No sir, I don't just write 'love' stories!

Rahul, No, Hyderabad is Waiting!

So what else did I do other than watching cricket Matches? A lot actually. I watched the Ads too. I have been a big fan of advertisements back home. Washing Powder Nirma, Washing Powder Nirma was the first ever I think. My brother was saying how Nirma was like bleaching powder in the form of a soap. No wonder doodh ki safaai Nirma se laayee!

Before that I need to write a little bit on how pathetic Doordarshan is even after all this time. Believe me I am not exaggerating when I say that not one ball I could watch without some sort of flicker in the screen where it would pause, go blank, go nuts - it was horrible. Even now I can feel the bile rising as I type this. Get this. The batsman would lift the ball high in the air. You had no way of knowing whether it went for a six or someone caught it. Sometimes the identity of the batsman would give a clue [like if it is Ganguly - for sure someone would catch it!] but you would want to know right? Very very pathetic performance doing the live telecast I should say! Also the number of advertisements. My brother [yeah yeah he is the source of a lot of info for me] told me that ICC had threatened to cancel the match if the telecast rights fight was not sorted out. That big is TV that even a series as huge as this can be threatened to be cancelled!

And the ads are like falling over themselves to come on. Its like the producer or director or whoever is waiting with his finger on the knob as soon as the bowler delivers the last ball of the over. The shot is not even fully executed that we see the switch. And then the sponsors. Pepsi was the one for the first test match and everytime the telecast switched to ads, this blue screen would come up for a second saying View your pepsi khufiya card here. It was sooooooooooooooooo horrible! And then one cricketer after another would come up wearing or in the process of wearing a helmet giving the public message - wear a condom everytime! I was ROTFL every single time. I think SRK features in the most ads followed by the cricketers. They are everywhere. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar competing for the top slot. Sachin looks the same confused self as he used to with his squeaky voice. So the advertisers have come up with a novel idea. Don't let him say anything. Just paint his face in weird colors and ask him to make all sorts of strange noises. I was ROTFL yet again. As for Dravid. There were huge hoardings of him everywhere in Hyderabad. In various poses. "Rahul's waiting" was the tag line. If I have even seen dignity in a hoarding this must be it. Hooo boy! Even in the ads. If this man goes to captain India we might have another Tiger in the making. Tipping me non-existent hat to Rahul. To think he is waiting!

So where was I? Yes at the fact that DD still sucks. Sucks bad. Get this. Kumble gets the last man out and it is victory time. I am waiting there with bated breath, having watched an Indian Test Victory after ages, teary eyed and all emotional and what happens? First DD freezes the frame. Then the 'Oye Bubbbbleee' [another story] freeze frame comes up. Then we have the public service AIDS awareness messages, then SRK..can it get worse you ask? Yes we have Ganguly dressed up like a warrior taking on Inzamam dressed as one too. Err no offense but looking at their respective physiques it would look like we would have Ganguly-pulp in no time at all. So anyways they finally get back to the celebrations which shows our cricketers walking out of the field in a group carrying Kumble. This was I was ROTFCrying! So DD manages to torture me once again after all these years!

OK no more cricket and no more DD. After all Hyderabad is waiting! The good thing about going to India is the shopping which can also prove to be a very bad thing because almost everyone in the family has a huge list of things to bring back from there. We were shopping for almost 4 families and so we started the process early. 2nd day back and I was already doing the rounds of Charminar/Patther Gatti. Going to Hyderabad is like a piligrimage and going to Charminar is like the core of that piligrimage. If you want to see Hyderabad in all its vitality..in all its splendor...then this is the place. Life throbs here. In the faces of the children who come up to you with an expectant look 'Naada lelo'. Look out before you feel sorry for them! They are waiting to fleece you of everything that you have. Once as soon as we got out of the Auto this young boy who must be around 12 approaches is with this roll of naada [the rope that is used to hold a Pyjama up]. 'Bees (20) Rupaiyya Saab' he says. The auto-wallah looks up with 'kya bolra re? 8 Rupaiyya ka honga saab'. The boy freezes. Gives the auto-wallah a glare. Gives him an even bigger gaali [censored] and get this takes the roll out of my husband's hand and goes off with a haughty expression. Priceless!

Charminar is of course charminar because of the imposing monument there. When Ananth saw it first he exclaimed that it was bigger than he realized. Yes, its pretty huge. But I was disappointed with it this time around though. Last time almost 2 years back when I had seen it, it was newly restored. Everything glistened and it was as good as new. This time around, it had fallen back on looking a trifle jaded. Come on yaar give it a break its more than 400 years old after all. A beautiful structure in what was the centre of the city at that time. Its 4 arches facing 4 major streets. My daughter was really excited on seeing it and kept insisting that she wants to climb it. Yeah that was all that we needed in the 35 degree-C heat. A climb up the imposing structure. I don't thinking climbing to the top is even allowed. I think one could go only uptil the point where the minarets start soaring! I remember when I was very young and much more energetic climbing it with my father. Soon some numbskulls decided that it was a good place to kill themselves and start jumping out and so the ascent to the top was closed to the general public. void/ascii commented on DB yesterday that Lake Shore Drive tends to get boring in 1/2 visits respectively. I agree with them. I would recommend going to Charminar for them. Never a boring moment. Even if it is your 100th visit! More on that part of the city later.

Another thing that were not as good as my last visit were the roads. With Naidu gone this was to be expected I guess. My brother told me that as soon as YSR took charge amongst the first few things he did was a. to abolish the Formula one track and b. take away 50 crores from the MCH [Municipal Corp of Hyderabad] budget. The CM seems to be doing pretty well for himself. Once he paid a surprise visit to the Nizam General Hospital. One auto-wallah [my husband has this penchant for picking up conversations with them] told us as he manouvered expertly between two huge city buses that going to that hospital one would get worse. Heard it from a couple of other people too that the public hospital has become a disgrace. YSR's visit highlighted the same and he pulled up the staff. I just hope that it is not just one of those PR stunts and something is actually done about it. YSR looks so non-descript. As long as he does a good job and hopefully extend the prosperity the city is seeing to the interior parts! Naidu on the other hand is behaving like a spoilt brat whose piece of candy has been taken away. Creating a ruckus in the assembly over minor things, giving petitions upon petitions to the governor! hoo boy! There was this one photo of his in the Deccan Chronicle, that had me rubbing my eyes in disbelief. The governor is looking on with a bored expression as Naidu stands like a peon wanting to get the signature of his boss. No one would believe it that he was once hailed as the next PM. Also read this very funny anectode about him. After his tenure as CM, he was valued at some X crores. Before that he was valued at some Y crores. Y crores being considerably less than the X crores. On being questioned he says - the difference is the gift given to me by my Father-in-Law! Yeah right! After all you were his favorite son-in-law! Politics! Uff!

(...to be continued)

posted by Fizo @ 9:30 AM