My Trip to Hyderabad in 2011

It was one of those long weekends in Bangalore in the year 2011 when I decided to take a quick trip to Hyderabad. I was new in Bangalore and it had been some time since I joined my finance job. At that point of time I was wondering whether I should pursue a CFA program and who better to consult than my college super-senior Swami who was in the same domain in Hyderabad. I booked the train tickets quickly and left for the City of Nawabs..

Once I was out of the station of the Twin City, I boarded the bus to land at my friend Sandeep’s place. Now, Hyderabad buses are one of the oldest buses you would have seen in your life. In fact, the speed at which the bus was running could more or less be determined by the noise caused inside the bus because of loose parts. That said, the bus fare was considerably lower than that in Bangalore. I just hope the status of buses would have got upgraded by now.

Swami had asked me to meet at NTR Marg. We reached the place well in advance and were strolling on the road. The date was 09-Sept-2011 and Ganesh Pooja had just ended. The process of ‘Murti Visarjan’ was in full swing and therefore a bit of road was blocked as well . In ‘Murti Visarjan’ the idols prepared in festivals are supposed to be immersed in water bodies once the festival gets over. Now, I have been seeing this immersion happening in my hometown Gorakhpur since my childhood and I used to be surprised as I didn’t like the way they took the the idols to the bank of Rapti river and push it to the water. I somehow, found it little disrespectful towards Gods.

On querying elders, I got to know that the idols are supposed to be carried on the boat to the centre of the water body and it should be gently left to immerse over there. Probably, what forced the people to immerse idols just like that is the number of idols outnumbering the boats to a great extent, Worse, following the immersion, the local swimmers would dive in the water and snatch whatever jewellery they can from the gods. Yes, those jewellery are artificial ones but even they fetch the swimmers some value. Here in Hyderabad, fortunately the immersion was happening with the help of a crane (Fig 1.0). Another fact is that idols were supposed to be made of clay and with the help of natural colors and therefore once immersed in water will not deteriorate the quality of water. Now-days, the idols are made of plaster of paris and along with it, the artificial colors make the water toxic which is an unhealthy practice.

Once we had a brief view of Ganesh Visarjan, we went to explore T Anjaiah Lumbini Park. The park was sufficiently big and colorful for the children to play around. There are much bigger parks in Bangalore but there was something different in this park; be it the number of swings, the waterfall (to click photos), the laser show or the boat trip to Gautam Buddha Statue in the middle of Hussain Sagar, one of the largest man-made lakes. There was a long revolving tower on which we took a ride. It went to the maximum height. The three dots kind-of things in the photo (Fig 1.1) were the baskets we sat in and therefore the height of these towers can be assumed. The ride was quite unique an experience!

We met Swami in the NTR Gardens which was at a walking distance from this park and was similar and bigger to Lumbini park. The evening was spent in the market around the world famous Charminar. This was very similar to the old market of any city and you can get a good deal if you negotiate. I bought an informal belt which is used till date. The language you come across in Hyderabad apart from Telugu is a unique dialect of Urdu called Hyderabadi Urdu. Hindi and Urdu (spoken in India) don’t have much difference apart from their vocabulary and generally one who speaks one can understand the other. I found it funny (no offence intended) the way they speak Urdu over there. For example, ‘Why’ is ‘Kyon’ in Hindi while in Hyderabadi Urdu it is ‘Kayku’ but the drag with which it is spoken seems funny.

While the majority is a Hindu population, the Muslim population is a huge minority and therefore is the prevalence of Urdu in language and Nonveg in food. I was a vegetarian (with my friend Sandeep who is a permanent vegetarian) those days and we went to a Chinese restaurant. We didn’t taste Biryani over there. Yes! You read that write. Neither did we taste Biryani nor we dealt in pearls. Hyderabad is so much more beyond Biryani and pearls. By the way, one plate biryani has so much quantity in Hyderabad that it is generally sufficient for two people.

Next day, Sandeep had already booked a Qualis to visit the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam. We started at 0700 hours and there were nine people (excluding the driver). Now ten people in a Qualis is quite a crowd but that was its own kind of fun. The seating arrangement was 3 people each on front and middle seats, and 4 people on the dual seats in the third row facing each other. The dam was some 140 kms away from our location and I was calculating in my mind that it would take 4-5 hours (including breaks) to go there. After spending around 2 hours over there we would be back in 5 hours. Having started at 0700 hours we would be easily back in the evening and I could catch my scheduled trains at 2100 hours. But destiny had something else in its mind. Having crossed some 120 kms in 4 hours we faced a massive traffic jam. We were not much sure of the reason behind the jam but Ganesh-Visarjan could have been one of the reasons.

Jam, jam and traffic jam. Fortunately, ours was a Qualis where the back door can be opened upwards (unlike Tata Sumo). It was around 12 noon and was pretty hot. Qualis was crawling like a snail and by keeping the back door open we were getting fresh air and the following auto-rickshaw was getting a shade (of the back door) as well. That was the longest period of time I had ever experienced a traffic jam. So, to cover the initial 120 kms we took 4 hours and to cover the rest of the 20 kms we took another 2 hours. My train scheduled at 2100 hours, was hardly leaving my mind running thoughts of different probabilities.

It was a strange arid road with no food-stalls, drinking water etc. We took a sigh of relief on reaching the Natural fountain (We had left the artificial dam at the place where the jam started). Extremely hungry and thirsty we had the exorbitant, tasteless egg-biryani over the only food counter over there. The fountain was ok. Since I was the only person who had to be in the city before 2100 hours, after spending around one hour over there I prodded Sandeep to ask everybody else to come back for the return journey. Somehow, I had the feeling that jam would be less on the way back.

I don’t know why carrying water didn’t come in anybody’s mind while starting from the Natural fountain. We again got stuck in the traffic and there was nothing except the omnipresent Airtel network and vehicles. All of us became thirsty and we desperately needed water. We asked the driver to come on his own and started walking on the road. We walked some 3-4 kms until we came across a hand-pump. I don’t know how much water I drank at that point of time. By now it was already 2000 hours and I understood that I will miss my train. We had a good view of the dam in the evening and had some food nearby. I asked the driver to drop me at the Bus Stand since since it was already 0000 hours and I knew that there were no train / private bus at that point of time.

The next bus to Hyderabad was at 0630 hours next day and fortunately the bus stand had a dormitory. I got the top bed of the unusually high bunker bed. Once I was flat, the distance between the fan and my body was so less that if I had raised my hand straight, it would have got hit by the fan. Thanks to the tiring day, I had a sound sleep that night. Next morning, I boarded the bus and enjoyed one of the best highways from Hyderabad to Bangalore.