How to de-stress in Hyderabad

Life in a big city can be very hectic and I am sure it is the same in Hyderabad too. Cities offer various means for us to unwind. On my recent visit to Hyderabad, I discovered a completely new and unconventional therapy to de-stress. I am graciously sharing my knowledge with the world!

Materials needed: A car and time on your hand. Start driving from NH7/Salar Jung Road junction, head South on Pathergatti Road, go around Char Minar, take a right turn into Laad Bazaar Road and drive till the junction of Khilwath Road. This drive is barely 1.5km. Refer to this map:

For added effectiveness:

• Choose a busy time of the day, especially around long weekends/holidays/festivals.
• Drive a brand-new car with no dents on it.
• My car wasn't of ideal size for this. For great effect, choose a big car with a big turning radius (like Tata Safari, Honda Accord)
• People from outside Hyderabad/Andhra will benefit more from this therapy. Especially if you don't know any Telugu and your Hindi/Urdu isn't great.

As you drive down this road, try not to bump (at least not too hard) into pedestrians. At the same time, ignore the pedestrians bumping into your car. Notice that some of the hawkers on the road have actually put their body parts (like hands, head) inside your car itself! Avoid running over the vendor who is sitting on the road (not by it's side). Notice that the pedestrians have forcibly folded your rear-view-mirrors to make room for their movement! Let the mirrors be so for now. Enjoy the excellent traffic jam that has built up at the entrance of Laad Bazaar road. When the traffic police says "Go", you just go, even if it involves "pushing" hordes of pedestrians crossing the road with your car. If you don't push through, you will never make progress, then the policeman will be very unhappy and give you choicest of scoldings. Once you enter Laad Bazaar road, observe that the only way to make across this road involves breaking a few laws of physics. At least that's what I thought, considering the amount of traffic and people moving in both directions on that narrow road. Somehow (I don't really know how), it all still works out and you get across this stretch after some time.

When you arrive at your destination, you will feel a great sense of achievement, satisfaction and relaxation. You will feel less attached to worldly things and recognize that you don't control all aspects of your life. You would have learnt to accept things as they come and move on. What better way to relax your nerves and de-stress?

PS1: I am sure there are such areas in Bangalore too. But in our defense, we don't have the city's most recognized tourist attraction in such an area.

PS2: I must add that the rest of the city seemed to be a bit more organized than Bangalore.

Tirupati temple visit

Once, a Himalayan trekker, a marathon runner, a serious Yoga trainee and a lazy guy went for a trek of 3500 steps. Oh wait, that is not where the story begins...

It was a friend's wedding that finally took me to Tirupati for the first time in my life. After a very comfortable car journey (4 people in a big SUV and I wasn't even driving!), we landed up in Tirupati at a late evening. The air conditioned hotel room was the best place to be in town because even late in the evening the place was sweltering hot. The plan was to visit Tirumala temple (now I can tell Tirumala from Tirupati!) early next morning. 2 of my friends had plotted a plan to climb the stairs to Tirumala. For those of you who haven't been to Tirupati, there is a perfectly nice road that goes all the way to the top of the hill... and you can take your car all the way... and if you don't want to do that, there are plenty of buses too, so there is no logical reason to climb the stairs ;-) One of the members of our team pointed out that the climb is not very easy (3500 steps, elevation of around 800 meters, distance of around 11 km) and suggested that we just drive up the hill. I guess the heat must have fried my brain, so I agreed to experience the thrill of the hike.

How difficult can this climb be? After all, thousands of people climb these stairs every day, many of them much older/weaker than me. There were two things that I had not considered: Most people who take the stairs reserve a lot of time for the climb, but we had allocated just about 3 hours. Secondly and more importantly, most of the people who take the stairs come there with an unwavering devotion to Lord Venkateshwara, which makes them forget about physical discomforts and focus just on reaching the summit to see the Lord. People who think too rationally like me can't reach that level of devotion.

So how was the actual climb? We started at around 5:45AM from Alipiri on the first Sopanamarga (http://www.tirumala.org/travel_tptm_foot.htm) to the hill. It was a Saturday and I was told that the crowd was unusually high that day. Initially we had to make our way through dense group of people. I saw a large number of people who had probably arrived in the town that morning and had directly come to climb the hill with their luggage. Some people were placing a camphor on each step (yes, each step!) and lighting it before moving on. Some were applying kumkum and arashina (turmeric) on each stair! Some people were carrying their kids while climbing. There were a number of senior citizens too. The stairs are well-maintained and there is a shade too. We needed to walk along the road for some distance in between, but that stretch too had a good footpath. There were plenty of shops all along selling all types of eatables, like full breakfast, water, juices, freshly cut fruits, chaats (yes, chaats), milk kova and so on.

