Street Spirit

Quite strong words for a category which sometimes could be used to describe me. True but sadly generalizations have no mercy and I am guilty by association. I am accessory to the crimes several of these commit by just letting them do their own. It is understandable of a few are guilty of one or two of these crimes to civilization, but no! Almost all of them are guilty of the whole decorated set of shockingly inappropriate public behaviour and what’s worse is like in everything else they do they find it no wrong. Here are the medals for hall of shame and they only pertaining to his behaviour on the street and in public places.

• They see, They Pee: If I had a dollar for every time I saw a man empty his bladder on the street I would be featuring in the forbes lists. Have you no shame unzipping and pulling out your organ in a public places and spray all over the poor wall. They do it alone, they do it in pairs. They do it near waste dumps, the do it on the cleanest roads. They do it on a lonely road and on a busy road. They don’t discriminate when it comes to a place to uriniate. Every wall has its day. They all ought to be incarcerated for public nuisance and exhibitionism. Atleast bring back that rule which was there a couple of years ago where they pick up a man caught urinating and drop him six km away.
• Its Pan man: Sequel in the spraying festival. This time it is from an other orifice called the mouth. They chew tobacco and ingest volumes of the red gooey material and get all kinds of digestive system related cancers. Fine. But why the hell do you have to spray paint my town with your disgusting oral graffiti. They should all be made to take their shirts of and clean their own spit.
• Loud’speaker’: Another among the hyderabadi mia’s virtues are being born with an inbuilt amplifier. This amplifier seems to work exceptionally well in public place and in public transport especially among peers. Please just stop bragging about your sad, pitiful and meaningless life and do the public some good. We dont find your jokes funny and you don’t have voice like Jeremy Clarkson’s or Amitabh Bachchan. People please them to keep their silly fat ego and mout shut.
• Foul Ghoul: A powerful add-on to being a loudspeaker which brings even the brilliant Firefox 3.0 to shame. He can’t control the voice, that’s ok! At least control the soddy tongue! You are not macho if you dole out a list if never ending expletives beating around the bushes of fornication and allusion to some one’s mother. We understand that you ahave a sad job, demonic wife, miserable children etc. But, please that gives you no right to chant hymns from the drainage pipe. They ought to actually clean the mouths of these people with soap, no detergent actually!
• Rules and Queues .. Kyun? : There again props the ugly head of the irascible nincompoop who finds rules flexible, law beneath him and queues, no he doesn’t understand queues. If and when he sees one he behaves like monkey given an iphone. He has no regard for the traffic rules are or any other rules. The biggest scapegoat is the half-decent minority(aka the rest of the population) in the city because it faces danger due to his heroic antics like charging at the red light, driving drunk and aimlessly, turning through gaps in the dividers etc. He likes doing multiple ‘s’ at the traffic lights trying to steer through the narrowest of gaps. And all these were only rule breaking pertaining to traffic.

There are several other worthy mentions in the hall of fame shame. The most important being his hands. There is no limit to the places they have been in public. Right from scratching his head, digging his nose and adjusting his pants and crotch to placing it on whoever is besides him and putting pressure on the poor neighbour while moving around and pushing someone else to move across. He simply doesn’t understand the concept of personal space. And there are several rogues who form a smaller subset of this group who indulge in far more worse behaviour and in anti social activities like domineering, mugging. Eve-teasing, drunk roaming etc.

Why are we like this? Is it the ignorance and illiteracy? Is it hatred of one another or disregard for civil life? It may be due to all the above reasons, may be none. I don’t know but all I know is, it is wrong!

Rehne do bhai. Ab isme kay badi baat hai? Class mat lo.

-V-

What do we people in this town do to pass, while and kill our leisure or spare time. I sat down and made a list. There were plenty of things the denizens of this sprawling city do. I shall start with ladies (being gentlemen-like you see). The mothers, grandmothers and aunts after their back-breaking chores and tending to the bossy husbands, sons and daughters etc settle down in front of the television for their daily dosage of soaps. A privileged few get to together and have kitty parties once in a month to recreate themselves (I doubt if the working woman has any spare time). The male counterparts come home and demand to watch the same old news packaged in new words. Then they would like to see a dishum dishum movie from the 80’s or 90’s and retire to bed. And quite a majority of men (young and old) would give anything to escape to the nearest pan dabba amidst all the chaos of home and work and puff away their worries.

There are things we do as a family and these constitute the chunk of time spent together, even more than at home I guess. We go meet relatives in the city or outside. We eat out at a restaurant. But what Hyderabad loves doing above anything else is an activity which knows no religion, creed or sex. Watching movies. That will easily outrank any other pastime in our city.

