Hyderabad

Photograph: Aby Abraham

I couldn’t have been more than 12, back then I was residing in Calcutta. I was on a public bus, though I don’t recall the place we were going but it was an unbelievably long and boring journey. An old man sitting next to me was my only hope of a decent conversation as my folks were sitting ahead. I must state that I make friends with old people easily, somehow they find me entertaining and endearing at the same time and I treat them like people rather than “giant moving raisins.” Thankfully the old man was chatty and I was a recreational liar. I don’t know what got into me, when the old man asked me where I was from and which school did I go to, I nonchalantly answered that I live in Hyderabad and on a visit to Kolkata. The answer came easily even though I had never visited Hyderabad earlier. I unabashedly borrowed personal details of a cousin who had recently moved to the city and dished it to the old man. I should have taken that as a premonition of some sort as Hyderabad became my home for almost 10 years.

Ironically, I never took pride in being a Hyderabadi nor ever tried to be one. Shuttling between Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai I was always at a loss when people asked me where I was from even though I spent my formative years in Hyderabad. It reminds of the film Garden State in which Zach Braff says “You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.” I arrived everywhere on time if not before time, never really learnt the language, Hyderabadi biryani never became a favourite and criticized the city at the drop of a hat. I failed to realize that the city is just like me, grappling with a present in an effort to retain the past and make a future. It was a city without identity just like me. While the Old City desperately hides its prejudices with its colours and diversity, not allowing anyone to probe deeper and the shiny IT hub wears its prejudices like a medal. The people in the Old City mask their conservativeness with their ready wit and while the characters in Hi-tech seems like they have stepped out of Stepford Wives. But to me Hyderabad was never about the city. Will I miss the city? Probably not. What I will miss is the casual freedom, boundless confidence that comes with a sense of ownership and numerous associations that gradually defined who I am.

I will miss Book Collection Centre on M.G Road which was my first friend in the city. In my first year in the city when I didn’t have many friends, every Saturday I used to go to the book shop and sit in a corner and read some book without buying any. The proprietor never had any complaints.  I will miss my random visits to the Salar Jung Museum and strolling in the museum corridors till closing time. The western block was my favourite section. I will miss the long walks in the Old City and making conversations with absolute strangers. I will miss the old lady in my lane who used to smile at me everyday. But we never asked each other names or any other detail about each other. I will miss crying in the autos. Yes for some unexplained reason whenever burdened with some overwhelming emotion, I used to let it out during my numerous auto rides with the driver looking at me incredulously through the rear view mirror and not knowing what to do. I am grateful to them that they never asked me why I was behaving like Nirupa Roy. This was a city where I grew up sometimes reluctantly, sometimes out of turn. I found love to lose it. I made friends some for life, some to eventually to get rid of and some out of necessity. Each Hyderabad story is incomplete without the people in it. I couldn’t have accomplished to create the many stories on my own, if not for the people around me. There are memories that I will never let go, there are some which will gradually fade away and some which I tuck away and not allow them to resurface again. I want to thank some and others I don’t want to thank, it will just trivialise their importance in my life.

It would be a lie if I say that I am not scared to leave Hyderabad. My decision to leave the city was on will and not on reasoning. I was in standard 8 when my class teacher told me that I don’t have a sense of belonging. She made that observation because she was hurt that me being one of her favourite student bunked school on Children’s Day when she had planned a dance performance for her students. I never thought that I will start exhibiting this trait so early in life. I still miss Calcutta but I can never call the city my home, I never warmed up to Chennai and I was always at war with Hyderabad.

One of the lasting images of the city that I will be carrying with me is the view of the Necklace Road and the gradually disappearing Buddha statue with a dense mass of fog engulfing the Hussain Sagar lake, while the auto speeds away carrying me and braving torrential rain. It felt like the city called out to me and said, “Look how beautiful I am but you never appreciated it.” Perhaps Hyderabad was never home. Perhaps I am leaving only to return and find a home in this city.