The first 1 hour was the most excruciating as it was extremely steep, where we climbed around 2000 steps. After that, the next 1000 steps are spread across a lot of distance, so they were easy to climb. The last 500 steps were again very steep. After plenty of short breaks, we reached the top at about 8:30AM, taking around 2 hours 45 minutes for the climb. Tirumala is roughly at the same elevation as Bangalore and weather was pleasant, so we were able to relax very quickly and the exhaustion of climb was quickly forgotten. Needless to say, I was the slowest in our group and I made a resolve to improve my fitness levels immediately, a resolve I maintained for almost a day.

The climb is probably not much difficult compared to treks in real mountains. However, what makes this climb difficult is that as soon as we climb up, we need to stand in hours and hours of queues for the darshan of the God. On this day, there was a long queue for anything and everything in Tirumala... just depositing our mobile phones and bags took 45 minutes of standing in a queue. After a while we were conditioned to stand in a queue wherever we saw one. We were fortunate to have booked the right ticket for darshan that day, thanks completely to one of the members of the group who is a seasoned pro of visiting Tirumala. We spent less than 3 hours getting in and out of the temple, which included approximately 10 seconds of seeing the God. My friend had warned us to keep our eyes peeled while in front of the God because there is a tendency to close our eyes while in front of the God and doing so here can mean you will completely miss out seeing the God :-) After the darshan, there was a queue to put our offerings in Srivari Hundi too! The queue for buying "extra" laddus was so long, we decided to skip it completely.

Having never visited Tirumala before, I must say I was happy to see how well the place was organized, considering the large number of devotees who pour into the temple every day. While roaming around on the streets I didn't feel the population as much as I had expected. There aren't too many eating options in Tirumala, partly due to the free food provided by the temple. I found this interesting way of making badam milk though:

Tea stalls with a copper "boiler" like this were common, but I learnt that many stalls had these boilers just for ornamental purpose:

Picture from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Tea_stall_tamil_nadu.jpg/800px-Tea_stall_tamil_nadu.jpg

There is a free city bus ride within Tirumala and they use these interesting buses:

Thankfully, we took a bus while returning from Tirumala to Tirupati. I totally hate climbing down the stairs, much more than I hate climbing up. We were back in the comforts of our AC room in Tirupati by 5PM.

Poor food!

Seen in the food court of a mall.

To get respect, one has to give respect (well, most of the time)

Update 8-Jun: Translation posted.

ಅದೊಂದು ಶನಿವಾರ. ಬಹಳ ದಿನಗಳಿಂದ ಬಾಕಿ ಇದ್ದ ಕೆಲಸಗಳನ್ನು ಮುಗಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನಾನು ಹಾಗೆಯೇ ಒಂದು ಶೂ ಖರೀದಿಸಬೇಕಿರುವುದು ನೆನಪಾಗಿ ಎದುರಿಗೇ ಇದ್ದ ಶೂ ಅಂಗಡಿಯನ್ನು ಹೊಕ್ಕೆ.