There is as always a niche crowd, actually several niche crowds. Some spend their evenings at the several clubs like the Nizam’s or Sec’bad club. Some watch plays and foreign films. Some take part in clubs like K-circle, Helix, Save the rocks, Birdwatcher’s society etc.

The younger crowd does a variety of things (and am pretty sure on the cost of something 'important' like studies and always making their folks hold their heads!). We mostly hang out with friends be it on the roads, at our homes, at a mall or multiplex and in coffee shops or pubs depending on the composition of group and time of day. Aah and we always cherish a plate of food at different places. We always want to learn something and go take additional courses for overall development and eventually grow out of that madness in a few days and skip those classes. We would always love to play a sport but in this concrete jungle with parks disappearing faster than sunderaban tigers a handful of us have such luxuries. However we love playing cricket on the street impeding vehicles and making a run for it when a pane is broken. These days we would rather sit at home and be chained to the computer, browsing the net and socializing over orkut and chatting on yahoo. When we are plugged in to web everything recedes to the background.

Once in a while when we have relatives come from other uurus we need to pay visit to the heritage sites in our city aka Charminar, Falaknuma Palace, Golconda, Qutub Shahi tombs etc. Come weekends and we are at loss regarding what to do. We have few options other than sitting at home. Go out to one of the various parks, be it the one in the colony or NTR gardens or necklace road. And sometimes maybe once in a year go for a picnic for sorts to an amusement park like Ramoji Film city or Ocean Park or Snow World. Gosh! We have far too less and far inferior amusement parks for a city this big and populated.

This might seem like a lot of things we hyderabadis do. But seriously is it? Do we really have enough choice in making a decision of how to spend our free time? I am bored, not out of inactivity but due to absence of novelty in action. I guess we need more than what we are offered in this town. What has happened to the ‘entrepreneurial and business mindedness of this city? (shhh... Everybody is busy buying and selling land) Come on in people! There is a gold mine waiting to be exploited, just give us some novel fun and in return we shall empty our wallets. The new Hyderabad has a lot of time and money to spend!

-V-

Urban dweller is what I am. I need a bustling metropolis and the speed, action and the adventure associated with it to fuel my soul. Hyderabad is charming city having all of those and more albeit in its own way under its own terms of ease and laidback nature. The nawabi spirit is deeply embedded in our way of life and well we are one of the laziest cities I know or have heard of. Are we concerned about it. Nahi bhai liite lo. Jo hai theek thaak hai.

Hyderabad is one of the most likeable cities in this country. Those who live here are perennially in love and those who visit always want to come back. The people are friendly and help is offered without being asked at the slightest indication of you being in trouble. It has got an awesome climate (yes I say that in spite of the hitherto never been so hot summer) and impeccably location(12 hours away from 3 other big cities in India).

Hyderabad has an immense potential of being one of the best cities in the world in terms of development, prosperity and progress. In typical desi style we talk and promise a lot but always do as little as (legally) possible. We see big things for ourselves but woefully fall short of meeting targets or at least fulfilling them. We are culturally diverse and each has multiple identities. Wear what fits for now. Think about it later. We are too lazy to change but jump for it when it does happen somehow. Yaha aisa hi hotha hai.

And for these particular reasons (and all those you will learn in future) I have a love-hate relationship with this city.

But regardless of what I feel from time to time I certainly know it is an integral part of me and my personality. When I get back here from an outstation visit and step down, with all my senses I know this place. This place called home.

-V-
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Have you ever been frustrated because you did not find a store open when you were up in the morning? Then you will have to re-define what mornings are! For a Hyderabadi, a morning is when the sun is right on top of your head, about eleven-ish. You will never hear a resident here complain about the shops that open late! Am I complaining? Hell, no!

You would not be crucified if you don't know the language. Sometimes I wonder if it has any particular language. Broken Hindi? Torn Telugu? Doesn't matter. People have an amazing knack of getting you right each time. Well, I may be exaggerating. When you love something, you do it wholly with all its flaws.

There is this undying friendly spirit that is irreplaceable. Jiyo, tho jaano. I have seen strangers smile at me, for no reason at all. I have smiled all day at strangers and have been spared the weird look. Accidentally bumped in to a car with your scooty? Apologetic smile avoids an expletive filled tete-a-tete. I am not saying we are very tolerant, but we do try and avoid hassles.

Why am I telling you all this, now? Do as I say. Settle with a cutting of Irani chai for a journey that you will explore with us. Knowing us, we will rub a little of the Hyderabadi charm on you! Kyun, sab khairiat?

-black coffee-