[SyncNest]

It is April now. The glass-facades of buildings are agleam with a bit of sun in them, casting sharp grids of reflected light onto the traffic. It is on one of these days that I decided to take a walk. It was in the evening, at a time when the birds were returning home and the traffic was less menacing than in the morning.


Outside my office, the road stretches out for a kilometre with perfectly calibrated footpaths lining both the sides. The new foot over bridge stands to one side of the entrance like a simplified robot, its metal tongues longingly splayed for ingress and egress. Before this apparition, we crossed the road like school children, walking across in a single file, watched over by a prudent security guard, the stick in his hand alternating between red and green.


On the footpath, as I was walking with no aim or purpose, I managed to overtake many men and women who were drugged with incomprehension, their fingers split and splayed on their smart phones. The traffic on the road was imbalanced, a lot on one side of the divider and sparse on the other side; it looked a bit like a man chewing food only on one side of his mouth owing to swollen gums on the other side – the left side towards DLF was a mess, everyone honking and almost everyone realizing at the last minute that they were in the wrong lane, cursing themselves, cursing others, and more than anything else, cursing the traffic situation; the right side towards ISB was calm save for a few delinquents driving on the wrong side of the road.


The leaves on trees lining this road are of a healthy green colour despite all the dust and exhaust fumes they are coated with throughout the day. As the sun went down and the sky turned dusky, the overhead lights came on. It is almost romantic to take a walk on this road. I say almost because occasionally an auto driver or a cabbie stops by to urinate.







ISB road in the crepuscular time of the day. Very pleasant. If you have someone by your side, someone you like talking to, then the road takes a different shape - it turns into a cobbled carpet by a shingled beach.




It is a beautiful feeling to be there on this road when the light is fading and the billboard is glowing and a singular car is whooshing by on the empty road, its tires as if blackened by the tar, disappearing into the earth…


Near the DLF crossing everything changes – the traffic is more aggressive, dust more than happy to invade your lungs, and the policemen mostly helpless. It is chaotic, and it is less appealing than the former road. I crossed to the other side for want of a footpath that soon comes to an end. This road from DLF towards Gachibowli flyover is like an octogenarian’s gap-toothed jaw line, the dimensions all squiggly, the line between the tarmac and mud eroded, the footpath segmented, separated by long stretches of bumps and pits. It is not easy to walk on this road; the honking never falls flat, the gravelly and uneven sides disorienting you, the fruit vendors sticking their flaps out, the people somehow still able to walk. And that is what bothered me the most. That there were people who enjoyed all of this, this unending misery…










Near the junction, the Gachibowli flyover rises and falls – it is hypnotic to watch this. It is not too long as to lose its charm and not too short to be useless. It is a perfect flyover, standing there like a discarded bow of the gods, the arrow buried somewhere deep under it. One gets the feeling that it is more aesthetic than utilitarian. Perhaps, the philosophers of the future might have a go at it.





Anyway, it was at this fork in the road I decided to take a left instead of heading straight because I was quite a bit fed up with the incessant honking around me. The left road was towards Kothaguda junction and I took it because I was quite intimidated to cross the road twice if I had wanted to go straight to Hitex crossroads.



This was a relatively quiet road, wider and not the least bit hideous like the other road I took to get here. By now the moon presided in the sky in its usual stately manner, swimming over malnourished clouds of summer. The stars, well, I must tell you, I was feeling a tiny bit insecure to continue gazing up at the sky, lest people mistook me for a loony. So I continued my walking, pausing and slowing here and there to admire the glassware displays, laminated canvases, and opulent furniture sets outside the many shops that skirt the pathway. An IT park is under construction on this road, its lonely security guard half asleep on his chair, tireless dogs going in and out, peeing and sniffing in turns.



