Well if Hyderabad is most happening city, and made some interesting headlines about its being choosen by Infosys to build a world-class techpark of its own, Fabcity and some IT/Software/Hardware parks, they name them so, Ameerpet is the most happening part of the city, and if you go into more details, the lane between Maithrivanam and Adithya Enclave is the most happening and interesting place. Particularly to those who want to learn any or new software technologies. That lane and around are hundreds of software training institutions. You will always find students and even employees taking new courses through out the day. And the way those institutions advertise seems very funny though. They dont care to print thousands of pamplets, and distribute them everyday to everybody that passes through that lane. Both the sides of the road are filled with pamplets. And on all the buildings around, you will see most of the part, only banners filled with names like Java/J2ee/.net/SAP etc etc. This is an interesting place to learn, and solve some of your problems, like, you know some technology, but you dont have a certificate, or you have an opportunity to work abroad but have less knowledge and less time, you can solve it here :), you remained fresher for two years and want to be experienced :), you will be, and so so… you invent a problem, you will find a solution invented in parallel :P. Lets not blame anything for gods sake guys. As we know if we start blaming, we all should turn and blame entire world for some or the other reason of its own nature with respect to us. But we keep getting along is because the evil part of it is very less. Well if you say about this place, its really interesting. You would want to see it once. And go to instituions and talk to them, how you get lured into is not in your hands, if you are looking to learn something ( software courses ). Many people, who want to work in good companies in hyderabad, or working currently, they get to this place either to learn or get brushed up fast. I even know people, who come from abroad for few months or so, they get a real cheap courses and will be more useful for them. A two months course in J2EE technologies for 3000/- is not really a bad.

Hyderabad is a happening city. All round. Being an IT pioneer, would tech events be far behind? The BarCamp#2 is now announced. Only city in India to conduct two BarCamps. The first one held in April was a runaway success. That was held at IIIT and the theme was Web 2.0. This time, it is to be held at Microsoft and the theme is “Mobile Applications/Infrastructure in the next gen web”.

BarCamps are adhoc conferences (barcamp.org), where there are only participants and no “just audience”. Particpanation could be in the form of presentations, talks, demos, disucssions during q&a or just help with the event logistics.

Check it out- http://barcamp.org/BarCampHyderabad2. In keeping with the spirit of particpation, this time there are plans to have a lightning-sessions track (very short talks) and also an Entrepreneural track (TiE actively supports this event).

Click on the register link to register. If you have any topic in mind, do get that also in there. And if you like to speak, you are most welcome! And do spread the word around.(There is a planning meet due this saturday, 11am at Jubilee Hills Coffee Day. If interested in helping organize, do drop in).

As always, Hyderabad will rock! :-)

I was going to office,a few days ago.On my way,my bike’s fuel position reached the reserved.So I got into a petrol pump near by and asked the boy to fill 2litres of petrol.He reset the meter to zero and did his job.Then I resumed my way to office.But just after 2km,my bike stopped suddenly.I thought it might be a problem with choke.So I put the lever up and kicked the bike.But no use.Not started..After a few trials,I placed the petrol cock lever in the reserved position and kicked it now.To my surprise,it started now. Oh my God..2litres for just 2km? Puzzled..got furious and went back to the petrol pump and barked at the boy about this.He said,”we didn’t do anything wrong..You’ve seen..I set the meter to zero and filled out 2litres..we cannot do anything for you..” I argued with him explaining the reserved scene..but he didn’t even listen to my words..I met the manager of the pump and told about this..He said nothing otherthan the boy said..
Then,what should I do?And how can a common man like me,fight with those people without any evidence?Was that due to fudging of meters? Definitely,yes!! I can lodge a complaint to the police or bring to the notice of any news paper..But will they control this kind of corruption in petrol pumps? I guess,No.. Then what we people have to do? One thing,it comes to my mind that if corruption is inevitable,we should try to stay away from the evil of corruption rather than fight with the evil?
To my knowledge there’re two solutions to overcome this kind of corruption..

1. Tank full everytime or we have to take a 2lt or 5lt tin to the petrol pump and get it filled,there by avoiding the fudging..At least we can argue with them,if it goes wrong..But is it possible at everytime? I hope,No..
2. Request the motor manufacturers to set digital meters which indicate the quantity of fuel in the vehicle when it’s in the idle position..I think,it works out perfectly..

