Trip to Hyderabad

I had  wanted to write about the travels I had made in the last 2 years. Unfortunately, I have been able to write very little and have not been able to move past those few lines. Today, I finally told myself that I had to write about the trip I had made in Feb this year.

The travel to Hyderabad had been in my to-do list for a very long time. Ever since my friend H moved to Hyderabad, I had wanted to go and visit that place.

Finally in Feb, I made my plans and told her that I will be travelling for the weekend. I did not really have an agenda. 

H had come to pick me up from the airport despite me telling her multiple times that I could get a cab and come in by myself. I must admit that it felt good to see her at the airport. We talked or rather I talked the whole way back to her home. Thankfully, she had already ordered our lunch and we were able to grab the food delivered as soon as we landed at her place. 

Even after meeting multiple times and chatting, talking over phone, we just had so much to catch up on. We were non stop chatting until she realized that it was time to go for the movie (1917) that she had booked that evening. It was a fun ride to the movie theater. She kept urging the auto driver to go a bit fast since she did not want to miss even one scene of the movie.

Hyderabad was just like any other city in India. The roads were congested and the traffic was bad. I  noticed that none of the auto rickshaws had side hand bars for passengers to hold on to. So different from the ones in Chennai and most of the cities I had been to, where one side had hand bars.

I also noticed that if a person knows Hindi, they can manage quite well in Hyderabad. Every one knows and understands Hindi. Hindi is the second language that everyone is supposed to learn apart from Telugu from a young age.

The movie was good and we decided to have dinner at the mall. I had wanted to try the real Hyderabadi biryani and we found one restaurant in the mall. I had ordered for a chicken biryani and looked forward to enjoying the meal. When the food arrived, I was taken back. I had expected a spicy biryani but what I got was a normal spice less pulao with chicken curry. There was so much rice that I could have easily shared with one more person. I was disappointed and started having the pulao with the chicken curry. It was so bland with no spices. After a few minutes, I  realized my mistake - I should have digged into the biryani first. The rice was just an outer layer. The inner layer had the chicken pieces with the spicy masala. One was supposed to mix the layers and then have the biryani. And that is when it got interesting - it was really spicy. Since I had eaten half of the rice, the masala was too hot for me. I had to literally drink a little lemon juice after every spoon of rice. I finally ended up wasting so much of the chicken masala. 

Back home when I told my parents, they were surprised that I did not know how to eat a hyderabadi biryani. Looks like everyone knew about it except me and my friend!!!

The massive level of construction that was going on in every part of the city was quite disappointing. Huge rocks and boulders were being cut down to make way for new buildings.

The next day, we planned to go and visit the Salar Jung Museum and Charminar. While talking to my dad in the morning, he explained about the clock in the museum and asked us to go before 12 in the noon. The musical clock is one of the main attractions in the museum. Every hour, a figurine of a man walks out of a door and hits the small bell with a hammer. The number of times he hits the gong matches the hour at that time. Which means at 12, he would strike 12 times. Unfortunately, by the time we heard this and reached the museum it was way past twelve in the afternoon. We were able to watch the clock thrice - at 1pm, 2pm and 3 pm.

Salar Jung layout

Salar Jung is an art museum that was originally a private art collection of the Salar Jung family. The museum is huge and most of the collections are beautiful. We were in awe of the exhibits and made sure that we had seen all of them.  The ivory artifacts, the different ornamental daggers, the jade collection and the collections were just awesome. After hours of walking from one room to another and running to find a good seat in the front row before the beginning of every hour, we were tired and exhausted.

Miniature collection

Beautifully ornamented daggers

Charminar

We then took an auto to the Charminar monument. After taking a few photographs, we waited in the queue to buy tickets and go up to the upper floor. There was a huge queue since it was a weekend. When we had got the tickets and it was my turn to take the stairs, I realized that to get to the upper floor, one had to take the closed winding narrow stairs. I panicked since I was not fond of closed spaces. Imagine climbing 149 narrow winding steps in a closed enclosure where only one person could fit in a step. I was about to turn my back mid way. That is when I realized I couldn't do that. People were standing in a queue right behind us and there was no way I could go down. H kept telling me that we had reached the destination for every 2 steps I took. I don't know how I made it to the top but it was worth it. You have a very good view from the top. People were taking photos everywhere. It was irritating to see that not many people were paying attention to the architecture or at the beauty of the place. They were all interested in taking selfies and photos. This was exactly what happened at the museum and all other tourist spots I had been to.

