Merger!

I have decided that I cannot maintain multiple blogs at this point of time. Also, I have managed to implement categories on my primary blog.
Hence, this blog is being deprecated. All current posts and any future posts will be available at Ramblings of the Amateur Blogger.

Keep your eyes on the road, ...

... your hands upon the wheel. Thus spake Jim Morrison and little did he know how apt it would be for Hyderabad roads. After 2 painful months of traffic jams, diversions, debris on the roads, 36 (I think) roads in Hyderabad are double in size and freshly laid. Shops and houses were bought over and torn down to make space for the expansion. Saw some of the largest houses in the city lose part of their lawns, shops losing their front doors. It has brought in a lot of new issues, though which call for much more attentive driving, but good things first.

The drive from my house to my work-place (Madhapur to Gachibowli, for those who recognise these addresses. For those who don't, it's about 10.5 kms of extremely curvaceous road) used to take 17 minutes, best time. This stretch had an S shaped curve and one night, coming back from work, I just kept going straight and kinda lost track of where I was..... They had by-passed the 'S' with a completely new road. They had removed the biggest bottleneck on the entire route and without blocking the flow of traffic during the entire process. Street lights came on, lanes were painted (just in time for the Congress meet) and it now takes me 11 minutes average. That's saying a lot, considering the distance hasn't really changed.

This holds true for a large part of the city

You got the music coming....

Radio; Music; Hyderabad;

So.... Hyderabad finally has an FM channel, well at least one that deserves to be called an FM channel, not your purana stations broadcasted on FM frequency. AIR FM Rainbow is here (101.9 for you ignorant fools).

I first started hearing FM programming when I was in Delhi preparing for my entrances back in 1998 and was instantly hooked. In a stark contrast to traditional radio programming, even the first FM stations were tailor-made for young audiences, with smartass RJs taking the caller's trip majorly, satisfying the sadistic tendencies that each one of us harbours somewhere deep within, and a selection of music that catered to the under 30 age group. Whoever had heard of English music on Indian radio before that?

Then came the entire jing-bang of FM stations, Mirchi, Red, Radio City and life was beautiful. You never needed audio-cassettes (remember them?) or CDs. Just keep flipping stations.

For someone who had gotten terribly addicted to FM, Hyderabad was a major disappointment with its AM programming masquerading as an FM station with 2 hours of hindi music a day (the rest is Telugu, if you're wondering). Music was pirated, CDs burnt, music repeated day in and day out. But salvation is finally here on 101.9 FM. And that's not the end of the good news. Radio Mirchi is soon to start operations in Hyderabad among other cities.

It's ironic that FM radio has appeared in the city just when drive times have drastically gone down thanks to the sexy smooth roads, but that's material for another post. Till you wait for that one:

You got the music coming, night and day,
FM, it's ready for you,
in the morning, or late at night,
you gotta let the music play,
AIR FM Stereo, all the time on All India Radio.

P.S.: This jingle is highly annoying when sung at a high pitch and my seniors from hostel would vouch for it cos they had it sung to them (in that pitch) at various hours of the night.

Related News Items:
New players tune in, keep FM buzz alive
Radio Mirchi bags Patna in FM Radio Phase II

Dinner with Mithun Da!

Entertainment; Film; Bollywood; Disco Dancer;

Been meaning to write this for some time, just never got around to it. Well, this is what happened. So I'm out having dinner at one of the better restaurants in the city. It's an officialish affair with colleagues and an ABCD visitor (he said it, I didn't :)). And then this group of 5-6 people come sit at the table next to us.

Now we're talking about things work related and the visitor is in the middle of an extremely engrossing narrative on events historical/political (read: office gossip) when I realise that I recognise one of the aforementioned people at the adjacent table. I actually interrupted the story-telling to confirm my finding. The dude at the said table was none other than erstwhile Bollywood "super-hero" (anything less and the Bongs wont forgive me), our very own Disco Dancer, Mithun Chakraborty aka Mithun Da....

