Today!

July 6 is the 187th day of the year (188th in leap years)

I did a Google search to see what has significantly happened on July 6th in the history of mankind. I did not find anything that really matters to us. Like:

1483 - England's King Richard III crowned
1785 – The dollar is unanimously chosen as the monetary unit for the United States.
1886 - Horlick's of Wisconsin offers 1st malted milk to public
1892 – Dadabhai Naoroji elected as first Indian Member of Parliament in Britain.
1958 - Alaska becomes 49th state of United States Of America.
1947 – The AK-47 goes into production in the Soviet Union.
2006 – The Nathula Pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opens for trade after 44 years.

However, July 6th of 2010 is significant for me as I'm leaving a job where I worked for 6 years and a crowd I was most comfortable in. I’m also leaving a city which has seen a lot of me. 7 years is not a small duration in one's life.

I came to Hyderabad on the day I joined Virtusa as an engineer. I got the chance to work with one of the best companies in Hyderabad. I started living too far away from my parents’ umbrella which was very tough initially and then eventually I learned the ways of life. This is the city where I started living independently. I bought my first vehicle – a two wheeler – here. Here is where I met my husband for the first time. When I was getting married I remember how my fellow team members travelled all the way to Kerala and celebrated it. We had our baby in this city. We bought our first car & first apartment in this city.

Slowly we were becoming Hyderabadis and the city had adopted us. We felt shame when an outsider said something bad about the roads or traffic. I argued with people who said Hyderabad weather is bad. I proudly invited friends and relatives to visit Hyderabad and enthusiastically took them around as if Charminar is where I was born and Golconda is where I went to school, and Ramoji Film City is where I spent every evening. I felt equally bad as a Hyderabadi whenever something bad happened in the city, be it the sad accidental demise of our chief minister or be it the row of group violence and riots caused as part of the Telengana issue or be it simply the bad condition of roads everywhere in the city.

When I started a blog in Malayalam and joined the Malayali Blogger's group, I was the only one who was blogging in Malayalam from Hyderabad. I chose the blogger name as Biriyanikutty as a testimonial to what this city is most known for- It’s Biriyani. For a long tenure, whenever the Malayalam blogosphere think or hear of Hyderabad, they remembered Biriyanikutty until I stopped writing Malayalam blogs and more and more Malayali’s from Hyderabad started to blog.

When I moved to Vignette which later became OpenText, nothing changed except the company name and work timing. I was with same group of dear people and we continued to do the same work. The 5.5 years I spent in Virtusa and the 1.5 years in OpenText.. Hmmm.. what to say.. are invaluable to me. I found some of my best friends here. I will miss them.

The day I'm leaving OpenText, I'm leaving Hyderabad as well. I had a million good experiences and 2 or 3 bad ones. But that's natural where ever you are and is just Okay. I'm leaving Hyderabad without having any ill feeling for anyone. I'm saying bye to Hyderabad with the contentment because I've solved some slight frictions with a very few people, caused by some misunderstandings and some by my arrogance.

I'm contented. (After all, I worked for Content Management for 6 years, he he.. :) )

Tomorrow, in a new city.