Now I have been here almost a week already.
This is not my first visit to Hyderabad; I was here in June as well, but that was before my blogging era.
The traffic is chaotic as usual, but it flows, that is, if you can call it a flow. Autorickshaws (three wheelers with a two stroke engine and room for three passengers. Again depending on what you call ’room’.) fill the streets. There is constant signalling, carrying at the same time the messages ’Watch out!’, ’I am here!’, ’Let me pass!’, ’You stupid!’, ’I am more important than you!’.
People on foot, bicycles with enormous loads, autorickshaws, mopeds, motorbikes, cars, buses, trucks, Ambassador type taxis, and then hired cars transporting foreigners like me, all compete for the road in this traffic soup. There is never a stand-still, except at the few traffic lights. Driving lanes are ignored, or just used as an indication of the general direction of the road. Driving on the left side is only strictly observed when there is a row of concrete blocks in the middle of the road, separating the lanes.
On business travel in Hyderabad, company policy does not allow us to drive ourselves. We do not want to. We would not stand an icicle’s chance in hell.
At the end of the monsoon, this is still a rainy season. Last time it was very hot and no hint of humidity. The monsoon was expected then, but was late. One night there was indeed a thunderstorm and heavy rain.
Now overcast, humid, and occasionally raining. There have been some sunny days, and the humidity makes life unbearable without air-conditioning. Not so hot in general; Ca 28 degrees C is OK.
The impressions are many, and force themselves upon even the casual visitor:
- At building sites, the workers and their families live in makeshift tents. The women are nevertheless dressed in clean colourful sarees. Men and women work at the building sites, carrying loads on their heads. Probably paid peanuts.
- People sleeping out at night along the roads, frequently lying in the planted grass that separates the driving lanes.
- Women sweeping the streets in the middle of the storming traffic, bent over with a half-long brush. Even in the largest main roads.
- Beggars, old and young, and some with horrible disfigurements.
- Rapidly expanding, blazing IT-villages, connected by a totally inferior network of roads.
- Luxury villas and apartment complexes for the growing upper and middle classes, always guarded.
- Building sites everywhere!
People are very gentle, despite the enormous differences. Foreigners are scarce in Hyderabad, even though it is a fast growing IT centre and attracts much foreign business. Being the capital of Andrah Pradesh, it now houses some six million inhabitants. Most of the city has appeared in the last 5-10 years.
The starting point may be horrible to a western foreigner, but in general wealth seems to spread and grow.