I am from Jaipur, India. Many I times I am detestful of the fact that I don't live in big cities like Mumbai or Bangalore. I don't hear of any programming meetups that happen here, neither there are any conferences, nor any startup that has bubbled up. The first thing that I want to do after my graduation is to move in to a big city because socializing with smart people is the most recurring advice I have heard for ambitious freshers.
I'm from the US, but I spent a substantial amount of time in India when I started by first company. Initially, we were outside of Bangalore (not by much), but enough that the company and I were disconnected from the city.
Around 2004 we moved the company to Bangalore, and I moved with the company.
It was the best move ever.
The cost of living is higher, it's over populated, traffic sucks, and so on in terms of problems. But it's where all of the action is and the people are.
Fast forward to 2012 and I was living 50 minutes outside of San Francisco (over the 80) and Silicon Valley (down the 680). I moved to into the valley to be in the action. Again, best move ever.
In general, go to where the action is. Your thinking on this is sound. There are smart people in Jaipur, but nothing like what you'll find in Mumbai or Bangalore.
I am curious, what were the barriers (apart from financial) like when you moved to San Francisco? This is assuming you moved your startup over to SF. I ask this since I am starting up in India, and increasingly thinking to relocate to Silicon Valley.
Mumbai is the place to be for a lot of people, but maybe not for core tech and programmers. We don't have a very strong programming community here (though we are trying to build one). We don't have as many tech events and communities as Bangalore.
Mumbai has quite a few startups, but again, there are far more in Bangalore.
And the worst thing is Mumbai is quite a bit more expensive to live. The rents are very high, probably double of the Bangalore rates. And you don't really get higher salaries to balance this out.
This has been my experience with Mumbai. You may be happy here, depending on what job you get here, and what circle of geeks and friends you find around here. In general, it is a much more happening place than Bangalore.
Edit: Obviously, both of these options are far better than Jaipur. Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi are the places to be for working in tech. You can probably add Pune, Chennai and maybe Hyderabad to that list, but that's it.
I'm going to be in Mumbai in a few weeks, then going through to Bangalore. I'd like to try to hook up with some people, go to some events and just check things out a bit.
So any tips for social events re tech/startup stuff in Mumbai would be much appreciated.
Startup Jaipur also meets physically , a little infrequently though, since December last year. And I plan to do hackthons and stuff under this (I am one of the founding members and an admin on FB), a little short on bandwidth though, would like to take the lead and try a hand?
CEO Jaipur the first co-working space for/by/of the entrepreneurs started some time back. They have space to host other events too.
Then there were some events from TIE like 'TIE mashup' that recently happened.
more events:
Bringing startup weekend to Jaipur is in process.
Overall, it's heating up but agreeably not as mature or vibrant as Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad or Pune. ( Lived and experienced the first three cities and their meetups personally.)