The Chat Bandar guys are surrounded by young IT professionals, seeking refuge from their artificial lifestyles in the slovenly brotherhood of a panipuri guy who breaks the hollow husks one by one before dipping his fingers into the hot mash of channa, and serving with a dollop of tangy filling in the end. And all this costs only ten rupees. It is a chilling feeling, nerve biting, and edge-of-the-seat stuff for most of us working in enclosed walls throughout the day, the AC vents clearing the air around us, and the office boys cleaning the dirt under us. As for me, I think the purpose is not influential, it is only causational; I find myself standing there with the paper cup in my hand, chewing the shredded onion and waiting for my turn in the semicircle of sharply dressed men and women. It is one of the many contradictions of Hyderabad. The panipuri guy is the giver of souls – he is there to redeem you from your boredom, to break the diurnal spell, to promise you that money in your wallet is no good…


In my walk towards the Kothaguda junction, before I approached the traffic stop I saw a lot of cars on the other side of the divider taking a left turn into a small lane. It was the steady stream of traffic that got me interested. And before I knew I was crossing the road to the other side, and setting off into this unknown lane that I knew nothing about. Before I began my walk I made up my mind to keep walking for at least an hour, come, what may. I was planning on taking an auto or a bus on my return leg so exploring a new area was only in my best interest.


The entrance

This happened to be a road to Mind space junction; it wound around a snazzy real estate block, interlaced with high-rise apartments such as Ramky Towers and IT offices such as Deloitte and others. I was thrown into this atavistic mix of architectural brilliance and quiet surroundings out of nowhere. It was the most rewarding thing that had happened to me since I began walking- to find a place like this. It pushed me to reassess my thoughts and my personality portfolio. Why was walking, despite the nuisance of city traffic, such an amazing thing to do? Why is it that whenever I take a walk I feel much closer to the ideal person I aspire to be – my mental framework is tuned to soak up all sorts of existential and cosmological thoughts.





Deloitte seen from a distance






I feel everyday moment-to-moment experiences have dulled me, turning me into an automaton, a pay-check-prisoner of modernity. It is walking in the street that gets me the rush of animalistic pride, the soles of my feet sweating inside my socks, the shins developing a sort of heaviness in them as the walk gets longer and longer…



Attachment 1357760







Growing up as a child I used to walk a lot. In those days even the main roads could produce less than satisfying noise (compared to today, that is). There was a bridge on the way to my school. I would ride on my bicycle till the bridge and stop there for a while, peer down the precipice to look at the stream of water that snaked along the undergrowth, circumnavigating burly rocks, taking a dip into a trough, pooling and spooling… Few buses came and even fewer cars sang the chorus of hooting. It was a different world back then; the common man had a bicycle and a common woman was a homemaker. The men grew hair, applied oil, slick and dashing, set off on a pair of wheels to their offices the walls of which wore peeled plaster and the gates of which were permanently agape, a stone or two contriving to give it the appearance of solidity…


The windows were latticed and the slats were ungoverned; the ventilators were perforated and the jeeps moved slowly like slugs. Men used stencils for important lettering; question papers were cyclostyled, public exam invigilators were potbellied, teachers respected each other, school principals wore round spectacles and immaculately polished shoes. The sartorial elegance of women in those days comprised mostly of embroidered blouses and brocade sarees. The girls wore pigtails till class third, reconstituted the hair into a single plait till class tenth, got a hairdo in engineering and wore a pony in later years. The boys wore knickers and socks till class three, chewed gums and stuck them under benches in class five, participated in science fairs in class seventh, threw paper balls at girls, spoke their first dirty words, penned a few love letters or poems or both, graduated, grew their hair long and wore ponies, grew their beards long and wore goatees, watched and played a lot of cricket, and as the trend shifted, cropped their hair and gelled them later…


In those days we had ice creams that melted on sticks, buffalos that meditated in open lawns, men who disappeared behind bushes for matutinal calls; storeowners stocked lozenges in glass jars, post man carried a wad of stamped envelopes and inland letters, temples housed thick oil coated gods, kids borrowed pencils to compare the sharp nibs and adults borrowed pens to fill forms. In compounds of residential blocks one would find shavings of pencils, bags of sand, suppurated mangoes in the bin, charred markings of cricket stumps on the walls, concertina of washing lines… Housewives complained that the neighbour was stealing clothespins, kids complained that their classmates bought costly bags, the politicians complained that the policemen were lazy and the policemen complained that their guns did not fire anymore.


