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.
Best of luck to you.
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.
So any tips for social events re tech/startup stuff in Mumbai would be much appreciated.
After that I go on a proper vacation.
I asked the same question on HN 1450 days ago, see the responses I got: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=916622
Jaipur may not be the best place to start at this point in time but it definitely seem to have some future promises to offer.
I would like to bring to your notice that Entrepreneurship/Startup radar has picked up in Jaipur lately. Several events, groups have come up:
Some examples are:
groups:
startup jaipur: https://www.facebook.com/groups/jaipurtechies/
ceo jaipur: https://www.facebook.com/CeoJaipur
startup saturday jaipur: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ssjaipur/
events:
Startup saturday event is happening every month
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.)
I am from Jaipur too and I run a startup ( http://startuplabs.io/ ) here.
Let me know if you would like to meetup and hangout.