In parts of Bengaluru, the southern India city and tech hub, you could be mistaken for believing you were in Palo Alto. The campuses for tech behemoths like Google and Microsoft, or Wall Street majors including Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, feature multi-cuisine canteens, crèches and gyms much like their counterparts in New York or San Francisco.
But any confusion about geography would dissipate on the typical weekday commute, when it can take almost four hours to drive along the nine-mile stretch of road where some of the world’s largest multinationals have their offices.
And unlike in Silicon Valley, these swanky world-class offices lack access to piped water. While most of these campuses have built water conservation units, they have to rely on a network of truck-mounted water tankers every day to fulfil the needs of the area’s million or so employees.