Hyderabad : The First Couple of Days.

If you have lived in Delhi for over 5-10 years, you might know the existence of Compressed Natural Gas powered vehicles. You get accustomed to the cleaner, less polluted air. The “greener” air. So why am I being some nature huger and talking about the CNG gas?

26th May 2014, 2 pm, Secunderabad Railway Station : Something was wrong. Something in the air. Eyes started getting irritation. And the pollutants in the air made it harder to breathe. The southern state of India, Andhra Pradesh is petrol powered. Yes. That was the first impression of Hyderabad I got. Just as any other place, a buzz of auto-rickshaw drivers came into my ear. Everyone yelling at top of their lungs to just pull you into their “ride” and take you to any place you want at of course at a rate obviously higher than the legitimate one.

I had gotten into a summer internship at International Institute of Information Technology, which is situated at Gachibowli, Hyderabad. So about 26 kilometers from the railway station was the place where I was going to stay for the next 2 months.

Dissecting the traffic into numerous parts, this rash driver got me to the place in no time, for a heavy price. But when I stepped out of the auto, I realized that I am far away from the city. Gachibowli is a place situated away from the rush and buzzing life. When you live in a city, you are constantly in some rush. In some ordeal. But here, I heard the sound of silence. The hiss? That is not something wrong with the fan or the pressure cooker next door. That, that hiss, is how silence sounds like.

 

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Rolling my travel bags all the way down to the hostel building my camera came to perfect use. The campus is all in all a nature loving one. A variety of plantations, and flowers exist. And as I walked past every garden, all the tiredness of 48 hours in train ceased to exist. For the first couple of days I got to live at luxury.

I had gotten no room mate. I was like the king of my own castle, throwing my trousers where I want, use two pillows instead of one, sleep for as long as I want, lock the door and roam wherever I want. That is the life I wanted to live, while coming from Delhi, and so I had it. But what I had so not come prepared for was washing my own dishes, cleaning my own bed, and washing clothes with my own hands! No laundry, no washing machines. Bare hands, scrubbing out all the dirt. So in the past few days I have understood that equation between amount of the soap bar to be used to the type and size of fabric.

As far as the atmosphere is concerned, this place is so cool for students. There is free high-speed internet. The people around are waist deep in their own research work. Everyone is an inspiration of his own. And one guy I have met here is just so amazing. He has hair longer and shinier than many girls I have seen. I don’t think he is a human, because he eats like probably once in two days!? I guess! His fingers literally fly across the keyboard. However, there is a language barrier. Few people do know Hindi, but the accent and broken grammar makes it tough to understand. So when I buy a bottle of water, I flick my thumb to the index finger. The universal gesture of currency.

Shall post again very soon, in the days ahead to come… Till then veedkolu (good-bye)!