Hydera"Bad" .. the land of barbarians

I lived in Hyderabad for most of my life and was excited to go back and take up a new job there. But the city is no more the Hyderabad which I left a couple of years ago. It has changed considerably over the past two years. Rents have gone up and so did the cost of living. IT companies pay less in Hyderabad compared to Bangalore, based on a myth that the cost of living is less in Hyderabad. I strongly disagree.Bangalore is a lot better that Hyderabad considering weather, crowd, rents, roads, and other daily costs.

House owners in Bangalore demand high rents, but they also provide quality living spaces. I did look out for a house to stay in Hyderabad. The rents were as high as 18000 for a 2BHK but the amenities were terrible. I bet you will find an amazing flat in areas like Koramangala, HSR and Marathahalli for that cost, that too with excellent neighborhood.

The traffic in Bangalore is bad, doesn't move quickly. Still people will care to stop at red. The percentage of people who follow traffic rules in Bangalore is considerably higher than that in Hyderabad. There will be no major traffic jams at 10.30 in the night, except on the end of Hosur road. But traffic is terrible even at that late in the night in Ameerpet, Dilsukh nagar and many more places. Imagine what would be the situation when the Metro rail project starts in Hyderabad.

Some of you may agree with me and others may not... but for me, Bangalore is a better place to live than Hyderabad.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.

Another short story from an email forward...Thanks to Manish

Two old acquaintances, who hadn't seen each other for years, were walking down the street together, renewing old times. "Just a minute," said one, "I think I hear something," and turning a loose paving stone over he liberated a cricket which was chirping merrily away.

"Why, that's astounding. Of all the people on the street at this hour, hurrying from work, you alone hear the cricket above all the traffic noises." "My friend," said the first. "I learned a long time ago that people hear in life only what they want to hear. Now, the noise of traffic has neither increased nor decreased in the past few moments, but watch."

And as he finished speaking he let a silver half dollar fall from his pocket to the sidewalk. Everyone within an amazingly large hearing distance stopped and looked around

The cookie.. An interesting story which discloses the facts of life.

Another of my patients, a successful businessman, tells me that before his cancer he would become depressed unless things went a certain way. Happiness was "having the cookie." If you had the cookie, things were good. If you didn't have the cookie, life wasn't worth a damn. Unfortunately, the cookie kept changing. Some of the time it was money, sometimes power, sometimes sex. At other times, it was the new car, the biggest contract, the most prestigious address.

A year and a half after his diagnosis of prostate cancer he sits shaking his head ruefully. "It's like I stopped learning how to live after I was a kid. When I give my son a cookie, he is happy. If I take the cookie away or it breaks, he is unhappy. But he is two and a half and I am forty-three. It's taken me this long to understand that the cookie will never make me happy for long. The minute you have the cookie it starts to crumble or you start to worry about it crumbling or about someone trying to take it away from you. You know, you have to give up a lot of things to take care of the cookie, to keep it from crumbling and be sure that no one takes it away from you. You may not even get a chance to eat it because you are so busy just trying not to lose it. Having the cookie is not what life is about."

My patient laughs and says cancer has changed him. For the first time he is happy. No matter if his business is doing well or not, no matter if he wins or loses at golf. "Two years ago, cancer asked me, 'Okay, what's important? What is really important?’ And then I thought what is really important. Well, life is important. Life. Life any way you can have it. Life with the cookie. Life without the cookie. Happiness does not have anything to do with the cookie; it has to do with being alive." Finally he said, “And then I figured out that Life itself is THE COOKIE…..”

Feeling nostalgic

Just another day in a busy life... but... I'm feeling really nostalgic today... A nostalgia for my bindaas Hyderabadi life struck me today. The long times I spent with my dear friend Nalini, the never ending evening walks, the long drives in OU campus, the entertaining classes of Misra sir, the movies, the pani puri stall.... and the list goes on...The memories of fun filled life came back to me, and are haunting me. My job has failed in keeping me busy, and the nostalgia is ruling my mind.

An inspiring article...

Venu is in HYD DC.. he is a moderator of HYD-CREATIVE forum on HYD BB

HYDERABAD: Putting behind the grief of losing the apple of their eyes, eighteen-month-old Ishaan, to a killer tumour, a courageous city couple donated his eyes and kidneys, making him one of the youngest multi-organ donors in the country.

“It was a tough decision but we took it as we wanted to make his short life meaningful. We could now see him live through the eyes of two otherwise visually-challenged youngsters and a middle-aged woman, who had suffered kidney failure,” said Ishaan’s mother, Swathi.

Ishaan was born on April 14, 2006, as a normal bubbly baby to Swathi and Venugopalan Vedam, both software engineers employed with IBM and Infosys respectively. “There was no health complaint till Dasara last year. Suddenly he started vomiting and we thought it was a simple case of indigestion or electrolyte deficiency.”

Tragically for the young couple it was not so, as Ishaan suffered bouts of unconsciousness.

For a week from October 21, 2007 the couple made several agonizing rounds to hospitals and a series of complex scans and tests later revealed that he suffered from a rare type of brain tumour.

Without losing time, the couple consented for a complicated and extremely risky surgery for the removal of the ‘large carcinogenic tumour’. Their prayers were answered when the October 26 surgery was successful.

“He came out from near comatose condition, recognized us and cried,” recalled Swathi.

Just when they thought the worst was over, his condition deteriorated and he again slipped into a coma on November 1.

“He was put on ventilator and doctors told us that his chances of survival were bleak. It was then that we took the difficult decision to donate his organs,” she said.

What inspired the couple was the brave decision taken by an Army major to donate organs of his son of the same age as Ishaan who succumbed to grievous injuries in a fall. “My son came into this world and left in a brief time but gave a new lease of life to three others”, she added.

Malgudi Days... reminds me of my childhood

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