Needless to say, I was quite excited, being as I am a fan of mass-market, Bollywood masala movies. If you haven't tried them, don't knock them. It's the Rajnikanths and the Mithuns who defined the typical Bollywood with their physics defying stunts. It's too bloody hilarious when Rajnikanth splits a bullet he just fired into two by holding up a knife, so that he can kill two bad guys with the last remaining bullet. Imagination at it's best :)

So, there we are sitting in the presence of a celebrity, he's wearing this black shirt with white patches which nobody else could carry off (actually neither can he, but then it's Mithun Da), is pissed drunk and smoking like there's no tomorrow (or wont be cause of the smoking). And I'm telling my colleagues and the visitor (who by the way, totally knew who Mithun Da was and was as excited about being in celebrated company. To quote him "This'll never happen to you, even in Hollywood. That's what I love about this country") about how in the hostel there were even people who would put on the Disco Dancer soundtrack and perform an arti on Mithun's picture.

In a way, I don't even blame them. The guy's a great businessman. He's carved for himself a niche which most would shirk away from. But this guy moved to Ooty, where he owns a hotel chain, perfect for shooting B/C- grade movies on such a low budget that there's a guaranteed return on the money. The stats are something like this (no reliable source though, just random hearsay):

Actor: Mithun Da himself - Free
Actress: Some random big-bosomed girl who's trying to make it into the movies - Almost free
Some other actors for villains: Dime a dozen
Location cost: Didn't I just tell you about the hotel chain?
Scriptwriter: You must be kidding. They're all the same script (for lack of a better word), Mithun is the good guy. His wife/sister gets raped and killed, then parents get killed. Mithun angry, kills the whole underworld and in the process finds another woman to make out with.

Entire budget: Under 30 Lakhs.
Movie screened: at the lesser movie halls in non-metros (and Calcutta). I can still remember the first time I heard some kinda news on FM, "XYZ movie with Mithun Chakraborty, playing at 1 hall in Delhi, 2 in Mumbai and 32 in Calcutta..."

Everybody happy.... no need for MasterCard... (bad one, I know!)

To top it all, you still hear Mithun songs, as remixes which in themselves are raking in the dough, Disco82, Zubi Zubi Zubi (to the tune of Brother Louis) being cases in example.

Well, I didn't really feel like intruding on his privacy, especially since there's so much being said about the privacy of celebrities, so that was the end of it, but as another friend put it, now I can die happy :p.


More on Mithun Da:
Wikipedia entry
IMDB entry - the dude's acted in 179 movies.
Interesting write up
Another interesting write up

Changaich - The Hyderabadization of a North Indian!

Ramblings; Hyderabad; Culture;

It'll soon be two years since I moved to Hyderabad but somehow it's never felt like home. I mean, sure I say "I'm going home" when I'm getting out of work, but that's just using the word home in the most general of senses. I've always believed that I'm here only temporarily and that I'm going to move out in the next couple of months. Reminds me of the forward that was doing the rounds some time ago about the NRI who wants to come back to India but keeps deferring it till he finally dies there (or something to that effect).

In the past month or so, however, I've been starting to think of staying around for at least another year. Not that I've developed a love for this city. I still believe in the whole Socially Clustered thing and that so doesn't work for me. It's just that I think of it now as a sacrifice I'm making for my career (let's not get into the discussion of it being worthwhile or not, cos that's a whole other debate). Work's pretty good and I'm not going to get something as good for at least another year, so that's what's keeping me here.

What's gotten me worried though is a recent event which got me thinking about how much effect this city has actually had on me. It happenned somewhat like this, I was talking to my parents over the phone. Mom came online and asked "Kee Haal Chaal?" and I responded "Changa-ich".

Now the significance of this statement would probably be lost on all who are not familiar with the Hyderabadi lingo and with the Punjabi word for 'fine', but the others would probably sympathise with me if they have a Punju background or rub their hands in glee if they belong to Gult-land thinking "Another convert!" I'm not trying to be racist here. It's just plain difficult adjusting to a whole different culture and trying to convince yourself that at the end of the day it's the same country. The whole Unity in Diversity thing was not only true but an understatement of the magnitude of that diversity.

