Hyderabad Zindabaad

“The tag line: Its tough to be a West Indian in India. Bad enough, but far worse was a second ad, in which a romantic black couple is rowed out to the middle of a lake by a boatman who abruptly stops, glowers at them and proceeds to strip off his clothes. The audience is clearly meant to expect that he will assault the girl – but once he is down to his shorts he jumps into the water, leaving the couple mid-lake without an oar. Repeat tag line: Its tough to be a West Indian in India.” – Shashi Tharoor, “On Racism and Censorship”, Shashi On Sunday, Sunday Times Of India, March 4, 2007.
Lambasted by Mr. Tharoor for its poor taste of humor and rightly so, the article made me think, Can I tweak the tag line? Can it be something like “Its tough to be a North Indian in South India.”?
I had my first rendezvous with South India in the dry summers of 2005. July was the month. Hyderabad was the place. Just out of an engineering college, as fresh as they get, I landed in this city for my first job. I still remember, it used to rain religiously in the weekends. And the next morning newspapers will flash headlines like “Enough water till September”, “Enough water till Mid-November for Hyderabad”. I used to think, is the situation so bad out here? Being from a small town, I never faced water crisis. There always was enough water for the people, and even the buffaloes to take a regular bath, quench their thirst at free will; ample resources to plant the gardens, and even indulge in those water fights with my siblings. Never heard anybody storing water for those dry days. More rainy weekends followed and thank God, we had water reserves to last for a long time. No more headlines portraying the water scarcity.
The names of the locations in this city had strange phonetics. Either they were all rhyming or gave a feeling of being borrowed from some ancient, prehistoric language. Ameerpet, Begumpet, Hafeezpet, Lalapet, Shameerpet; they all sounded so similar. And we had some real weird ones as well, the likes of Kukatpally, Meradpally, Moulali, and Paidamaguddi. Only respites were Banjara Hills, Jubille Hills and the good old Madhapur. The expressions on the faces of the auto rickshaw drivers when we tried to pronounce these kinds of names were worth capturing. I still remember the first time I was going to my cousin’s place, who lives in Tarnaka (for the uninitiated, this place is at the fag end of the extended township that we call Hyderabad), I actually had to call him more than thrice to ask for the location, cause I kept on forgetting the name. And I still mispronounce Koti for Kotti.
The biggest problem though was the food. Before I came to Hyderabad, my philosophy was simple. Main khaane ke liye jeeta hoon. But the very first day I had the Andhra food, I had to change the philosophy to Main jeene ke liye khaata hoon. Andhra people like their food hot and spicy. Poor me, I never ate a single chilly before college. And the only one that I had in college was over a stupid “Dairy Milk” chocolate bet. I was one of those guys who always preferred Navratan Korma to Veg Jhalfrazee. Back at home, the spices used for curries and daals never had a trace of chilly, or an overdose of garam masala. Call it bland food habits, call it saada khaana. And I kind of survived the college mess also. Thanks to all those extra food items that we used to get, which we always tweaked as per our taste. Thanks to Sahoojee and the rest of the mess gang. But in the Gultland, there was no escaping. Be it office cafeteria, Chinese outlet, posh restaurants; everything was in authentic Andhra style. And with strange names. Chicken chettinadu, dondakai fry, cabbage puriyal etc. My nose and ears used to go red, eyes watery, sweat all over my face. Still remember the day when Tushar, Gauri and I were invited for dinner to Gauri’s uncle’s place. After the food was served, the first thing that Gauri passed over was curd, lest I find the food too spicy for my taste. Hard were those days. Harder were the mornings, when I literally used to cry in the loo. I had to survive on the lesser spicy items like sandwiches, burgers, pizzas and fruit juices. The only local food item that appealed to me was the Hyderabadi Biryani. Spicy nevertheless, one can always mask that with an overdose of the raitas. I always use to trade Mirchi ka Salan for an extra helping of Raita.
Twenty long months spent here and I still can’t enjoy the Andhra food. Never understood the logic of putting peanuts in Bhindi. Or spraying those green leaves (dunno what they call it) rather generously in almost all the food items. Or the omnipresence of Curd Rice in every buffet spread, however lavish it be. But yeah, I can now stand a moderate amount of spice in my food. And to the pleasure of my south Indian friends, rice and rasam has become an integral part of my lunch. And I feast on Idlis and Vaadas. As they say, “When in Hyderabad, do as the Hyderabadis do (eat).”
Language was also one of the problems that were there, although not to a great extent. Thanks to the Sultans and the Nawabs and the culture brought by them, Hyderabad speaks an offshoot of Hindi, Hyderabadi Hindi. If you are from a Hindi speaking belt, you can almost get away with your lack of local language, Telugu. But when it comes to communicating with the domestic helps, the situations often drift towards hopelessness. As (ill) luck could have it, I never had the privilege of having a bai (maid servant) or a dhobi (washer man) who understand both Hindi and Telugu. Funny are the situations when my bai and I am trying to talk, I sticking to Hindi and she to Telugu, both giving an expression of trying to understand every word of it, although failing to decipher even a single one, finally resorting to the technique that the medieval man used to apply so effectively, the sign language. With sustained effort, we (Tushar, Gauri and I) were successful in teaching our honorable bai some keywords like kapda, jhadoo, bartan etc. The misery is far from over though. And the glowing testimony to it is the dwindling count of my underwear. Being a part of that clan whose members are very particular, choosy and possessive of their underwear, I never have been able to put this across to my bai. Not sure of the fate of my poor companions (read underwear), I almost never get back the same count as I had given for wash.
My reluctance to learn Telugu is paying rich dividends. I still can’t count from one to ten in Telugu, nor can I speak the most basic of the sentences. And the words that I know can be counted on my fingers. “Enti raa”, “Aaa ante amlapuram”, “Malichestaru”, “Chapandi”. And the most important of them all, “Telugu Raadu”, meaning I don’t understand Telugu.
Strangely though, I love this place. And the people. And the culture. Of late, I have enjoyed listening to Telugu songs. And I can boast of a good knowledge of the Gult films and the film stars. Thanks to the last page of Hyderabad Times, a daily supplement with The Times Of India Hyderabad Edition, I know about the latest releases, the heartthrobs, the Mahesh Babus, the Shreyas, the Trishas, the Genelias, the Illeanas, the Kamna Jethmalanis. And not to forget the evergreen trio, Chiru Dada (Chiranjeevi), Nagarjuna and Venkatesh.
The last paragraph was not written with an intention to honey coat this article, the feelings are genuine. And someday I would love to write on this beautiful place we call Hyderabad and about the Hyderabadis. Only if my Hyderabadi friends spare me to see the light of another dawn.