately, of course, that's all my own responsibility.