Hyderabad Diaries-Part 2

Hello! The story continues...

The second time I arrived at Hyderabad in July 2012, after my BTech, with just one goal in life, GATE! I would crack it and do my M.Tech. So I decided that I would concentrate only on studies and set out to Hyderabad. We went by train and was “fortunate” to have a family who was going for sight seeing. Dad Mom Daughter 1 Son-in-law 1 Granddaughter, Daughter 2

What a noisy crowd! It was more like a Rajashri movie where everyone loved everyone and there was happiness all around. The sil treated his pils as his own parents and they loved him like his dear son! Wow! How I wish my Dad got a sil like Niyasmon ;) They refused to call him anything but mon or son :P Wah wah!! The new gen granddaughter who can hardly talk would eat only if she was shown videos on youtube! Everything was fine till we settled down to sleep that night. I was on the middle berth and was holding on to dear life. To tell you the truth I am extremely scared to even get on the middle berth of the train. My biggest nightmare (one of them) is that the hook on which the middle berth is suspended would break and I would fall on the person sleeping on the lower berth. 

Just imagine :O

When I settled down on the middle berth with the help of Amma and prayed to all the Gods I knew. The lights dimmed and the lady who was sleeping on the lower berth started screaming, “Would this berth fall down on me?”

Dekh aunty! I agree I am fat! But I don’t believe I am fat enough to CRASH THE BERTH OF A TRAIN! Ok?? And that lady was voicing out loud MY FEAR! I tried to sleep, I could not. What if I fall down on the lady and she dies? What an embarrassment! Even if I was not imprisoned for murder, I would live a life where people would point in my direction and say “She fell on a lady and killed her!”

Then she started screaming, “Its soo cold..Allah..i will die..Ayyooo..why did I come for this trip?” And her daughters were not paying any attention to her drama, her husband was snoring and suddenly her elder daughter said, “Would you keep quiet?The baby cant sleep!”

WOW! Rajashri family in daylight? And at night, this is what happens? Then the lady called out to her sil to which the girl said, “Please Mom, let him sleep!” Aaha!! How sweet! Ammakk praanavedana, makalk veena vayana?

I was the only person in the area who was disturbed by the whining lady. Then the sil appeared in the dark like a knight in shining armour. He took the lady outside(and slapped her?). And I slept in peace. The next morning we heard all about it.

Niyas mon took me outside and rubbed my cold feet.

Niyas mon offered me his socks(STINKING SOCKS? Of all things? Yuck!)

Niyas mon called the attenders.

Niyas mon asked them to change the AC temperature.

Niyas mon saved the day!!

And then came the spoiler- the daughter told her Dad, “Dad, your wife did not let my husband sleep yesterday” Wow!! :P

What a trip! I could hear sounds in my ears after we got down at the station! They were chattering all the time throughout the journey! It feels really awkward being on the receiving end..Usually I target people ;)

 That journey to Hyderabad was an eye opener. I was pampered by my friends at college. When I’m sick, they feed me and make me glasses and glasses of glucose drinks. I never go anywhere by myself or even eat any meal of the day by myself. They listen to my non-stop chatter and even the smallest of my worries was given importance. 

From such a royal life I go to a place where no one has time to care about the other. The next door girls also from Kerala didn’t even have the courtesy to talk to us initially. And as the place lacked privacy, wait! Wait! When in NSS, I used to feel suffocated as once I had to live with 4 people in a congested room and now? A hall has been divided into small rooms for 2 using plywood planks. You cannot even tell a secret :P Thanks to my talkative and loud nature, the next room people hated me :D 

What more could people do, when I got a minimum of 4 calls from home and at least one from friends? I talk, in a “clearly audible voice” which can be called loud and maybe people found that disturbing. Actually the word maybe can be omitted from the previous sentence. I was widely hated initially :D There were no corridors. If you could call those narrow gaps between rooms which could fit a single person as a corridor, then you may! My only solace was the narrow space (narrow again!) outside the building which had the bin for waste and the wash basins.. YUCK!! And you get a view of the families in the next building. The speciality of this place was that there were no gaps between buildings. There would be a wall and within a foot distance there was another building. Congested place! L Thank God that the people there don’t speak Malayalam. I could pour my heart to the poor souls who called me and bitch about every single person there.

Ace Academy introduced me to a new set of people, the ones who were greedy for knowledge. I haven’t seen so many boys and girls so engrossed in studies. Even RAYS, where I went for Entrance coaching, which I thought was the abode of knowledge-greedy people, stood a step behind, as here no one wanted breaks and many didn’t even step out of the class room for a whiff of fresh air during breaks. Then came the long queues. At NSS, if class started at 1pm, I reach by 1:10. Here, class starts at 2, but people are there by 11. So that when the previous class students come out, they can get in and catch hold of the 1^st bench or whichever bench they wanted a seat in. Don’t misunderstand me but even I was among these bench hunters. There were these queues ie, when morning batch people got down, they let the afternoon batch people get in. So there would be two queues, one which comes down and the other which goes up. Its no less than Jallianwala Bagh Massacre but here it happens every single day! People are so hell bent on getting seats that in the process they are ready to shed blood. They push you and pull you and step over you. Kuch bhi karega for first bench!