There is no dearth of laws, rules and regulations to prevent such adulteration and other malpractices at petrol pumps. Besides the guidelines of the oil companies, the state governments are vested with powers to tackle adulteration of motor spirit and high speed diesel under different quality control orders issued under the Essential Commodities Act.
To these have been added two more orders to tackle adulteration of petrol and diesel with naptha, solvent, raffinate and slop. In addition, the department of weights and measures can haul up dealers for inaccuracy in the meters of dispensing units and for tampering with its seal, under the Standards of Weights and Measures Rules.

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Another agony in Hyderabad. Though your heart wants to appreciate the government to widen the rode and made 3 or 4 lanes where ever possible. Who owns the new lane that the government constructed spending crores and crores of our incometax. Its sad to say that it is not used usefully by anybody other than “Auto Rickshaws”.

Any “T” junction, or a cross road(where 4 roads meet), near any IT companies. You can see a queue of autos numbering from 10 to 20 occupying the left most lane. Adding to that are the pedestrians. Some times they dont get a path to use the platform so they end up going around the last lane. Effectively more than one and a half of the road occupied. Does it stop here? No. We have a strange concept of share auto. I dont know if the RTO permits to carry more than 7 -10 ppl in a share auto(which is licensed to carry 7 - 8 ppl). But they end up carrying 15 - 20 people. A normal yellow auto will carry minimum of 8-10 people. Its really unfortunate to see some of well educated people also take these auto just to save a few rupees.

Ah….3 lane on road, one lane for auto parking, half of second lane for pedestrians. One lane for running autos. And that leave only one lane for all heavy vehicles, two wheelers, bi-cycles, car, van, buses. Oh man..too much crowded.

Cops..oh boy-o-boy. I reserver my view on cops for next post…its another on going …..*(^##%^%@*%Q#

This blog contains 11 unseen photos of The Nizams and their Royal Famililes.
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Oh my god. My worst ever day on the road. People in hyderabad especially those who dirve bikes, bi-cycles and autowalas..my goodness. Will they ever react to you when you honk behind them? I dont know when these people will change.

I was driving behind a bike and that great person was exactly driving in the middle of the road on the white line which shows the lane of the road. I honked, honked and kept honking. He casually looked back and still kept driving on his way. After 2 mins of continous honk he moved a littlebit for my car to pass by. Almost today I had to honk 15 two wheelers just in a span of 1 km. And was really suprised and irritated as people never bother to react. I think they basically think honking is for fun and they dont realize that they have move out of the way.

Worst thing, when an ambulance was in emergency, instead of leaving way for the ambulance people were taking advantage to follwo the ambulance or go infront of the ambulance thinking that they can go faster to their destination.

Will MCH ever will take any action to educate people or do any serious examinations before issuing license???

Alrighty then, with due apologies to the Pet Detective. I had blogged about a similar topic on my personal blog, but I digress.
To those not in the know, Bangalore had until recently been known as the Silicon Valley, Tech city, blah blah, of India for a long time. The city of Hyderabad is now upping the ante.
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4 souls (with bodies :) of course) met for first ever metbloggers meet in the city of Nawabs. Our chosen venue was Cafe Coffee Day at Banjara Hills Road No. 1. Designated time for the meet was 4 pm.

Rajat, Rajan and I were there at the cafe since 3 pm as I was interviewing both of them for an upcoming series on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in India. We were still discussing entrepreneurship when Sandeep joined us around 4:30 pm.

Though we were meeting Sandeep for the first time but there seemed to be no difficulty in recognizing each other. It is easy to locate somebody who is of the same breed (bachelor:) and blogger).

Sitting left to right (Sandeep Srivastava, M. Thiyagarajan “Rajan”, Rajat Gupta)

The discussion started with Sandeep sharing his life before he joined Microsoft, his current employer and his earlier brush with startups. It then moved on to personal interests. We found out that Sandeep is deeply interested in religion and philosophy. Sandeep got to know more about Advetta - the startup co-founded by Rajan and Rajat. I shared my interest in writing and future plans of getting into publishing. Rajat remembered my interest and later mailed me an interesting article on Digital Publishing.
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Cosmopolitan? Metro? Hyderabad,is which?

I started to comment on another post.. and reliased that there is more to this than just a passing comment. About cosmo/metro.. guess Metro is just a size attribute. So it may be sometime before Hyderabad becomes a Metro. But Cosmo.. guess we are anyday more cosmo than most cities.

