While getting our pictures here, a local auto enthusiast spotted us, stopped for a chat, and snapped a selfie with the Venue before heading off. What better testimony is there to the SUV’s contemporary styling? Standing in front of the Vidhana Soudha, it looked especially pretty with its squared-off DRLs and bold silhouette.
From there I made a beeline straight for Bengaluru’s own IT hub: Electronic City. Often referred to as India’s answer to Silicon Valley, this one is among the oldest and biggest IT parks in the country. It was established in 1978 and is spread over 332 acres of land. It plays host to over 200 IT companies, including the big guns like Wipro, Infosys, HCL, and more.
The Venue with its smart BlueLink connected technology made for the most appropriate vehicle for a tour through Electronic City; a smart car to drive through one of India’s foremost tech nuclei. One thing you notice about Electronic City is that unlike the other tech cores we visited in part one of this Great India Drive, this one is enveloped in greenery. The glass facades and steel latticework of these IT buildings are hidden behind lush tree cover. From Bengaluru, we headed towards our last city on this journey: Chennai. This last leg was a fairly easy drive in comparison, just 330-odd kilometres along NH 48.
On arriving in Chennai, there were a few places I wanted to hit up. First, in sticking with this trip’s theme, I visited Chennai’s famous International Tech Park. This cutting-edge facility came about as a result of a joint venture between the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) and international property developers Ascendas-Singbridge. It started out in 2011 and today it plays host to six of the biggest names in India’s telecom industry.
