An absolute beginner’s guide to navigating the ‘PG’ scene in Bangalore

A still from the movie Queen. Photo credit: Santabanta.

There were no friends or family members happy to host me when I first arrived in Bangalore with a trunk full of books and an old backpack. My best friend’s brother had booked me a place, where I was going to be a PG – paying guest.

That was the first time I encountered the term, PG. It’s used as a noun for both the guest as well as the accommodation.

“Where do you stay?”
“In a PG near Basavanagudi.”
“Veg-aa or non-veg-aa?”
“Strictly veg, pa! You?”
“Woohoo! I am not a PG anymore – a bunch of us friends got tired of PG food and took up a flat in Banashankari on rent.”

That – more or less – is how typical conversations between newbies in the city go.

Before long, I found out that almost every working migrant in this south Indian city starts off as a PG somewhere around their workplace. It’s cheap, usually comes with food, and is the safer option. Quite like the bed & breakfast concept but for a longer duration. For landlords, it means steady, extra income with very little investment.

So public walls, bus stops, and even trees by the roadside have weird little posters and boards stuck on them advertising PG facilities in the vicinity. Most of them offer the moon – these days, free “wi-fe” (sic) is popular – and for a hapless newbie in the city, picking one is a series of tricky, tiresome trial and error experiments.

Some gems I found on Facebook.

With a dash of hyperbole, these PG adventures become great ice-breakers at parties. It was so with me, and every other migrant PG I befriended in this city.

That was years ago and I had thought it to be a non-issue by now. Imagine my surprise when I heard a friend recount some terrible PG tales of her cousin, a freshly minted journalism graduate (read poorly paid) interning with a newspaper house in Bangalore. This, in the age of startups when there’s an app for almost anything under the sun! I clucked-clucked for the benefit of any entrepreneurs eavesdropping for disruptive ideas. But the idea was already taken, I found soon enough.

Steer clear of smelly loos, cranky landlords

Sujatha Ramani and Jaya Nair.

Sujatha Ramani and Jaya Nair co-founded HomelyPG late last year to help make the search for a PG easy for youngsters. The startup lets you browse through curated PGs, look up pictures, videos, and reviews of them, and narrow down your search using parameters like your rental budget, food preferences, and location. You can chat with the landlord – to avoid unpleasant quibbles – and book the accommodation, as well as pay the advance deposit and monthly rent through the portal.

No authorized source for PG information