Also there was another category of people who were actually sweet. Not the fake ones or the extremely pampered ones or the ones who behave sweetly to catch male attention but the genuinely sweet ones. Who really care for you and go that extra step to make you feel good. Wow! Initially I could not trust them.. People are usually good to you when the need a favour and I eyed these people with a big question mark. And finally on knowing that they have no hidden agenda, I realised that I have to get used to people,almost strangers, who don't really expect things in return. It was refreshing :P

I had a chance to visit Birla Mandir during that period. It was a really great place. The peace and serenity provided by the temple and surroundings really reminded me of the effect of Guruvayur, my favourite temple in the whole wide world. The temple was built of marble and the statues were soo beautiful that I forgot to pray and stood staring at the Gods! The main temple and the big statue there was sooo captivating that after stepping out of the temple I excused myself and went back into the temple and stood there looking at the idol.

The other temple which was really close to my heart was the Sri Shyam mandir. One of my most favourite temples in the world. We went there one day and taking a lot of time walked around the temple and prayed in peace. Even this temple is one of a kind. The atmosphere with the background music of bells gave me so much inner peace. And we once went during the noon and we found that the provided free food for poor people and anyone who visited the temple during that time. That was one time when I felt lucky and thankful for all the luxuries bestowed on me. We sat along with the people and had lunch. It was such a different experience and being philosophical the feel I got was in front of God, all of us are equal.

Enough of emotional stuff.

Those few months taught me a lot of things. I became independent and quit being the cry baby. I didn’t need a person to accompany me to places and I didn’t need a friend at arms distance to feel happy. I learnt to keep my comments and worries to myself and pour them out only to people who genuinely care and not to every other soul I saw. I was a changed and emotionally strong person on coming back. Another lesson I learnt was to ask people to go to hell :P I just loved that change in me. I was this person who always kept people’s feelings in mind before saying something to them. I always try not to be rude except to my family. But if someone deserves to be slapped(with words) you should slap them.

You know that I hate people whose behaviour depends on the beauty of the girl at the other end. Beautiful-sweet and drooling. Not beautiful – sarcasm and constant pestering with questions about the beautiful ones :P

Now you know which group I belonged to ;) I am not jealous(I would’ve been jealous if the guy i had a crush on, treated me badly :P But as 99% of the times, my crushes don’t know of my existence, I have nothing to be jealous about ;) )

I know that a group of girls talk about boys and a group of guys talk about girls. But a group of guys who talked of nothing but girls?? YUCK! Get a life people! “Gayathri, who is that girl you were talking to?” (Oh! You didn’t recognize Aiswarya Rai Bachchan??)

“Gayathri, why does *** always smile?”(Because she wants the world to know she has teeth!) One ‘I-know-I-am-handsome’ guy who was then my friend, had a serious problem. He could text me all the time, but when he sees me in person he doesn’t talk. Maybe he was scared and that is a valid excuse but I hate people who behave differently while messaging and in person. I feel it’s such people are hypocrites! So this guy explained that he is not talking to us because usually doesn’t talk much to gals and immediately a beauty passed and he went up to her and talked for an hour :P Moral of the story: A beautiful gal can change a guy’s principles in life ;)

I got soo damn irritated and then they made it a point to tell people that they were forced to talk to my friend and me just because we kept seats for them! #$&&$#@!* and a lot of similar comments! All which can be summed up as, we girls are not worth a second glance, but as they are benefitted by our company, they are talking to us to keep us happy.Idiots!! I would have died if those ‘hunks’ hadn’t talked to me. Thanks guys for saving me! Duh!

While returning I told them, “I regret having met you. Hope we never meet again” and I felt great J TIT FOR TAT :D But on their face! Bad attitude? Don’t mind, the kid in my is still alive :P

Thanks to a few people I met there, I evolved as a person. I don’t take nonsense anymore, or my tolerance level has gone up. I am not dependent on people who are not family. And I am proud of myself :D And the few people I met there should be listed under the most influential friends I ever had. If it was not for them, I would still have been clinging to my “best friends” and any fluctuation in their behaviour would affect me to the core. Not anymore!

So that was Hyderabad-part 2..which gifted me with typhoid and like Sreenivasan says in Udayananu Tharam, “IAS examinte thalenu enikk flu aayirunnu” and “GATE examinu munp enikk typhoid aayirunnu” and so my results were the worst! IIT-NIT dreams shattered!

Life was real hell for about 2-3 months. Those months when I felt like a fit for nothing and worthless money eating brainless blabbermouth! Let’s not talk about that. I will get my senti attack! L

And the most funny part, I went for GATE coaching and later joined for MBA!

Eh?? Am I ok?

I am like this only!