When I wanted to change my job 5 years ago I never thought I will end up in a company in Hyderabad. I thought I would easily get a job in Bangalore and left for this city to stay for a month and I wouldn't miss any walk-ins that were happening in the city then. One of my friends had an interview call from a company and he had no clue of the place where it was happening as he was new in Bangalore, and I knew the place. I went to this company’s hiring stall to show my friend the place. But at last it happened so that I could attend the interview and I got selected with a decent pay package and my friend couldn’t get through the first round itself.
I was disappointed. I was unhappy for 2 reasons. First reason obviously was that my friend travelled from Kerala only to attend this interview and he couldn’t make it. And the second was that, the HR representative had told me that my posting would be in Hyderabad, not Bangalore. Bangalore was as dear to me as Cochin and I had many friends, cousins and other relatives there. But Hyderabad seemed scary to me. My idea of Hyderabad was that of a city with unclean and old buildings and roads and a city where Hind-Muslim tension always exists. In Hyderabad I had no relatives and didn’t have many close friends too. Finally I decided to accept the offer after having lot of discussions re-discussions with friends. My idea was to find another job in Bangalore in 6 months time and go back.
But, Hyderabad surprised me when I actually landed here. It was a clean and green city. Leave the old city area apart, the rest of the city had well maintained roads, trees on either sides of the roads, flowers and creepers on the dividers etc etc. The traffic was horrible but it didn’t bother me much as I managed to get a place to stay just 5 minutes walk from the office. And to my surprise my Telugu colleagues were so supportive and co-operative in contrary to what I’ve heard of telugu IT people. The girl who came to stay for 6 months did not even think of applying for another job in another city for 5 years!
Now…
I stopped encouraging people to come to Hyderabad as life here has become hell these days. Imagine a city with only potholes and no road to drive on. Imagine a city with 7 hours power cut. 4 hours announced and “only-god-knows-hours” unannounced. A city where the flyover at construction collapses to kill passer-by. City where a completed flyover on a busiest road waits for the Chief Minister to come back from his B’day Celebration in Maldives to get it inaugurated. 200 year old Banyan Trees gets chopped mercilessly in this city. All these scenes replace some of the old scenes I remember like, a small gutter gets repaired immediately after it was formed, power cuts were a total no-no and big trees were brought into the city by lorries from outskirts to plant on the road sides. I don’t know if you will find another city in india where traffic police men are considered junks. Here in the Electricity Office they do readily accept that the system is 95% corrupted and they are helpless. You go to any gas (Indane) agency and enjoy their fabulous customer service and cook food with air. Go to RTA and learn how to bribe without any hindrance and embarrassment.
I longed to settle down in this city once upon a time. I no longer do.For now, let me dream of a small house in Valparai. After all, in India cities are all the same.
