A Tale of Many Cities - Part II

The dice has been cast; the first Blog of the series has been written.

Writing is perhaps the most cathartic activities. When we write about a place, we travel back in time; bring to life the long forgotten sights and sounds; re-live the joys; explore the place again. Writing the previous blog turned out to be the best thing I have done for myself in a long time. It gave me refreshed perspective on a lot of things.

"A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." John Steinbeck

"Hey Guy this quote gives me the license to meander on becoz writing is a journey!!"

Writing about Hyderabad made me think about why I love the city like I do. The answer was not in the infrastructure of the city, the eating joints or the job opportunities it provides. (It all helps). The answer was more basic. To me Hyderabad was freedom; it was self - discovery for it was Hyderabad where I was on my own for the first time in my life. It was exhilarating. I was all enthusiasm and eagerness. Ready to take on the world. I remember waking up early and then remembering well there was no one waiting for you to wake up and then going back to a blissful sleep. Doing all the crazy harmless things that Mom and Dad would not let you do; something stupid like eating the "Thanda" and "Garam" together. Making decisions and feeling important. Going for long rides in the rains. Crossing important milestones like watching a movie in the Midnight or the 9 -12 PM show and that also in an all girls gang. Aptly, the first movie I watched in this show was "Hyderabad Blues". I know it might seem like a trivial thing particularly to the guys but it is not something my parents will let me do. India unfortunately is still such a place where girls can not take freedom and security for granted all the times. You can not be Bindaas in most of the places.

I know this might sound strange but as I move southwards I feel more and more secure. And before any North - Indian takes offense I just want to say I am a North Indian and this is just my personal opinion. I do not know what the Statistics say but I feel a lot safer in the streets of Hyd than Delhi. I remember reading an article by Shobhaa De in some newspaper ages ago. I remember nothing but this one line "What is it about Delhi that makes you stick out your elbows in the public places and be on a watch" or something to a similar effect. I completely identify with it. I have had a touch- and -go affair with Delhi. My hometown is Chandigarh and every time we would go there for summer holidays from Dad's place of posting we would pass through Delhi. And then I have been there for short intervals also on other occasions. I have never liked Delhi. Traveling in Delhi's buses is a nightmare for any girl. It is like being on a perpetual alert. Body tensed, eyes darting, arsenal ready (Bags, heels and any heavy object), "Do Not mess with me" look perfected and tongue sharpened for the poor guys who just can not help demonstrating the effects of gravity and perhaps the only people who are members of the "We Want Potholes" committee. (Now you know who funds these potholes!!). I just can not help comparing this with the discomfort - less journey in Hyd buses most of the times. Though, I must add it has been some time since I last traveled in buses. The good thing here is that someone in a rare show of intelligence has reserved the anterior half of the Bus for the ladies and there is a clear division of areas. But it is the Madrasi buses which take the cake. (Sorry Chennai Folks). Someone again had the intelligent idea of reserving space for ladies but they reserved one side of the bus for them and the result is really really bad. (Talking about ten years back, no idea about Chennai buses now). Chennai perhaps has the worst eve-teasing gangs I have seen. Have you guys seen the crowds outside the girl’s colleges in Chennai? It is mad or at least used to be.

In my Opinion, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore are perhaps haven for single girls. In Hyderabad, I have done a lot of crazy stuff including driving alone for 3-4 Kms at 1:30 in the night. I would not have dared something like this in a city like say Delhi. I have friends who have done these kinds of things very frequently. My Bindaas friends are all for crazy things and they say it is all about your Attitude. But I take a more cautious approach even at a risk of seeming a coward but Eve-teasing and Crime against Women is a very serious thing for me. Aggressive Attitude can not always save you. I am not saying that we women are helpless but being careful aint a bad thing.

Looking at cities from this perspective, Hyderabad and Pune are totally rocking. You can wear what you want to, do what you want to, be free as a bird and just be totally relaxed. Nobody bothers you or even gives you a second glance. Again for those who stay on the other side of the seven seas and for the guys this is a very taken for granted thing but it is a precious commodity here and I value it. Unwanted attention can freak you out at times; like it does when I go to Chandigarh to meet my parents.

And coming back to what I wrote previously about enjoying the little freedoms when I first came to Hyderabad. Years have passed and things have come back to a full circle. After sometime I stopped enjoying my little freedoms and I wanted someone to say "Beta, eating Maggi everyday is not good for your health" (I love Maggi!!).I missed the playful scoldings, mom shouting after me as I leave without having my breakfast. The fuss, the concern, the restrictions, the small things.

"A child on a farm sees a plane fly by overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of home".


Life is strange, Life goes on...

A Tale of Many Cities

Well, well here we are. Tighten your seat belts or maybe you should not and just relax. It is one long journey. It has been my intention for some time now to blog about the places I have been to, places I have lived in. SSM (God Bless U!) has asked me a couple of times to continue my blog about his beloved Chennai. I even went ahead and posted a Prequel to the series. Ha! And what did I write after that? Nothing (Well thatz NOT the way to go, Babe).

I thought that I had thought of everything. A nice orderly chronological series About few of the places I have been to. Perceptions, impressions, history and all that jazz!! But well you know what they say about men's best laid plans. My fingers are ready to fly as I sit cross-legged on my office chair ready to take advantage of my boss absence and blog on. Well and then I open the can of memories. But hey guys what's this mucky yuck mixed - up thing inside? Where's the order ; where the chronology? Uff how am I supposed to write? Guys I wanted to give you a series but I dish up a Khichdi (An Indian dish made of rice and lentils cooked with garden fresh vegetables and aromatic spices on a low flame with pure ghee - uff I think all the posh restaurants put in more effort on writing the menu card then in actually preparing the dishes. I once ordered an appetizer with a great description and it turned out to be Mirchi BhAjji!!).


