Hyderabad Inc

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From childhood till date, I have always looked for 'interesting' things and people as opposed to 'useful' ones. This is a lacuna in my character and the worse thing about it is that I am not ashamed of it; and happily prefer to be taunted about my uselessness by a couple of dozen members of my sober extended family.

The main reason why I stuck on to KGP like a leech for all those decades till they kicked me out is that KGP is in Bengal, and as everyone knows, Bengal and Bengalis are the most interesting things on earth.

Let me give you an example:

Indra of the Class of 98 flew straight from Calcutta to Princeton for his graduate studies. And, in his first mail to me after a stay of just one week there, he complained that all Americans are 'uneducated'...in the sense in which Om Puri lately complained of our rulers (Purisaheb retracted his statement, but so far Indra didn't his).

What bugged Indra seems to be that everyone there asked him politely during his 'orientation' where he hails from. And when Indra thumped his metaphorical chest and answered "Calcutta" in clipped tones, they turned their better ear to his side and said, "Where, where; what did you say; never heard of it...".

QED

After staying here for half a dozen years, I find Hyderabad equally interesting, if you look at it via Deccan Chronicle, and mix with the hoi polloi.

The other day I engaged an auto-rickshaw from my place to the center of the city and back...a travel of a couple of hours. The driver asked me if I had any objection if he took his friend along beside him in the driver's seat, and I said ok.

For the entire two hours the driver and his chum were talking about cheap food joints in Hyderabad contrasted with any other town in AP like Vizagh, Vijayawada, Guntur...how in this joint one gets biriyani plus roti for six rupees and how in the other you get a full meal for ten rupees, and comparing and contrasting a dozen of them with obvious relish. Note that autowallas roam around all over the twin cities and so they are the authorities on this subject. I was glued to their conversation and learned a lot and also vicariously enjoyed all those dishes...two full hours...no other topic was raised, and each was competing with the other for their high IT...this absorption in matters of cheap food never happened to me in all those scores of train journeys I had to make along the East Coast.

The place has everything from pin to elephant depending on your budget.

While booking our apartment in Nile Valley ultimately two years ago, we thought of window-shopping here and there for fun...we knew that for our measly budget the Valley of Nile was the only place...but what is the harm. After a couple of hoppings, we landed at a place which was barricaded by a tin sheet and the sentry stopped our measly-looking matchbox vintage Maruti car. And we asked him if he would allow us to visit the place. He replied that there is nothing to see inside except the Marketing Office; the buildings would take two years to come up. We said that is fine.

He then said that the starting price is Rs 5 crores and most of the bookings have been by film stars, just to frighten us. My son, being a Manager Material, said that is just fine for us...we just wanted to survey before committing...and winked. The chap smiled and permitted us to enter provided we leave our jalopy behind. All four of us trooped in and we entered the Pearly Gates of Heaven.. a really swanky centrally air-conditioned affair with fountains and mermaids swimming in them.

The whole thing was manned by half a dozen beauty queens and one of them approached my son, smiled, and pushed an application form onto his lap...and my son filled each entry by a fake name, address, take-home, and stuff and said he was a proxy for his well-to-do friend. And you know my son by now...part of his job is convincing Indra's Americans that his company's product is the best and cheapest...

The Queen gave all of us soft drinks and we left after our 'Mission Complete'.

Here is what makes Hyderabad interesting...from today's DC:

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...A fraud IT firm right in the hi-tech hub shut shop on Saturday after duping around 30,000 employees of their deposit money, ranging between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh each...the fraud was masterminded by the CEO @ Hyderabad, Head of the Vizagh branch, and Head of the Warangal branch. The trio went missing a week ago...Police suspects that the CEO might have absconded with at least Rs 15 crores collected from B Tech students and security deposits of employees...

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I guess I have a criminal bent of mind if tales of such con-artists fascinate me.

But Vinit says a propos of Teachers' Day that I am the World's Best Physics Teacher...

It figures...doesn't it?

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