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I’ve come to Bangalore to report on a number of stories, many of which will examine India’s sense of identity as it charges full steam ahead in the global economy. Bangalore–Bengaluru, as it’s now officially but not colloquially known–is, as you probably know, at the heart of India’s hi-tech boom: it’s the outsourcing city; the aeronautics city; the city of high-flying entrepreneurs and software kings. And the city works very hard to satisfy the kinds of preconceptions it’s impossible to arrive in India without.

‘Are You Planning on Outsourcing Your Engineering?’ enquires a poster immediately outside the exit from the airport terminal. It’s a question that reminds you that Bangalore, and India, is a place of possibility, potential and opportunity–for you and for the country. This is a place for meetings and deals, new ventures and fresh markets. Across the parking lot a cafe’s slogan nudges you that ‘A Lot Can Happen Over a Coffee’.

But then, on the 6 a.m. drive from the airport into the city proper–a drive that runs beneath the hulking (and hugely delayed) construction of a shiny new elevated highway–you are reminded of ‘the other India’, of the poverty and seeming chaos of Indian urban life. My eyes are drawn to a crouched mass of people assembling morning newspaper packages by the roadside; it’s hard not to think you know what this place is. Just as it’s hard not to think of India a certain way when you hear the strains of Carnatic chant across the radio, music that inevitably conjures up (to an outsider) a fuzzy sense of mysticism and spirituality.

These are all traps, as is the idea that a reporter could, on a short trip to this impossibly complex country, come to any deep understanding of it. But the sense of self-confidence India has right now is no illusion. Indians have no need of foreign journalists to come and explain their country (English ones in particular. Ahem.). So I won’t attempt to do that. Instead over the coming days I hope to meet as many people as I can and have them explain to me as much of it as possible.

Also: I popped into a local bookshop as soon as I got here. I’ve never seen such an overwhelming array of business books (they were overwhelming the shelves too, spilling out into heaps of corporate wisdom). Here are some of the titles that caught my eye, including a couple of novels.

- Inside the Chinese Business Mind

- One Night @ The Call Center

- The Great Indian MBA Dream

- An Indian in Cowboy Country