It was all so slow, life was seasonal – summers were full of free time, schools opened and the smell of new books beckoned, all classmates burying their noses in the new Lepakshi Nandi long notebooks; rains pelted down and power cuts ailed everyone including the class teachers who postponed their slip tests and unit tests; in winters everyone’s teeth chittered and the sweaters always leaked strands of wool that kept getting caught on the side of doors and windows, causing the fabric to wrinkle like the skin of an old woman’s…


So, there I was, thinking these thoughts as I made my way through Ramky towers that overlooked a temporary awning housing an assortment of hardware. This road is almost as quiet as the ISB-DLF stretch, wobbling along through an area of arboreal setting. Nothing like this can be found in and around Gachibowli, an area yet to be spoiled. My first walk inspired me enough to cultivate a habit out of it. I have gone walking several times already, sometimes taking a bus or an auto to avoid the traffic menace to get to the perfect soulful roads that exposed my neural pathways to astonishing relief. It is like a drug, to walk is akin to perambulating as an infant. I have read somewhere that it is therapeutic. I have also read that it can only be done pastorally, not in the cities. I beg to differ – walking is as much fun in the cities as it is in the rural areas. One has to find the right road, or put it another way, the right road has to find you.

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When I reached Mind space circle it was about eight in the night. The junction was crammed with office cabs, and the cabs were crammed with IT professionals, their hands swiping at multicolored screens, their ears plugged to pearl-white wires, their mouths yawning, their backs aching and their brains teeming with simulated societies.


NCC Urban to one side and Novartis to the other side




Mindspace Circle



Attachment 1357771


This is the IT hub of Hyderabad – it is where all bright minds meet. If there is one place in Hyderabad where one would expect a higher pool of knowledge than rest of Hyderabad, it must be here. But unfortunately, even here, all the cars honk and lane discipline is just as bad as in other areas of the city. So as I stood there in abandon, I helplessly witnessed panic and anger strike forth from otherwise calm men and women.


I am tempted to compare walking with driving. When I drive to a nearby destination such as Srisailam or Nagarjuna Sagar it does not satisfy me. The thrill of driving out of the city to a weekend getaway is there. Yes, the thrill is there, sure; but it has a lifespan of say 2-3 hours. So when I am driving to a closer destination, then I reach my destination around the same time all the thrill of the day drains out of me. And for almost three years since I started driving, I always drove to these close by getaways. So you see, I never really found out the meditative labour the mind is put through, until I drove to Ooty. This was a full-day drive and for the first time I found myself enfeebled by boredom and stupor, inhabiting a rather lonely space in my mind. I never really doubted myself until then. Being a full-day drive, my mind coursed through a spectrum of uninterrupted moods... It took me more and more long drives to appreciate what they were doing to the state of my mind. It was as though all my thoughts were hitherto lying around like scattered iron filings; a long drive aligned them like a magnet does the filings. Since that first long drive a year ago, I have gone on several other drives, each one a different creature altogether, etching in my memory forever.


I think an evening stroll is like a short drive. It does not have the same meditative potential as the long drive. To mimic the long rive, one has to walk for a long time indeed. Freud said that a single word can set several thoughts into motion, like a fountain welling from the deep recesses of our minds. And it makes me wonder if we ever let the neural correlates of a fountain form in our mind – for this to happen one has to loan time because only time can burrow and rake and reach the floor of our mind…

A long walk is perfectly designed for this.

[autonarr]

Nice writeup SyncNest, and the pictures were excellent.

