About Bengaluru (Bangalore)

According to the guidebooks, Bengaluru means something like "town of boiled beans," a name supposedly bestowed on the city in ancient times after an old village woman shared her food with a lost and hungry king. The British changed the name to Bangalore but in 2006 the name was formally changed back to Bengaluru. In practice, both names are frequently used, Bangalore more than Bengaluru. Unless you're trying to book an airline ticket or something, in which case the website may tell you there are no matches for Bangalore. The Times of India uses Bangalore on its masthead, the Deccan Herald uses Bengaluru. The city has grown exponentially, from 600,000 at Independence (1947) to 7-8 million today. Street addresses, when they are used, are very confusing. The city neighborhoods are divided into "blocks" - for example we live in Koramangala, Block 4. There's also a Block 1, a Block 1A, Block 2, etc. Streets are named either after the width of the road (we live just off 80 Feet Road) or after the position relative to the major road (if you can tell which is the major road in that neighborhood). For example, there's a 1st Cross, 2nd Cross, sometimes a 2A Cross, etc., but also Mains - 1st Main, 2nd Main, etc. - and lots of subdivisions like 8A Main, 8B Main, etc. Here's the tricky part - the same names are used in the different blocks. So there's a 1A Cross that intersects with a 1A Cross, one is the 1A Cross in the 5th Block of Koramangala and the other is the 1A Cross in the 7th Block of Koramangala. As I walk around I find this extremely confusing. There are no signs that tell me when I've left the 5th Block and moved into the 7th Block. So I may be watching the street names (when I can find them, street signs aren't that common) and I think I'm headed in the right direction and I will eventually hit the address I'm trying to find and then I realize I've crossed the border and am in a different Block, so I'm not where I was trying to get after all. The rate of growth has made it difficult to obtain accurate maps - we have several and they're quite inconsistent. Try to imagine a city of more than 7 million people and a few hundred street names in total! Interesting, eh? Or maybe there are more than a few hundred names, but there may also be a few hundred different streets in different neighborhoods, all named 1st Cross. I was looking up some businesses earlier this week, and I found the following listed as the complete address for the business - "Door 107, 1st Floor, Bangalore." And yet if you ask people who live here, they can usually tell you where to find the address you're looking for. I don't understand how they do it.