The initial enthusiasm was just about to give way to abject frustration. Thankfully, things didn’t turn out to be too bad. The initial days in the land of the nizams and sumptuous biriyanis, was not too very pleasant (Blame it on the balmy Bengaluru weather). On the flip side, I was lucky to have missed a major part of the notorious summer heat in this part of the country; not that the alternative option of Chennai humidity was too appealing.
I had set myself a very optimistic target of not just finding a nice place to stay, but also to pick up a nice cool Royal Enfield bullet and a decent second hand compact four wheeler - all within 3 weeks. After some dubious apartment sightseeing - courtesy some overenthusiastic brokers, I settled for a decent apartment pretty near to my work place. But the search for the bike and car is still very much on, with people living up the motto - 'Sellers sell dear, buyers buy cheap'. The stalemate is still on.
But all this didn’t deflate my zealousness in buying a food guide for Hyderabad, and I have been on a gourmet testing trip on the weekends. My very first lunch meal was the typical Andhra fare, with fury unleashed on all items in the lunch thali excepting the curd and the sweet. The notable restaurants so far have been - Rayalsima Ruchiluru, Ohris, Kankis, Paradise, Angeethi, Utupura, Calcutta cabiin, 'Rattle and Hum', Riverside on Hussain Sagar, and Bhojanam (super décor for super mediocre food).
Banjara hills surely has on display some of the swankiest four-wheelers I have ever seen in India, not to mention few Harleys thrown in. Like people say, 'when you have em, flaunt em', these posh cars zip through the rather narrow but neatly laid out roads in and around banjara/jubilee hills. I saw more cars in MLA colony than people in the one month I spent in that part of the town.
Nothing comes cheap in the place where I stay, excepting two dhabas with limited fare and the road side tea shops. The place is full of swanky furniture showrooms, and an unbelievable number of beauty salons catering to the upscale clientele. I am seriously thinking of visiting one of the road side barbers who also ply their trade occasionally.
Pity that the city doesn’t screen many of the tamil movies in their original form and instead the big banner ones are dubbed in Telugu. The appeasement - Monsoons here are supposedly pleasant, and true to the word, it has been the case so far J