I've passed by these areas many times but you gave a whole new perspective to them, well done!

[Nick_Wanderlust]

This article is really something unique which really speaks out when a person is engrossed into pure nature that is happening around him/her instead looking into "multicoloured" screen while walking.

Well written!

[poised2drive]

A Nice write-up buddy. The people walk to get to their destinations and more often than not, miss the pleasure in 'stretching the limbs' and I seldom see people who walk just for the sake of itself and you seem to be one among them.

Originally Posted by SyncNest

This is the IT hub of Hyderabad – it is where all bright minds meet. If there is one place in Hyderabad where one would expect a higher pool of knowledge than rest of Hyderabad, it must be here. But unfortunately, even here, all the cars honk and lane discipline is just as bad as in other areas of the city. So as I stood there in abandon, I helplessly witnessed panic and anger strike forth from otherwise calm men and women.


.

I disagree. The IT zone is just the most urbanized section in the city teeming with humongous concrete structures equipped with topnotch infrastructure [ thanks to the cash-rich Corporations] and nothing more. This doesn't really indicate the knowledge-level of the public there but only opulence, imho.
Sorry for sounding too belligerent but I couldn't resist from countering the view.

[amoghchaphalkar]

Excellent photographs and writeup. Thanks a lot

Damn! I miss ISB :( The ISB road photograph brought back a lot of memories

[reignofchaos]

Lovely photos. Brings back a world of memories to me as well. I was in the first batch of IIIT-H.
I lived in the Gachibowli area as a student in the late 90's/early 2000's and it is quite unbelievable what this area has turned into.

Not so long ago, this entire area used to be a jungle and the only thing worth seeing were the brilliant rock formations.

The ISB road was a deserted road where we used to cycle. The development of Gachibowli has been staggering to say the least.

[catchjyoti]

Excellent narration SyncNest. I was in Hyderabad for a couple of years and know these roads. I drove through them many times though didn't take such a long walk like you.

But I do share with you the love of walking. In my schooldays if I was not feeling good about something I would either take a long walk or ride my cycle. Nowadays I walk. There is something great about walking and exploring new streets. It exercises your mind and body both. And it is something that can be attempted by most of us irrespective of our fitness levels. Add to that if you are the type who gets bored by routine exercise, walking and exploring new streets will keep you engaged

[saket77]

Well written Syncnest. You made up a great write-up out of nothing, literally. I am sure that most of us have come across the same situations and thoughts in life but your writing skills have given the right words to those thoughts.
Excellent stuff - keep it up!

Regards,
Saket

[laferrari]

Syncnest, you my friend have a way with words. You have been blessed with such beautiful writing skills. I never imagined someone could describe such an area or experience in so different a thought. Next time I'm in that area, I shall surely be looking at it in a different perspective.

And as for all those innocent things that were part of our childhood, you have brought back a bunch of memories. Kudos and keep it up.

[Chetan_Rao]

Fellow walking enthusiast here, and now I know I'm not a loony (at least not the only one of this kind) . Gave words to what I ponder on my walks all the time.

I've always been fond of walking as far back as I can remember, and it's one habit that (thankfully) hasn't deserted me. Sometimes I still end up walking out of my house intending to take a short stroll, only to wander far and return a few hours later. There's so much that we've experienced and forgotten, a walk can rekindle all of that and more. Just last week out on a walk, I spent nearly an hour standing and watching a group of kids playing in the park (a rare sight in today's gadget-crazy world), and reminiscing about when I was their age. Nothing else mattered, or ever entered my conscience for that hour. Bliss.

Nothing to stimulate the mind like a good long walk, and you're right on about finding the right road(s), though I'm not very nit-picky on that account. I'll walk pretty much anywhere my feet can tread. Solitude is a state of mind ultimately.

Cheers to the walking spirit!