Year: 2005. The place is Hyderabad. I guess right now it is one of the most happening cities in India. The pace of development is phenomenal in the Indian context. I have been here for six and half years now and I have actually seen it transform from a sleepy laid - back city to one rocking place. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the pace of construction activity here. I have lost count of how many new buildings I have seen coming up in the past few years. Most of the small shops and general stores/ the kirana stores on the main roads have been pulled down and voila you have the shopping malls/Multiplexes/Big showrooms there. You do not even notice it until you are driving past it one day and you say "Hey this mall was not there. When did it come up?" And then you think hard to figure out what used to be there. The Banjara Hills/Panjagutta (Sorry Non-Hyderabadis) area has changed beyond recognition in the last few years. Gone are the Cafes, the tiffin centers and the small stores and now it is all Wills LifeStyle, Benneton,
Levi's, Reebok, Nike, Coffee Day and so on. It is like witnessing the birth of a new city. And somehow it energies me; there is a strange kinda energy in all this. But well I miss my old Hyderabad also. The greener and the less crowded previous version. When I was doing my MBA (1998 - 2000) riding around and driving around hyderabad used to be pleasure. Not any longer though. The influx of people from outside AP is just too much!! (Ahem Ahem, People like me not included).

And I miss my Bandis (Bandis are small makeshift stalls). One of our favorite past times during MBA days used to be hunting around for cheap and good places to eat. And hyderabad had plenty of those. I remember there used to be this dirty and crowded bandi (Opp Lal Bunglow, Greenlands if anyone interested) which used to serve the so - called Chinese food. I digress but do you know what is the safest business plan in India. Open a small place and get a Chinese looking guy (he can be assamese whatever) to toss the noodles in a wok and voila you have a thriving business. We indians just love Chinese food and especially the indianised version and even the south indianised version. I have had noodles with curry leaves and rai (mustard seeds) also!! and God everything has tons of cabbage in it. And then we used to make long trips to old city part (Mozamahi Market) to have this yummy and very cheap homemade ice cream with fresh fruits. I had a friend who rode all the way to that place one scorching summer evening and had 25 mango ice creams there. Wow!! And when you talk about Hyderabad, you can not help talking about the irani
chai cafes here. I always say that like Paris we also have our cafe culture. I have been to these cafes only once or twice (Never see any gurls there) but the best part of these cafes are that you see all kinds of people in these cafes. Right from auto - rickshaw wallahs to working professionals sharing a table and there are no hang ups. But one of the best part of Hyderabad are the small tiffin joints that used to dot the city. Alas, they too are disappearing; the price of progress. These are usually small places. You go in, buy a coupon, give it to the counter with
the kitchen beyond it, get your stuff and stand and eat. These places were my salvation during student days. The food was good, cheap and also nutritious(Unlike the bandi chinese) and these places were very clean and you cud even see your food getting ready. Though I confess that the first time I saw the cook clean the huge Dosa tava with a broom , i just did not want to eat that dosa. And these places also have quite a wide variety of stuff. Hmm.. i still remember the crisp dosas, the pesarattus and the soft idlis. We often ate at these places for the money saved on food could be spent on more interesting things like movies (Another Hyderabadi craze. Put up any lousy movie and you will not get the tickets for even that movie on a weekend). And then there were 2 punjabi dhabas for the times I felt homesick and wanted to eat Aloo Paranthas (I love them!! - Boo Boo Mom where are thou?).

You must be wondering if this Blog about Hyderabad or is it about Food ??? Well I wanted to write about different cities but you know the thing about the best laid plans. All this is just coming out. I have no control over it; my fingers are just a medium. And after all "Food is the only beautiful thing that truly nourishes" (Richard Gere says this to Winona Ryder in "Autumn in New York" - a very Bollywoodish movie)

And you know what as I write all this I realise that I have not been to any of these dhabas/cafes/tiffin centers/bandis since a long time. Or putting it more accurately since I started working. Have I developed an Attitude, grown too big for my shoes? No, it is not that but I can not figure out the reason for this change. Is it only me or does everyone change like this? I often wonder that if I was to do all those things today, wud I enjoy them as much as I did in those days. Maybe yes, Maybe not! There is this sequence in Hyderabad Blues where the Hero who has come back from USA meets up with his friend and they try to do the things they used to do previously (Going in a rickshaw, going to old eating joints etc etc). Then there is this shot of both of them sitting on the pavement on a crowded busy road and the hero says "Can not believe that I used to think all this is Fun". Does it happen to everyone?

Life goes on and these days I am too bz exploring the other kind of (read more expensive ones) eating places. Foolish me!! But the activity in this sphere is also phenomenal in Hyd. It is slowly becoming a food lovers delight.

I guess I should stop now, before someone kills me for a long long blog. More of Hyd and other cities later. Ciao.

Places!! Places !! Places!!!

Just a random thought!!!

Like me, do you also believe that every place has a soul; a pehchaan ; an identity. I would even say a color and a smell of its own. Yeah they say it is in our minds; maybe it is or maybe it is not.

Places , places , places; what we do to them and what they do to us. We paint these places with the color of our memories; we fill them up with the sound of our living; we give them the mood of our emotions and then we scoop up a little part of it and carry it with us when we say our final goodbye.

These places hold us; sometimes enthrall us; they are the playground of our fancies; they become the canvas of our dreams; and when we finally move away they steal a part of us and bury it in its depths.

We make our places. Our places make us.