Street Spirit

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-