[apachelongbow]

Very well written Sir, you managed to beautifully weave a narrative around your walk along with the comparison between the old and the new way of life. Kudos!!!
I live around the area you mentioned and drive along the same roads, and believe me, compared to Mumbai, Hyderabad is a beautiful bliss. It is less chaotic, cleaner, greener and far less polluted. I realized this the day I rode my TB500 on the Hyderabad streets, after a long ride, I didn't feel the need to use face wash, wet wipes, to clean up the filth and pollution grime which we come to expect after every bike ride around Mumbai...

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

I lived in the Gachibowli area as a student in the late 90's/early 2000's and it is quite unbelievable what this area has turned into.

Not so long ago, this entire area used to be a jungle and the only thing worth seeing were the brilliant rock formations.

The ISB road was a deserted road where we used to cycle. The development of Gachibowli has been staggering to say the least.

I can relate to what you said. In the early part of this century, CMC was one of the few buildings near Gachibowli, apart from the Central University. Then slowly, the stadium, ISB,IIIT, Hill Ridge Springs and few buildings got added. Despite this, the area was desolate.

Then around 2002 and later, Microsoft and Infosys came up on the ISB road. The road used to be narrow, and boulders were getting cut to widen it till Wipro Circle (then known as Kanbay Circle) in late 2005. There was hardly anything after Wipro Circle. But from 2007 onwards, several huge office complexes got added. To name a few, ICICI, Franklin Templeton, Cap Gemini, UBS, Waverock, etc.

The latest addition of large buildings is on the Ramky Towers stretch till Mindspace Circle.

In short, I've seen this part of Hyderabad growing by leaps and bounds. I'm happy about it, but not too glad about traffic going haywire.


By the way, that was one heck of a writeup, Syncnest. I enjoyed reading it and felt like I was walking along. I use that Ramky road often to drop my wife and Radisson and return to VIT Park. Keep posting, you have good writing skills.

[anand_lukose]

Every time I drive through these roads. I forget to pause and admire how we have progressed in time. Thank you for the brilliant write up. Next time I drive myself to work, I will drive slower and soak the surroundings in !

I cant imagine you walked that much. I wouldnt have done that much walking in a year !

[laferrari]

[quote=vnabhi;3681786]In the early part of this century, CMC was one of the few buildings near Gachibowli, apart from the Central University. Then slowly, the stadium, ISB,IIIT, Hill Ridge Springs and few buildings got added. Despite this, the area was desolate.

Then around 2002 and later, Microsoft and Infosys came up on the ISB road. The road used to be narrow, and boulders were getting cut to widen it till Wipro Circle (then known as Kanbay Circle) in late 2005. There was hardly anything after Wipro Circle. But from 2007 onwards, several huge office complexes got added. To name a few, ICICI, Franklin Templeton, Cap Gemini, UBS, Waverock, etc.

The latest addition of large buildings is on the Ramky Towers stretch till Mindspace Circle.

/QUOTE]

You are very right in your description of the landscape. The way that locality has transformed from a rocky-boulder strewn area into a corporate megapolis is amazing. I still remember when I traversed those dusty potholed paths (not roads) on two wheelers back in 2003. I believe most of the credit should go to Chandra Babu Naidu.

[D33-PAC]

Nice write-up. I live in this area and have been a resident for about a decade now.


BTW, one of the saddest tales in the development of this area is the disturbance caused to the natural inhabitants (animals). We have issues with alligators in the swamps nearby and seriously poisonous snakes wandering into houses where innocent little children can be seen playing and wandering around.

I think a while back we killed 4-5 snakes, each about 4-5.5 feet long in one go, in one morning. Then we paraded the bodies around the neighborhood for the neighbors to see and so there could be some awareness around how cautious they ought to be.

This wasn't the only time we had issues with snakes. When I was living in another part of Gachibowli we found a Cobra laying in the grass , INSIDE A GATED COMMUNITY ! We killed that one too.

Outdoorsmen have to be alert. Everything else about the area is a 10/10 though.