This was my first article published in Jhaankar, Voice of the community, the news letter from Friends of India Association, Cedar Rapids,IA,USA. I want to preserve this as my first blog post but cannot back date it to its published date Sept, 2007.
Anyway India is still Hot & Cool even now.
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I returned from my trip to India couple off weeks back, since then I have been boring people in the break room with details of the trip , so editor Sagar suggested why don't we make it an article for Jhankar, which motivated me to become an author of article for first time, and here is how it goes.
As soon as I landed in India on Aug 13th (which is also as an important date for me) I felt really great, as I always did on my previous trips in addition to that one small difference, as soon as I stepped out of Begumpet Airport, the fresh smell of nature fills my nose, I took a deep breath, wow I think it was because of very good rainfall there after a decade I guess. It rained every single day I stayed there, it was so nice I just stayed in my home town I did not go to either Ooty or Kodai. I hope god will bless my city like that forever.
Like every other guys India trip details, mine too has stuff like, you know it, starting from how you booked tickets, how was the journey, how are things there like messy traffic, jobs, sky rocketing real estate, spending habits etc., have changed in India. But still there is lot of fun discussing about that right, so let me narrate few interesting ones.
Starting with first activity in the morning, I was returning from morning walk on the streets of Jubilee Hills, it was around 8 AM, I found lot more 2 & 4 wheels cruising on the road than during my last visit & felt like they may run over me, immediately I asked my father-in-law (who was coolly walking next to me without caring for traffic) 'this is supposed to be posh & quiet neighborhood right?' he replies ‘that's all because of Hi-tech city’ with smile on his face. Man! Hyderbadi’s don’t seem to care about these problems and are ready to deal (or live) with it enthusiastically just to keep their city’s spurting growth going. I heard a lot about hi-tech city from many sources, so after breakfast we went there, wow it reminds me of my trip to Bay Area during late 90’s almost every famous tech company has put up their huge office building there, in addition to office complexes huge residential townships, not only in looks even in term of real estate prices, apartment rents it is mirroring bay area, Rs 10K has become an easily affordable rent for apartment. And this hi-tech city has become a strong point in hyderbadi parent’s argument that their NRI sons/daughters should return home.
After lunch, even though I hated investing in gold, could not escape since there is marriage in the family, so withstanding the sleep from jet lag we started out to for shopping, It was taking for ever in that traffic and I started pestering our car driver like donkey in shrek2. He replied ‘aajkal traffic may cabinet minister ko be secretariat jane me ek ghanta lagtha saab’. My father-in-law reassures me saying it is better in some areas we have many new flyovers & they will finish outer & inner ring roads (like turnpikes here I guess) & it will provide some solution to this problem. At last after 90 minutes of jerky drive we ended up in jewelry shop. The couple hours I stayed there my god that guy did so much business from so many people, no wonder some one quoted in rediff.com that “Marriage Inc is doing good in India”. I got out of that shop after gobbling down the American style sweet corn & chai he offered me along with cut in my credit limit. Our shopping spree didn’t stop there we wanted buy some stuff to fill our new house in cedar rapids, even in those shops lot of locals & NRIs competing with each other to spend money. I spent more than what I spent here in Menards since I bought home, then I realized why Mr. Sams wanted to start walmartIndia.com. After all these we were home by 11:30 PM and I collapsed on dinner table itself.
Next day I started preparing for my dream trip, journey on a new direct broad gauge train from state capital to my hometown (chittoor), which we used to talk about during childhood, otherwise I had to change 2 trains to go to my hometown. Good this gauge conversion project gave me this convenience even though it took 25 years to complete. The trip was good except for I regretted traveling A/c sleeper coach bcos you will not have a real train journey experience in that. Even in chittoor I found many improvements looks like my home town is getting few fruits from Urban economic boom going on in India. After few days with my parents I went to Tirumala for Lord Venkestwara’s blessings, then I went temple in Kanipakam (4 KM from my hometown & 70 KM from Tirumala) an emerging pilgrim center with Lord Ganesha’s temple which quickly getting famous, I found many people coming to Tirumala visiting Ganesh temple here, TTD the governing body of tirumala temple took over this and planning to convert it to a mini Tirumala with their ‘master plan’. This was an ancient temple I visited this temple only twice before I came to US, now it has become a landmark for my town, people believe the Ganesh statue in that temple is growing out from the well.
From there I went to my grand father’s village, recollected all my summer vacation times I spent there during my school days, rural India looked same to me not much improvement, except for people there have become more aware (thanks to information revolution). Villages still struggling to survive on their own without any boost like the one urban areas got from MNCs & migrations from villages. My vacation was getting over, so started back to hyderabad this time in Bus, wow those highways have become lot better thanks to golden quadrilateral project, buses are able to go smooth & with good speed, I happily slept through out the journey.
After this trip I felt like I need to make frequent trips to India, Now India is HOT, it is COOOL & it will be lovely too.
JAI HIND
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