North Indian woman gives a big shoutout to her Bengaluru landlord, her regular auto driver and her Kannadiga husband and his family

Time of India

3 days ago

At a time when internet threads are brimming with harsh generalisations about communities and cities, one Reddit user is offering a rare and heartfelt counter-narrative — and it's winning hearts. A North Indian woman who moved to
Bengaluru
, fell in love with a
Kannadiga
, and eventually married one, is calling out the negativity and sharing her lived truth. Her experience? Far from alienation, she says she's been embraced by her landlord who treated her like a daughter, an auto driver who called her Thangi (sister), and an entire neighbourhood that switched languages mid-conversation just to make her feel included.
Her story began in contrast to a viral Reddit post that mocked Kannadigas. But her life in the city told her otherwise. She recalled her ex-landlord and his wife feeding her dinner thrice a week and treating her like family. On the day she moved out after her wedding, there were genuine tears, as if she were leaving her own parents behind.
Then there was Auto Anna — Dhananjay, who ferried her regularly, slowly warmed up to her, and eventually invited her to his wife's baby shower. Despite
language barriers
, the two built a bond stitched together with mutual respect and effort. 'He spoke in broken English and Hindi, and I spoke in broken English and broken
Kannada
eventually,' she noted.
Her love story with her Kannadiga manager — a fellow student from their US university — wasn't without resistance. Despite being from the same caste, their cultural differences sparked initial disapproval from both families. But in a scene worthy of cinema, his relatives travelled all the way from Bengaluru to her village in Haryana to win over her parents — and succeeded.
Today, she lives in Padmanabhanagar, where she's known as 'the only North Indian on the street,' yet has never felt like an outsider. While she still struggles with fluent Kannada, her husband's family and neighbours go out of their way to include her, often switching to English when she joins a conversation.
She has also engaged with everyday Bengaluru — BMTC buses, local vendors, and strangers for directions, and insists she's always been met with kindness. 'Maybe I'm nice to people, or maybe not,' she wrote, 'but no one was ever rude to me.' In her closing note, she reminds readers that a few bad apples don't define a community. 'We can't generalise a whole community,' she wrote. 'Rotten apples exist everywhere.'
Netizens react
Several users took to Reddit to counter the narrative that Kannadigas are unwelcoming, sharing heartfelt experiences that reflect just the opposite. One user said they're still learning Kannada but have already made close friends in the city, with one even learning the language from his office cab driver. Another shared how, after living across the north, west, and now over a decade in Bengaluru, they found Kannadigas to be among the kindest and easiest to befriend.
Many echoed similar sentiments, saying their warmest memories of Bengaluru were shaped by the city's people, not its stereotypes. One mentioned receiving more negativity from fellow North Indians for not responding in Hindi, while others recalled how they were mocked for poor Hindi in northern cities, but never faced such treatment in Bengaluru. Another, living in the city since 2015, confessed they speak Kannada like a child, yet have only been met with patience and warmth.