ಎರಡು ಮಹಡಿಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಹರಡಿಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದ ಈ ಶೂ ಅಂಗಡಿಯ ನೆಲ ಮಹಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಅಂಗಡಿಯ ಮಾಲೀಕನನ್ನು ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಬೇರೆ ಯಾರೂ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯವಾಗಿರುವಂತೆ ಗಂಡಸರ ಶೂ ವಿಭಾಗ ಮೇಲಿನ ಮಹಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿತ್ತು (ಕಾರಣ ಗೊತ್ತಲ್ಲವೇ? ;-)). ಮೇಲೆ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದಂತೆ ಒಂದಿಬ್ಬರು ಗ್ರಾಹಕರು ಮತ್ತು ಒಬ್ಬ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ (ಸೇಲ್ಸ್ ಬಾಯ್ ) ಕಾಣಿಸಿದರು. ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ಪಾಡಿಗೆ ಶೂಗಳನ್ನು ನೋಡುವುದರಲ್ಲಿ ಮಗ್ನನಾದೆ. 5-10 ನಿಮಿಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ ಉಳಿದ ಗ್ರಾಹಕರಿಗೆ ಬೇಕಾದ ವಸ್ತುಗಳನ್ನು ಕೊಟ್ಟು, ಆ ವಸ್ತುಗಳನ್ನು ನೆಲಮಹಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ ಮಾಲೀಕನ ಬಳಿ ತಲುಪಿಸಿ ಲಗುಬಗೆಯಿಂದ ನನ್ನ ಕಡೆ ಬಂದ. ಸಾಧಾರಣವಾಗಿ ನಾನು ದೊಡ್ಡ ಅಂಗಡಿಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರರನ್ನು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾದಷ್ಟೂ ದೂರವಿಡುತ್ತೇನೆ. ಮುಖದ ಮೇಲೊಂದಿಷ್ಟು  ಮಂದಹಾಸ, ಕೆಲಸದಲ್ಲಿ ಉತ್ಸಾಹ, ಒಳ್ಳೆಯ ನಡವಳಿಕೆ, ಅಂಗಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿರುವ ವಸ್ತುಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳುವಳಿಕೆ ಇವಿಷ್ಟೂ ಇರುವ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರರು ಸಿಗುವುದು ಅಪರೂಪ. ಆದರೆ ಈ ಹುಡುಗ ಅಂಥವನೊಬ್ಬನೆಂದು ನನಗೆ ಅನ್ನಿಸಿತು. ಮುಂದಿನ  5-10 ನಿಮಿಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ನಾನು ಒಂದು ಶೂ ಅನ್ನು ಆಯ್ಕೆ ಮಾಡುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಹತ್ತಿರ ಬಂದಿದ್ದೆ. ಆಗ ಅಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಇನ್ನೊಬ್ಬ  ಗ್ರಾಹಕನ ಆಗಮನವಾಯಿತು.

ಗ್ರಾಹಕ ನೋಡುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಸಭ್ಯನಂತಿದ್ದ. ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ ತಕ್ಷಣ ತನ್ನ ಸೇವೆ ಮಾಡಬೇಕೆಂಬುದು ಅವನ ನಿರೀಕ್ಷೆಯಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಇದನ್ನರಿತ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ ತಕ್ಷಣ ಹೊಸ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನನ್ನು ನನ್ನ ಪಕ್ಕದಲ್ಲಿಯೇ ಕೂರಿಸಿ "ಏನು ಬೇಕು ಸಾರ್?" ಎಂದು ಮಾತು ಆರಂಭಿಸಿದ. ಅವನಿಗೆ ಅವನು ಧರಿಸಿ ಬಂದಿದ್ದ ತರಹದ್ದೇ ಚಪ್ಪಲಿ ಬೇರೆ ಅಳತೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬೇಕಿತ್ತು. ಆ ವಸ್ತು ಅಂಗಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಲಭ್ಯವಿರುವುದು ನಿಜವಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಆದರೆ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆ ಆ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನ ವರ್ತನೆಯದ್ದಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಆತ  ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರನನ್ನು ಏಕವಚನದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂಬೋಧಿಸುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಆರಂಭಿಸಿದ. ಕೆಲವರಿಗೆ ಅಂಗಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿನ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರರನ್ನು ತಮ್ಮ ಸೇವಕರಂತೆ ಕಾಣುವ ಅಭ್ಯಾಸವಿರುತ್ತದೆ. ಆ ವರ್ಗಕ್ಕೆ ಸೇರಿದಂತೆ ಕಂಡ ಈ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿ ಮಾತಾಡುವ ರೀತಿ ಕಂಡು ನನಗೆ ಆಶ್ಚರ್ಯವೂ ಬೇಸರವೂ ಆಯಿತು. ಆದರೆ ಮುಂದೆ ಈ ಕಥೆಗೊಂದು ತಿರುವು ಸಿಕ್ಕಿತು. "ಸಾರ್" ಎಂದು ಮಾತು ಆರಂಭಿಸಿದ್ದ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರ ಒಂದೇ ನಿಮಿಷದಲ್ಲಿ "ಏನಣ್ಣಾ  ನಿನಗೆ ಏನು ಬೇಕು?" ಗೆ ಬದಲಾಯಿಸಿದ್ದ. ಇದು ಆ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನಿಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟವಾಗುತ್ತಿಲ್ಲವೆಂಬುದು ಸ್ಪಷ್ಟವಾಗಿ ತೋರುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ನಾನು ನನ್ನ ಶೂ ಆಯ್ಕೆ ಮುಗಿಸಿ ಕೆಳ ಮಹಡಿಗೆ ಬರುತ್ತಿದ್ದಂತೆ ಆ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನ ಖರೀದಿ ಸಫಲವಾಗುವುದಿಲ್ಲವೆಂದು ನನಗೆ ಅನಿಸುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ನಾನು ಬಿಲ್ಲಿಂಗ್ ಮುಗಿಸಿ ಹೊರಡುವಷ್ಟರಲ್ಲಿಯೇ ಆ ಇನ್ನೊಬ್ಬ ಗ್ರಾಹಕ ದಡದಡನೆ ಕೆಳಗಿಳಿದು ಬಂದು ಬರಿಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೊರಟೇ ಹೋದ. ಅವನ ಮುಖದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಟ್ಟು ಕಾಣುತ್ತಿತ್ತು.

