Bangalore Local and Urban Façade Federation (BLUFF), a visionary agency known for its groundbreaking commitment to solving problems nobody asked it to solve, has proposed an unprecedented solution to the city’s monsoon-induced identity crisis — submerging the entire tech capital and officially rebranding it as India’s first underwater IT city.
At a press conference conducted waist-deep in stagnant water outside Majestic bus station, BLUFF chairperson Arvind Tapolia (who now prefers the title “Chief Fluid Dynamics Visionary”) unveiled the $4.7 billion plan titled Project Neeraj 2040: Dive Into the Future. Flanked by soggy blueprints and a PowerPoint presentation that had short-circuited halfway through, Tapolia boldly declared, “Bengaluru has been drowning accidentally for years. We propose to do it intentionally. This is not failure; this is foresight.”
Critics of Bengaluru’s infamous infrastructure – which has historically struggled to distinguish between rainwater and road – were temporarily stunned into silence, mostly because they were coughing up chlorinated puddle water from last night's unexpected cloudburst. But BLUFF insists the proposal will not only address the annual monsoon traffic swimming championship, it will transform Bengaluru into “India’s Venice meets Silicon Valley meets Finding Nemo.”
Fluid Logic and Log-in Lanes
The proposal outlines transforming every street into “AquaCommute Channels,” where IT employees can paddle to co-working pods using personal kayaks provided by their startups. “We will replace Uber with ScUber,” said BLUFF’s Deputy Director of Immersive Transit, Ms. Prema Bubblewale. “And yes, surge pricing will now depend on actual water pressure levels, not demand.”
All future tech campuses will be required to be waterproof, snorkel-accessible, and jellyfish-resistant. The Outer Ring Road will become the Inner Coral Reef. Indiranagar’s bars are to remain as-is, as they’re already 80% humidity by volume. And Whitefield? “That’s already a marshland with 5G,” BLUFF confirmed. “We’ll just add dolphins and call it a habitat.”
Additionally, Infosys and Wipro have reportedly been approached to pilot the Aquatic Interface Taskforce (AIT), which will train employees to code while scuba-diving. "If they can debug while holding their breath, they’re truly passionate engineers,” Tapolia said, proudly pointing to a training centre designed like an escape room filled with submerged servers and emotionally unavailable team leads.
BYO Oxygen Mask
Employees will receive snorkels with attached biometric sensors. “This is not just about surviving,” insisted BLUFF’s Underwater Livability Czar, Ganesh H2Only. “It’s about thriving. Imagine debugging your boss’s poorly documented legacy code while an octopus watches. That’s true productivity.”
When asked about concerns over employee safety, Tapolia waved a damp brochure titled Hydro-HR: A Water-Based Approach to Workplace Wellness, featuring tips such as “Drink from your environment” and “If your laptop floats away, it wasn’t meant to be.”
To incentivise buy-in, BLUFF is reportedly offering tax-free seaweed-based salaries and has already filed for approval from the Central Bureau of Urban Absurdity (CBUA), which has responded with a polite, “Wait, what?”
Leaky Promises and Liquid Incentives
Opposition parties have demanded to know why funds aren't being directed toward fixing existing drainage systems, building sustainable infrastructure, or at least ensuring that roads remain distinguishable from rivers. “Because,” responded BLUFF’s Chief Displacement Theorist, “It’s easier to submit to nature than fight it. That’s what spiritual surrender looks like. This is not escapism. This is a startup pivot.”
A leaked internal memo obtained by Faking Daily Staff also revealed BLUFF’s five-phase plan:
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Submerge
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Rebrand
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Ignore criticism
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Blame climate change
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Apply for UN Heritage Status
In a PowerPoint slide labelled “Wet Dreams of Development,” the city’s IT grid was shown to integrate seamlessly with aquatic topography. “We will be the Maldives of Machine Learning,” BLUFF promised, “with a touch of Vishakhapatnam.”
Asked about the costs of waterproofing 36,000 km of optic fibre, Tapolia shrugged and muttered, “It’s okay, most of it doesn't work during the monsoon anyway.”
Criticism Sinks, BLUFF Floats
While environmentalists are baffled, economists are intrigued. Professor A.C. Chiller from the Institute of Macroeconomically Dubious Ideas (IMDI) believes this could boost Bengaluru’s GDP by 0.0003% through global marine tech tourism. “It’s either this or repairing potholes, and we know which one looks better on a TEDx stage,” he said while sipping algae juice at an artisanal hydro-bistro in Koramangala.
