Finding Spots in a new city

Cities can only be discovered when you explore them alone. Exploring them with others adds the pressure of preferences and choices. I like ABC but don't like to go to XYZ. A major difference between Indian and North American cities is the incentives to spend. Want to meet a friend? Hang out at a bar. Want to even meet a friend? Travel by car and you end up buying a bottle of wine for the friend; Indian cities have plenty of options where spending isn't an option: meet friends on street corners, playgrounds or outside crowded stations after work.

Poulomi Das, a critic put it well in an article on Alps closing in Bombay:- It’s partly why I think Bombay is the kind of city where people readily carve a room in their lives for places – rickety single-screen theatres, Irani restaurants, and unadorned watering holes – that ask nothing out of them. Essentially places that, unperturbed by servicing hipster trends, serve as reminders that you don’t need to go out just for going out’s sake. It’s also the reason people here tend to take the shuttering of restaurants, theatres, bars, and the auctioning of music stores that have stood the test of time as if it is a personal failing.A place is serving you, and you aren't making a place is key here.

North American cities, on the other hand, ask an immigrant of many things: constantly adjust and relearn to a non-singular culture, constantly spend to move forward and buying a car. I wish 15 minute cities become a reality in the 21st century:- where everything you need is within a 15 minute radius.

PS- A found spot of mine in Bombay is Cafe Dela Paix in Girgaon.