I wonder though how long that diversity will exist, with hybrids like me who grow up in a mix of cultures, have Mysore Bajji followed by Lassi, use words like Changa-ich and other things I dare not even think of....

I also wonder how much longer I'll stick on in this city, now that I'm actually planning to stick on another year..... and how Hyderabadized will I be by then....

All I can say is danni dengu!

Hyderabad - Socially Clustered

Hyderabad; Culture; Life;

This evening, I stood looking at an aerial view of Hyderabad. Lots and lots of lights and I was thinking, it isn't exactly a small city. But for a city its size, it's seriously devoid of interesting people. I mean you find one in like ages, but the proportion is vastly lower than in a more cosmopolitan place like Delhi or Bangalore. It's not something I found out today, have known it for some time now. However, I was reflecting (yet again) on this attribute of the city.
Is it possible, was the thought. I know there's like a major IT focus and all, so most of the people you tend to meet are IT people. Does that mean that the city hardly has interesting people or is there severe clusterisation in this city, cliques which aren't breaking as they normally would. I would believe so.
Another attribute of this city, possibly a reason for the clusterisation is the scale at which young people have moved out before or immediately after their graduation. This could have in turn been caused by the poor undergraduate level education in this city. So you have under 18s who're still in school and even if interesting are far too young for me, then you have a major void in the 18-24 age group, formed mostly by those who wanted to move out but couldn't for one reason or the other or those who simply don't care if they stagnate. Over the age of 24, are people who were in the prior category a few years ago or have moved in because of the IT and ITES boom in the city, very skewed.
Highly clustered for on the one hand you have extremely ambitious people (also known as geeks) and on the other you have people who are apathetic to pretty much everything around them and ne'er the twain shall meet. One would assume that with such a major influx of population, there should be an interesting mix of people to choose from. Somehow, that hasn't happened, probably because of the drastic skew in the industries growing here. Contrast that with a Delhi or a Mumbai, and here is the scenario I usually quote. In Delhi, if you're at a Barista, any 10 people sitting there would represent at least 5 different professions, whereas in Hyderabad, 9 of them would be IT guys talking about how .NET is way cooler than Java. I like technology and I think .NET is cooler than Java too, but can't I get a break from it if I want to? Or do I HAVE to get out of this city for one?
I don't know if it's healthy for the city's growth or not, but it definitely isn't for me.........

Grilled Chicken! (Vegetarians refrain from reading!)

Food and Drink; Hyderabad; Reviews;
Originally written on June 8th, 2005

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Name of Restaurant: Dine Hill

Cuisine: Afghani, Middle-Eastern

Location: Masab Tank,

City: Hyderabad, India

Food Rating:

Ambience Rating:

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Had Grilled Chicken for dinner today.

There is this tiny, dingy looking place called Dine Hill in Hyderabad which is a non-vegetarians delight, for it serves the most amazing Grilled Chicken ever. For those not familiar with this dish, I've captured the beauties in all their glory.

I was introduced to this joint by a friend of my flatmate's in Jan last year and I've been a regular ever since. Well, not exactly as much of a regular as some other people I referred it to. I think I must have referred (directly and indirectly) about 8-9 other people (that I know of) and they make it a point to visit at least once a week. Me, I guess I go there once or maybe twice a month. But each visit is an experience in itself. The sight of those grilled chickens accompanied by Rumali Roti, Garlic Sauce and Pyaaz!!! Wah wah!!! Kukkad paadne ka maza hi kuch alag hai........ or as GP said today "Bhagwaan ne Murgi badi acchi cheez banayi hai."

I remember GP ko kya jalaya tha when he was in the US and we'd gone for one of our GC sessions, taken pictures and sent to him. "Yaar, US mein bas yehi ek cheez nahin milti."

Long live Grilled Chicken!!!!! (Well, not technically, but may it Rest in Pieces!)