An informal survey conducted by Faking Daily on an inflatable raft floating near Bellandur Lake (now rechristened “Liquid Tech Hub”) found that 63% of respondents thought the idea was “mad,” 20% said “mildly eccentric,” and the rest thought they were dreaming due to inhaling too much damp fungus from their home office walls.
BLUFF has also launched an awareness campaign called “Shed Your Inhibitions, Embrace Immersions”, featuring life-sized cutouts of BLUFF executives in wetsuits high-fiving stingrays. The city’s radio stations are now required to play aqua-themed songs on loop, including remixes of Under Pressure, Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, and Tip Tip Barsa Paani with artificial intelligence-generated sitar solos.
Ministerial Support and Submarine Shuttles
Minister of Technological Upliftment and Spiritual Hydraulics, Nagesh Kumar Jalnath, has expressed full support for the project. Speaking from a lotus-shaped pedal boat, he said, “This is Make In India meets Make It Float. Global investors want novelty. Bengaluru will become the startup aquarium of South Asia.”
Asked if the plan included provisions for the common citizen who neither codes nor floats, Jalnath suggested they could become “aquatic facilitators” — a new employment category that includes seaweed farming, fish-messaging services, and underwater chai stalls.
“Even fishermen in the city’s future will be expected to have LinkedIn profiles,” he confirmed, adding that the Ministry has already signed an MoU with Shark Tank India to provide venture capital to mermaid-led startups.
Schools and Sacred Drainage
Education boards are reportedly adapting quickly. Karnataka’s education ministry has introduced Hydro-Curriculum 2025, replacing Physical Education with Aquatic Agility Studies and Sanskrit shlokas with whale song appreciation.
Temples have embraced the transition too, with several pujaris performing virtual aartis on inflatable mandirs. The BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) is working closely with the spiritual tech firm MokshaFlow to digitise water offerings via QR-encoded coconuts.
Meanwhile, primary school children will be trained in dolphin-assisted morning assembly, and virtual swimming attendance will be linked with Aadhaar-finned cards. Those without proper waterproof documents will be offered temporary floating citizenship in the “Blue Collar Bubble,” a co-living, co-floating setup moored near Ulsoor Lake.
Legacy Infrastructure Now Cultural Heritage
What was once considered civic negligence is being rebranded as ‘accidental cultural heritage.’ “Our roads are not broken,” declared Tapolia. “They are naturally evolving into rivers. This is organic city planning.”
Old, crumbling flyovers will be left submerged and renamed as “subaquatic monuments.” M.G. Road is to be preserved as a UNESCO Non-Motorable Wet Zone. Metro lines are to be equipped with glass bottoms to allow commuters to enjoy views of office chairs, scooters, and lost Flipkart parcels floating gently below.
To monetise this aquatic transformation, BLUFF has signed an MoU with several influencers for underwater selfie zones, including the now-famous #MonsoonMocha café chain, where every cup of coffee comes with a free squirt of chlorinated groundwater.
Bengaluru to Become ‘Bay Area’
As the city prepares to redefine itself as the “Bay Area” of the Deccan plateau, reports indicate that real estate developers have already started listing “waterfront tech condos” with kayak parking and “submersible security.”
Bengaluru’s startup community has responded with characteristic optimism. Multiple hydra-themed apps have launched overnight — from Floatr (a dating app for scuba coders) to Slackcurrent (a real-time monsoon log management tool that leaks only occasionally). Meanwhile, a startup claiming to offer “cloud-based oxygen” secured ₹17 crore in pre-seed funding without a working prototype.
At the BLUFF office, staff members were last seen holding brainstorming sessions in inflatable tubs filled with lukewarm tap water, sipping chai from thermally sealed coconuts and debating whether the metro dolphin mascot should wear goggles or Ray-Bans.
By mid-2030, Bengaluru is expected to be the only city in the world where one can hold a board meeting, attend a DJ night, and drown in a developer backlog — all underwater and on the same street.
FD Staff has confirmed a follow-up proposal is in the works: converting potholes into koi fish therapy tanks and renaming Bangalore Mirror as Bangalore Reflects — to better capture the city’s new identity as the nation’s most buoyantly broken promise.