The view of the nearby mosque from the Charminar

I dreaded the walk down since there were another set of narrow stairs that were again enclosed at all the sides to go down.I was able to breathe a sigh of relief only when I got out of the Charminar monument. Phew, I was relieved to be back in the open space. We then made way to the nearby mosque. I had never been to a mosque and wanted to see how it was inside. As expected, we were allowed only till the entrance. People could sit on the benches and take rest.

We finally headed to the Birla Mandir as the last place to visit that day. There was a long queue since it was a Saturday and we used all our left over energy to climb the steps and wait in the long queue. The whole temple was made of white marble. The view of the Hussain Sagar Lake with all the lights lit from the temple was spectacular. It was late evening and the cool breeze lightened our mood. There was a light drizzle that made us wonder if someone was actually spraying water on us. By the time we finished the darshan, we were so exhausted and hungry. All plans to go out to a restaurant for dinner went out. We just wanted to go back home. On reaching home, we made a light dinner and hit the bed after some time.

We were so lazy on Sunday that we did not step out at all until afternoon. Listening to music and cooking took us well past afternoon and it was finally time for me to leave to catch the flight back home. My friend advised me to buy the famous Karachi biscuits or the bisticks from the Almond House that is famous in the airport. They are quite famous in Hyderabad and I couldn't resist getting a few biscuits although I knew we had a Karachi biscuit store in Chennai.

Absolutely loved the trip and would treasure the memories forever.

Working from home during lockdown

Whenever I heard a friend or a colleague telling me that some firm was allowing them to work from home, I was envious of them. 

I had tried doing it once or twice in the past, but stopped it since I felt that I was either working more than usual or was doing less work. That is when I decided that I would apply for leave and then work from home if necessary. That way, I would never have to worry about doing less work.

The last four days have been strenuous. Have been working from home due to the lock down and I feel as if I have been working more hours than when I was in office. I felt so tired on the 4th day, that I had to log off and take a break after every three to four hours. I felt so drained and my energy level was low.

I then realized that I missed being in office - walking around and meeting colleagues in person, going for lunch, riding to the office. At home, I have the whole of our first floor to myself and then it is just me, my laptop and phones. Although it feels good to stay at home and have lunch with my parents, the rest of the time, Iam all alone. 

I just don't know how people work from home everyday. It is quite boring. I just don't know how Iam going to continue doing this for the next few weeks 😔😑

Well, let us just say this has been a different experience for me.

Just another normal day and people's attitude

I had to go to office yesterday to work on the BCP plan and make sure that my team have everything they need to work from home. I was sure that the roads would be empty and other than essential business, everyone would be at home. But the scene was completely different -

I wanted to fill petrol for my bike and thought the petrol stations would be empty. I was wrong - the petrol pump stations were crowded as usual. People stood in lines, not bothering to keep a distance between each other.

Traffic was a little less, that is all. People went on to do their work as usual.

The only difference was the parking lot at the office. Not many vehicles, I got a space in the first row at the usual parking space.

Not much people in our ODC. A very handful of them had come in. There was additional security right before we entered the ODC and the cafeteria. They checked the temperature and then let people in. Only packed lunch boxes at the cafeteria and people were not allowed to have lunch at the cafeteria.

Still, I guess the security personnel got tired and lazy towards evening. They stopped checking people for temperature. They were just sitting in the chairs and chatting with their colleagues.

The cafeteria was crowded post lunch with associates trying to collect their desktops and going through the verification. They were all standing in queues near to each other.

While driving back, I noticed that the stores were all crowded. People were buying loads of stuff and stood next to each other in queues to get them. No one was worried about the virus spread.

It was as if everyone was taking a long holiday. They never understood the seriousness of the situation.