Life's a crazy mess!

Well first before I start, I'm sure most of you must've noticed the number of pic posts have increased significantly from my previous posts....why you ask? I got a new phone!!!! Bought the new Sony Ericsson K790i on installments and boy am I happy with my purchase!!!!!! The phone has a feature that lets you blog directly from the phone onto your blogger account and I'm finally able to express my inner most....uhm confusions? Whatever...it rocks!! Btw..the diwali special pic is courtesy of the girls living opposite our flat...those kids took the pain of making a rangoli as well as decorating their flat with all the diyas possible....we haven't cleaned our room for the past 3 months...infact i've got a spider sleeping next to me....thankfully i've learnt my lessons from the bugger back home in Kerala and I've not asked him to move off yet...but yeah..the bugger does hog the blanket bigtime....sigh....shall refrain from complaining...not interested in bites anymore...

A couple of weeks back a friend of mine, Nida, had come down from Hyderabad to Bangalore on a visit...it's been almost 6yrs since I met her last and both of us were pretty excited about meeting after sooo long...Had an amazing evening and I had dinner with her mom and family...was awesome and as we split she invited me over to Hydie....which was on my to-do list since 2002 (thanks to Akshath)...took me a week of thinking and I finally decided on making the trip after all...three days of planning and I had my ticket, a place to stay, money and uhm....oh yeah...clothes :) oh no..i didn't buy anything...just did my laundary after a real long time :)

It was a friday, I was lazy to sit in the office long and well how could you...u've got Place #3 of the "Places to visit in India" list in your mind how can you? Thankfully everyone at work was in the TGIF mood and was hoping Hosur Road's traffic would disappear for the day....but alas that was a dream which would never come true. Fast forward to the time after I managed to get Vikas to sprain his leg...alright so maybe the bugger was too busy oogling at the girls at Brigade but it was me who got him walking for over 10 mins after that :) hehe...so I finally got into the bus and was on my way to the Twin City Metro of South India...the land of the Nawabs...the Charminar and most importantly....the land of Haleem and Hyderabadi Biriyani!

A short sleep that lasted just 4 hrs later I was woken up by a gullute cop bugging all of us to show our luggage....oh crap, I knew I shouldn't have taken my shaving gel in my hand baggage...uhm...wait...wasn't that airline regulations??? phew...took me a couple of minutes to realise they were looking for bottles of alcohol and my shaving gel was safe...a couple of minutes later we had entered into Hyderabad....and well I was shocked....y you ask? For one, they actually have roads....and no not like Bangalore where the roads are mere excuses of Tar laid on minute stretches...these were 8 laned dual carriageways and 6 laned dual carriageways with over 10 flyovers in the first leg of my travel alone!....I was later informed that the city has 48 flyovers!!! My friend and I were considering putting up two goal posts on either end of the road and playing some serious football....why AP could even host a friendly EPL match for the heck of it on these roads!...HDK...now you know why all the IT honchos are moving out!

The bus went all around town and I finally reached my pal Shamju's place at Tollychowki. I was to meet Nida later that day and we decided on meeting up at Hyderabad Central when it opened. The punctual soul that I am, I left at 9:15 and caught a rick to Mehdipatnam as my friends suggested. Supposedly there were regular buses from there to Punchgutta (yep Hyd Central is out there...and no I'm not nuts to go halfway round the world and then catch another bus to Hyderabad Central).....and I believed them...true there were quite a few buses, but getting onto one was something one could never dream of. Although 10 sumo wrestlers could fit in the bus and probably wrestle their way out of tickets in the bus, there would always be close to twenty people hanging on the footboards....to get fresh air i'm assuming. And jumping into one of these is as good as being roadkill. I noticed a lone bus sitting in a corner silently waiting for its prey and I jumped in. It took a lousy half an hour before the driver popped up, drove away a demented guy who was drunk from the bus (everyone in the bus was having a laugh ragging the poor guy....and i remained the silent observer....yep i'm mallu after all)...

It was close to 9:50 when the bugger finally got the vehicle moving. I was quite psyched out 'coz that meant I would prbbly be late and not make it at 10...but wait...apparently you guys don't know what I hadn't known then...this should explain things better...in a nutshell, I reached there at 9:59....and I had a whole 60 seconds to cross the road and get to the entrance. And lo behold....the store is closed...(?????) I look around, not a soul...a security guy pops up and informs me that I'm nuts....fine so I knew that before...what gave me away? "The store opens only at 11 saar"...I call her up, and she confirms this fact of hyderabad, the city sleeps till 11am!!! sigh, an hour of walking around followed and a conversation with another Bangalore based guy who, like me, ended up in front of Hyderabad Central at an untimely hour of 10am...I'm sure all hyderabadis would be wondering what I was doing outside so early in the morning!

11:10, Nido arrives...and a quick walk around Central and we were off on our sightseeing trip of the city :) rather mine...Banjara Hills, Prasad's, Eat Street, Abids, McDonald's...uhm...McDonald's? oh yeah that wasn't sightseeing actually...that was feeding time :) Two burgers, a huge coke and fries later we bid goodbye and split.

The next day I'd decided to live the hydie way and woke up at 10am...yep I was still early since it was a Sunday and 10am was too early....jeez! The miseries of it all! It wasn't until 12 or so that I met up with another schoolmate of mine, Tariq...again in Hyderabad Central...we hung around Banjara Hills at his place, talking abt school and the guys around here...blah blah...nostalgia at its best....and I had to split to go to Paradise in Secunderabad...my pals had asked me to pop up there for Iftar....and to our surprise (and to the miseries of Shaheen) it was closed. It took Shaheen just 3 seconds to come up with an alternative, Pizza Hut Iftar Treat - Unlimited Pizza, Garlic bread and on ice cream for 175Rs only....sigh...this place rocks!!! We broke our fast at a masjid nearby and headed straight to Pizza Hut...a dinner that lasted over 2hours followed and we finally split. Shamju dropped me at the bus stop and it was back to Bangalore for me. Missed out on two things though :( Couldn't have Hyderabadi Haleem or Hyderabadi Biriyani when I was there :( Shaheen made it worse by explaining how Chicken and Mutton costs the same in Hyderabad and how they have huuuuuuge quantities of food...and this is not just for non-veg stuff but veg too....next time maybe...

The trip was awesome and since I hadn't purchased the k790i then, I don't have any pics :( Anyways, guys...I'm moving out of Bangalore soon....going waaaaay up North to Delhi...I'm sure there'll be waaaay many more posts once I get there...The southie that I am, I suck at hindi...the little I do know, is Mumbaiyya and that's unacceptable there....hmmm...in other words, loads of stupidity to follow...Keep reading!