Day 2 in Hyderabad

Did'nt sleep well last night, anticipated, as I am known for not sleeping properly in new places. But pretty tired today and I guess, would fall flat the moment I hit the bed.The place where I go is part of the Defence Labs. Pretty awesome looking campus. While travelling to that part of the City, it suddenly transforms into very hilly and rocky landscape, hot yet quite green and full of life. Once you reach that place, lot of security checks and finally the campus. Lot of army Jeeps and Trucks out there with Electronic stuff fitted into it, greets you, mostly painted in that green/sand colours, unmistakably army camouflage patterns.

Pretty smart chaps inside, just that the pace in which the work gets done, puts them far behind the rest of the IT world. But that's the way most of the Public Sector and the Govt sector works here in India. Tragedy indeed. No wonder the best brains do end up in NASA and US and Europe et al;.

In the evening, finished early, got a lift till a point, which was full of life, ... mainstream Hyderabad, I guess. Decided to get into one of those Public Taxi's which are double the size of Autorickshaws, one that can seat 6 persons. Makes hell a lot of noise and you'd never know when the whole thing would come apart. I was surrounded by Muslim women and men. The auto guy was playing very loud old hindi sings remix. At one of those stops, the Masjid was belching out prayers and moment the auto guys heard that, he switched off his remixes till he passed that place. These guys follow their religion very dearly.

Got down before Charminar and walked through it and then all the way back to the hotel. It looks awesome from a distance but very very dirty from near. The whole of Charminar is surrounded by brightly coloured, jam-packed shops selling all kind of colourful clothes,scents, perfumes and maze of hotels which serves Irani Chai's, Kebabs and buns. You have lot of local Doctors to fix 'Bones' and 'Dentals'. You'd see very serene and well maintained old bearded, white Jubo-Pajama Clad hakims (Doctors).

It's just amazing how completely encroachment has been completed around the Charminar. So much so for 'Preservation'. We just don't seem to have any regards whatsoever for the PAST. Whatever is left is because it's been archived and painfully preserved by the Brits, albeit for reasons other than Heritage. Yet the noise,crowd jostling, people eating everywhere, burqua clad women shopping, the architecture, the food all this is distinctly Hyderabadi, distinctly Moslem, distinctly Old.