In all my twenty one years of living in Andhra Pradesh, I had been to Hyderabad exactly thrice. First time to attend my EAMCET counselling. Second time to visit a cousin of mine. Third time, to work for a company out there.
In total, I had spent about a month in Hyderabad. The following experiences are basically my personal experiences. I am not generalizing anything.
Diary Note: Whoa! It’s BIG.
(later someone told me that actually there are two cities out there and a creek called Hussain Sagar. Combined, it appears really huge.)
I did not expect to have any problems communicating with the aam junta in Hyderabad. But I was surprised when I found that a good knowledge of Telugu did not help much in Hyderabad.
Diary Note: Fact of life: A Hyderabadi does not talk in Telugu.
Unfortunately, Hindi, Hindustani and Urdu were totally alien to me, thanks to a wonderful rule by His Devine Grace, NTR that had let us getaway with a bare minimal exposure to Hindi.
So I faced a severe communication problem. I had to engage the translation services of a friend of mine. He then told me that actually it was not Hindi or Urdu. It was Telugu. I was stumped totally. How could it be Telugu?
Diary Note: Hyderabadi Telugu and Nellore Telugu are poles apart.
Diary Note: English does not work.
Don’t get me wrong here. All I am saying is that, you cannot go to an Auto driver and start negotiating in English. You can do the same in Bangalore.. But Hyderabad wants you to talk in Urdu or Telangana. The middle class junta are OK in this regard. But Middle Class is the same everywhere... be it Hyderabad or Bangalore or New Delhi!
Then I went to visit the much acclaimed Charminar, a great monument constructed to fight Plague?
Diary Note: It is dirty!
Charminar area, at that time, was like an atom bomb about to explode. There was tension everywhere. The gullies were frightening and the people were rude and dangerous. It was as if I were in some other country. Perhaps the exaggeration that Hyderabadi junta always roamed around with talwaars in hand, had something to do with people in this area.
Diary Note: Avoid Charminar.. like plague
Hussain Sagar was the biggest surprise. It was a reservoir of all the dirty things in the world. And people stood on its banks and relished the foul smell. ’’That’s the only sagar we have. So we enjoy that’ My friend quipped looking at the poor Buddha which was right in the middle of that ditch.
Diary Note: The statue does not have sharp features. It may be a big one but not a good one.
We did venture into Lumbini park. It was a frustrating experience for us bachelors. The park was rated ’A’ in many circles. The rich and the poor sharing the same bushes and trees. (Sanjeevaiah Park is another one.)
Diary Note: Screw Hyderabad. Get a girl ASAP.
Tank bund was really beautiful during the nights. The crowd was also decent except for the vendors who exploited to the maximum extent a simple fact that lovers wanted to be alone. I hated these vendors.
Diary Note: Don’t stop on Necklace Road.
After that Charminar incident, I’d totally avoided the old city area. The rest of the city was OK. Good roads, fly-overs everywhere. (There was a joke about Naidu’s vision: ’’In 2020, there won’t be any roads in AP. There will only be fly-overs.’’) Great shopping complexes, and a lovely weather in winter, autumn and spring. The locals said summer was unbearable in Hyderabad but I found it good because I am from Nellore which cannot be beaten by any other town in India in this aspect. Imagine living in a town where the temperatures soar to 48 degrees celius and humidity is somewhere near 100%.
Diary Note: Gotta settle down in Bangalore or Hyderabad.
Hyderabad had a great public transportation system. I was amazed at the quality of their city buses. Push back seats, aerodynamic design, two by two seat configuration... All these in their city buses. I was dumbfounded. It was only when my friend paid ten rupees per ticket for a distance of about two kilometers, that I could understand the bigger picture.
Diary Note: Do not travel in Metroliners or Metro Express for city travel unless your uncle is reimbursing the fare.
The tourist attractions in and around Hyderabad were good but there was absolutely no greenery. If I stood on the terrace of a tall building and looked around, I would see only concrete buildings extended up to the horizon. Not a single tree.
Diary Note: Bangalore is better.
Regarding the Hyderabadis: The stinkingly rich people mingled with only stinkingly rich people. They did not even talk to the lesser mortals. The middleclass junta had no problems communicating with one another but they looked down upon the lowerclass people.
The lowerclass people (All these classes are financial) were rough, rude and arrogant. They spoke only in Urdu or that Hyderabadi language. (It is a cross between Urdu and Telangana). They did not use Telugu at all although they knew the language pretty well.
Diary Note: When two gults meet in Hyderabad, they talk in Urdu.
The railway station and the airport were surprisingly good. In fact they were just great. Naidu magic at work. If only someone could tell him that AP is not just Hyderabad.... Sigh!
Based on all these experiences and a couple of journeys from Nallakunta to Madhapur, I had decided that Hyderabad was not my cup of tea. I moved to Bangalore where I could manage without a translator.
Diary Note: Except for this language problem and the dust storms, Hyderabad is a nice city. It has its share of problems but it has a lot of nice things too.
Venu
PS: All in jest! :))