ಅಂಗಡಿಯ ಮಾಲೀಕ ಎದುರಿಗೇ ಇದ್ದಿದ್ದರೆ ಆ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರನ ವರ್ತನೆ ಬೇರೆ ರೀತಿ ಇರುತ್ತಿತ್ತೇನೊ? ಮೇಲಿನ ಮಹಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆಯುವ ಮಾತುಕತೆ ಕೆಳಗಿನ ಮಹಡಿಗೆ ಕೇಳದಿರುವುದು ಆ ಮಾರಾಟಗಾರನಿಗೆ ತನ್ನ ಆತ್ಮಗೌರವವನ್ನು ಉಳಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಅವಕಾಶವನ್ನು ಕೊಟ್ಟಿತ್ತು ಮತ್ತು ಅವನು ಆ ಅವಕಾಶವನ್ನು  ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣವಾಗಿ ಬಳಸಿಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದ. ಇದ್ಯಾವುದರ ಅರಿವಿರದ ಮಾಲೀಕ ಹೊಸ ಗ್ರಾಹಕರ ನಿರೀಕ್ಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಳಿತಿದ್ದ. ಒಬ್ಬ ಗ್ರಾಹಕನಿಗೆ ಬೇಕಿರುವ ವಸ್ತುವು ಅಂಗಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಇದ್ದೂ ಮಾರಾಟ ಸಫಲವಾಗುವುದು ನಿಶ್ಚಿತವಲ್ಲ ಎಂಬುದನ್ನು ಈ ಘಟನೆಯು ನನಗೆ ತೋರಿಸಿಕೊಟ್ಟಿತ್ತು.


Translation:
It was a Saturday. I was finishing tasks from my long-pending to-do list and as I saw a shoe shop, remembered that I had to buy a pair and entered the store.

The store was spread in 2 floors and the ground floor had nobody but the owner. As usual, the men's section was upstairs (you know why, right? ;-)). As I came upstairs, I saw a couple of customers and a lone sales boy (should I call them sales executives now?) I started looking at shoes by myself. Within 5-10 minutes the sales boy helped other customers finalize their purchases, took their stuff to the owner in ground floor and came running to me. I usually keep away the sales boys/girls in large stores as I find them to be nuisance rather than helpful. It is very rare to find a sales person who is knowledgeable about the products, behaves well, enthusiastic and has a smile on his/her face. However, this sales boy seemed to be one such. In the next 5-10 minutes I was about to finalize on my selection. That is when another customer entered the scene.

The new customer had dressed like a gentleman. He wanted the sales boy to serve him immediately. The sales boy understood this, sat him right next to me and asked him "What do you want, sir?" The customer's need was simple. He was looking for a pair of sandals exactly like what he was wearing, but in a different size. The store indeed had what he wanted, so it should have been a simple deal. However, the problem was of the customer's behavior. He addressed the sales boy in singular and abusive language. Some people have the habit of treating sales guys in stores, parking lot attendants, etc as their slaves. The customer seemed to belong to this category. I was surprised and sad to see the way he spoke to the sales boy. However, the story took a turn from then on. The sales boy immediately switched from "sir" to addressing the customer a language comparable to what the customer was using. It was obvious that this hurt the customer's ego and he surely did not like this. As I finalized my shoes and came down to ground floor for billing, I felt that the purchase of the other customer was not going to be successful. Indeed, as I finished billing, I saw the other customer come down the stairs huffing and walk out empty-handed. He was visibly angry.

Perhaps the sales boy would have behaved differently if the store owner was nearby when this happened. The conversation in 1st floor was not audible from the ground floor and this had given the sales boy an opportunity to maintain his self-respect, which he had used completely. The owner was oblivious to all this and continued to wait for customers. What I realized is: Even though the store has exactly what the customer needs, there is no guarantee that the sale will succeed.