By Cosmo I mean a truly plural society, tolerant, broad minded and relatively more intellectual (dont know abt the last one though.. atleast I see that as an essential pre-req for a cosmo env :-)).. Hyderabad is all of these. Now.. it is something esle, if one confuses Cosmopolitan with being ultra modern (as in ultra mini shorts/shirts, more liberal views. Even here.. one person’s “liberal” is another’s “loose morals”. For an ultra-conservative anything short of an 8-yard saree is being “extreme”. For a second generation city dweller, even if conservative, anything beyond a Salwar-kameez (which is considered “modern” in conservative south) may be non-acceptable.. And for fairly modern parents, sleevless tops are OK, but not showing too much of skin in the mid-riff. As you can see, this changes with time. What is acceptable, and what is extreme (”liberal”) is something that surely evolves with time.And.. always outliers fringing on the majority’s moral periopheries). Now, this is just about dress sense.

Back to Cosmo.. Hyderabad is definetely plural society. Religions. Cultures. Lanuages. MIndsets. Thinking. Intellect.

Hyderabad is a city where one can get away with chaste Hindi, the very very localized hyderabadi language- urdu+hindi+(yes.. a little telugu)+some-terms-very-hard-to-figure-where-they-came-from. And ofcourse, one can manage with telugu.. well almost. Can any city be more cosmo than this.. where the city is capital of a telugu speaking state.. and yet the biz language is hindi, more than telugu. A place where many people come here to work from other states, live here many years, and still do not need to learn the local language telugu.

Can you imagine this in Chennai.. or for that matter even in Bangalore? Other than Mumbai, can you think of any other city, where the masses in the city by and large are atleast bi-lingual, and in most cases tri+-lingual! Can you imagine any other cities where the city has atleast three religions in fairly large proportions! Yes.. we did have our riots.. but am in the camp that believe that these are more politically driven, than truly grass-roots and spontaneous. At a time when we have government sponsored religious riots, here i sHyderabad where the city administration gets more creative every year to prevent the riots in a very religiously-charged-ganesh-immersion processions. Here temples, traditional shops, modern malls and pubs.. all very peacefully co-exist. Each have their preferences. Maybe very strong. And still do not mind other’s preferences.

Isnt this the essence of being liberal? And isnt this at the core of being Cosmo? Plural. Positive. Considerative and accomodative.

On June 2, 2006 couple of friends got together at JNTU to kick start the activity for BarCampHyderabad2.

Once the meeting was over I headed towards Latent Images at Babu Khan Mall, Somajiguda to get a new tripod for my camera. My interaction with one Mr. Suresh Joshi, the store manager of Latent Images made my evening.

This is the first time I came across Mr. Joshi at the store. Earlier I was attended by various sales people. They are all good but do not possess the attitude of Mr. Joshi.

He made me feel like a valued customer despite this being my first encounter with him. He listened to all my queries patiently, explained things in detail and cleared my doubts. After taking my consent, he created the bill without asking for money. Not to suggest that he would have let me take the stuff without taking the money. This was a refreshingly unique experience as opposed to instances where sales people push you into making a buying decision. He was not hurried in his approach. As a result I left the store as a happy customer with my prized possession.

Take 2 of the tale, I reached adjoining Minerva Coffee Shop as I mentioned in my earlier post. I already shared with you a major part of the experience there. The rest of the tale includes a couple who entered the restaurant with their son (aged around 8 years).

Both of them were searching for a place to sit. Throughout they were focused on each other, busy in their own chit-chat while child was dejected and sad lacking any attention at all from his parents.

Such instances are sad. I do not know the reason but probably the reason is the lack of sensitivity. I wrote about this issue earlier. The westernization and technology has created a change in our lifestyle, way of communication etc. That is all good but if it affects our value system nothing great about it.

Kids are tender beings who need care and nurturing like a small plant does. If we nurture their lives with good doses of attention, love and care they grow up as complete individuals with high self esteem, confidence and sense of stability in their lives. If they lack attention and love in their lives they look outwards to find it. In such situations, chances of these kids ending up in wrong relationships for wrong reasons and falling prey to other bad habits are high.

If you are a parent to a kid make sure that your kid is not devoid of your love, attention and care. Good if you buy them latest stuff and send them to a good school but take care of other small necessities also. Sit with them, listen to them with patience, and know what they are up to at school. Kids may not tell you at first. But if you behave like their constant companions they will confide in you and you will be in a situation to guide them onto right path.

I will look forward to your thoughts on this.