Kumta eerulli (Onion)

If you see this strange bunch of onions hanging in a house you visit, it is likely that you are in the house of people from the coastal or Malnad districts of Karnataka and it is a summer month. These onions come in two colours, pink and white. They come from Kumta and only during the April and May months. Quick google search shows that there is some more information about these onions here and here.

An interesting story

This is a long post, please bear with me.

I was driving alone in a jungle route, probably at around 9 in the night. I had already driven close to 350 kms and was eager to reach my destination and take some rest, but there still was around 40Kms of driving in front me of. There were a lot of insects in the air that evening and that had created quite a mess on my windshield, beyond what my car's wiper could fix. So I decided to take a short break to manually clean the windshield. I was in an isolated area when I pulled over and hopped out of my car. As I got out of the car, the car's door closed and I immediately realized: I HAD LOCKED MYSELF OUT! With the Autocop mechanism in my car, there is a way to lock ourselves out of the car and I had never fallen prey to it... until now! I quickly assessed the situation: Car's engine wasn't running, but headlight, music system and the light inside were all on, draining out the battery fast. My mobile phone and wallet were inside the car. I was in the middle of a jungle, a few KMs from any village on either side. It was very very dark outside except for the lights from my car. This was an open stretch of road with very less traffic, so the few vehicles that were passing by were going very fast. I waved at every vehicle passing by and for the next 30 minutes none stopped. There was also a real danger of rain now... and when it rains here, it really pours.

Finally a guy on a 2-wheeler stopped. A guy in his mid-30s, probably a local guy. I explained the situation to him and he immediately assured me that he would help me. He did not know how to open a locker car. He took out his mobile phone and made a few phone calls. He then told me that the only "garage" in nearby village was closed, but he knew the house of the mechanic, so he could go and get him. He asked me again: "Do you want me to go and get the mechanic?" I thought the question was moot considering the situation I was in. He quickly rode back in the direction he came in.

Another half an hour passed and no other vehicle stopped. Then, 3 bikes approached me and stopped. There were 5 people in total, including the guy from before. A thought quickly ran in my mind: "Why so many people to open a locked car? Are they planning to rob me? Are they armed?" But I didn't have much choice than go with the flow. One of the new guys, who was the mechanic, had brought a metal scale with him. He quickly got to work and in less than 2 minutes, had taken off the rubber beeding of the front glass and unlocked the car, taking out any confidence I still had in my car's security system. Now that the main task was over, it was time to talk about money.

I asked the mechanic how much money should I pay he wasn't willing to quote a price readily. After a quick discussion with his friends, he asked for Rs. 100. I could not believe my ears! This was 1/5th of what I was expecting him to demand. I happily paid him Rs. 150 and the 4 of them sped away happily on their bikes.

Now the first guy and I were left. I thanked this guy and wondered "What next?". My observation of the people I have interacted with suggests that nobody helps anyone these days unless they have something to gain. This guy had spent his time as well as money (on petrol) to help me. I was sure that this guy would now put up a hefty demand for money now and tried to guess the amount in my mind. 200? 500? even more? He instead told me "Follow me in your car. My village is close by". I followed his bike for a few kilometers and reached his village. The guy turned out to be the owner of a small grocery store in the village. This was probably the biggest grocery store in the vicinity. He forced me to sit for a while, gave me fruits to eat and told me that he would get tea made. I politely refused this and told him that I should be leaving, considering I still have some distance to go and it is quite late in the night now. I then asked him  "How can I repay for the help you gave me? Can I pay you some money?" This made him angry to some extent. "Sir, I did not help you for money. Luckily God has given me enough to lead a happy life. You looked like a good person stuck in an unfortunate situation on the road, so I helped you. Please don't even think about repaying it". I was flabbergasted. Not knowing what to do next, I thanked him again and drove away shaking my head.

Such a tame end to such a story filled with suspense? Yes. Later, I wondered about my inability to judge people correctly on that day. Was I too worried about my situation which prevented me from thinking clearly? Have I seen seen too many examples of the selfish face of people that I could not recognize people who are simple and lead a contented life? Probably a bit of both. I guess I have lived far too long in Bangalore!

Update: This is NOT just a story. This incidence really happened exactly as I have described here.

Seen at an outdoor amusement park

Any guesses what happens when it rains?

Siesta!

Is there no end to human creativity?

What next? Green chillies?