In Hyderabad

Dusshera and Diwali are now fully commercialized in Hyderabad .. Just 1 week before dusshera, special offers on everything from appliances to groceries to clothes have been relesed. I have seen advertisements for special offers on purchase of groceries too.. We are fully hooked into the western sale culture here..

With Dusshera, Ramadan and Diwali around the corner, companies are organizing many [ or should I say too many..] parties to let their employees have fun during this time. Many companies have planned major concerts, parties etc., for diwali and the element of surprise and the boasting rights go to the one with the coolest/hippest/biggest rock/other band performing at their party. For Dusshera dandia is in full swing along with dance competitions, informal and formal parties, along with a medley of sweet and savoury offerings on every floor.

I had the honor of judging a dance competition, and I was amazed at the energy and the enthu displayed by the young members of the teams. Most participation is from the new kids out of college under the direction of their senior members and these activities work as the best team building excercises. Competition was at a business-unit level and the cheering squads were in full force with their customized cheers etc. Did I mention that there was also a cheering award and it went to the loudest team [ not much has changed with the hyderabadi culture of enjoying things to the fullest along with the rowdiness of the crowd… poor MC was having a tough time controlling them … I hope you all remember the cheers from college days in hyderabad…things like jeete ga bhai jeetega.. ; vittala vittala..; and so on and so on…. ].

I am a pain to deal with, when it comes to appreciating art or dance, but this one was really cool.. nothing traditional, nothing too exotic or western, it was a medley of everything with beats that I never expected could be integrated so well. Each team had 6 different song and dance mix with custom music mixes integrated as one show. Makeup, Music, Crowd everything made it worthwhile and I promised myself that I am never gonna miss these events in the future. The networking and socializing opportunities at these gatherings are endless. The competition was followed by dandia night, and after guzzling some extra calories through sweets, hyderabadi samosa’s and sweet lassi etc., we headed down for a nicotine fix.

Other Updates :

Last week we had a party at Touch, to celebrate some wins/growth of the organization. Party started 1 hour late but quickly gained momemtum. I need to get better at this time sense thing in India.. if the invite is for 7:00 .. dont even think of going there until 7:45 - 8:00. Touch had great ambience, simple interiors that give you a feel of an wide open space but at the same time providing the space to relax and connect with the party goers. Excellent Drink offerings and Staff, but food was average [ may be it has something to do with the menu picked by our event organizer ] .. Dessert Bar as always was my favourite.. I am not sure what I ate, but I had multiple servings.. Drinks, DJ and Music made up for the zing missing on in the food buffet.

Another team of mine had their quarterly bash at Runway-9 or something like that, I couldnt make it due to a customer meeting, but will update you the next time I am there.

Haleem is the speciality of this season in Hyderabad. Yesterday I was reading that Hyderabadi Haleem is now being exported to the Mid East and is a crowd favourite in most restaurants there. To enjoy/expose this delicacy of Hyderabad to my team, I am organizing a haleem party at Pista House near Hitec City.. [ depending on # of confirmed attendees, we may either go there or have them deliver it to our break area] this restaurant is supposed to be one of the best ones for haleem in Hyderabad and also has an outlet closer to the Hitec city area. We are heading there in 2 weeks .. and will update you soon about that.

Next week I am headed to a southern state for an offsite workout/gathering of leadership teams and may not be updating the blog… Until then…
Happy Birthday T and Happy Dusshera to all of you

Beam Broadband : I ordered this service atmost 4 weeks ago and am yet to see any movement on this. The company called me a couple of times to schedule installation and never showed up. Hope they will show up some day and now that I have my primary broadband through sify, I am not too worried about them.

Sify Broadband : This is my primary provider now and the service has been excellent so far. Had 2 issues and 1 issue was fixed within 30 mins. The 2nd issue was related to bad weather and looks like a tree fell and severed the fiber connectivity to our neighborhood. This took them almost 18 hours to fix and my vonage service was down during this time. The best part is that SIFY people were courteous enough to call me and update me about the progress and when the service was up.

Network Services : Vonage works well on SIFY if the internet is up, VPN, remote desktoping to US from india are working very well. while there is some lag from home, its no different than remote desktop from the office facilities in Hyderabad.

Sundae/Desserts : Based on my previous story about Ohri’s Hyderabad and its sundae’s, my wife tried the awful awful sundae as a Lunch Replacement.. dont ask me that story ;-).. She says its “awesome”.. so, go try it and email me your feedback. We also tried various others with names like lovers paradise, tall lady and lewinsky… this has now turned into a regular session to unwind after a busy day of work.

Telephones : Though the providers have matured over the last couple of years, they still keep adding subscribers without additional capacity. One other challenge you will face is that the roaming agreements are not that good so, you may loose connectivity when you are far away from the city.

Banking : ICICI bank account is fully operational after a long struggle to prove my address, and I am happy with the netbanking services they provide. Even bill pay, trading and other services are available along with SMS notifications for account activities like checks/withdrawals etc. I applied for a Demat+Trading account and waiting for that to be activated. These services require tons of paperwork and have extensive beauracracy tied to them. Banking institutions tried the mcdonald’s “dumb it down ” principle .. so, no one wants to think beyond the box.. an live example was a friend of mine who tried to cash 2 checks at ICICI. The teller asked him to get 2 separate tokens to cash these checks. The first token flashed on counter #X, and his second token flashed on counter #Y within 30 seconds of the first… He is yet to figure out a way to use 2 counters at once… This is normally how the indian companies deal with operations and customer service..

When i run into folks like Beam Cable Installer, ICICI bank and the many other service providers that never keep their word and ask for wierd documentation…, I remind myself that I have come here with very low expectations … and that helps me stay cool…. I see the issues, laugh and move on.. Life has been entertaining and relaxed in Hyderabad so far.

I went to this little italian vegetarian restaurant called Little italy near Jubilee Hills Checkpost in Hyderabad. I was introduced to this by a close friend of mine.. I know, a lot of you are thinking, finally he is talking about vegetarian stuff.. I am a big fan of vegetarian dishes as long as it has atleast a starter that is non-..

It has a very well designed interior with the smallest restrooms I have ever seen in a restaurant. If I remember from my last visit to Hyderabad, this place was used for a parking/cellar for the building above. Looks like they have turned the parking space into a restaurant and the space was so well utilized that their power generator sits at the edge of the road. I Wonder if they will convert to a take-out joint the next time MCH expands this road.

First Visit : Menu was extensive and has too many choices to pick from. We ordered a couple of thin crust pizza’s [ thats the only kind they seem to make ] along with an order of Eggplan parmesan [ who else would order that ? ]. The pizza came out well, but the crust was burnt in some places making it taste wierd. A friend ordered with black beans and it sucked, I ordered a Pepper-oni pizza I ordered [ not the real pepperoni, its peppers on the pizza.. duh what would you expect in a veggie joint ? ]. Reasonably priced, Nice place, but I could not order any drinks since it was Oct 2nd, which is a dry day in India.

Second Visit : It was my team’s choice to meet here for a going away party and no one knew that it was vegeterian until one of them said..”Can we have a chicken starter to go with our drinks..”. One of the team members decided to order grilled mushrooms in olive oil and it sucked big time… On the second round, the manager recommended that we go with the onion rings [ nothing italian about them.. but were good with the drinks ] followed by Chips + Salsa.. [ you heard it right.. eating chips and salsa at an italian place .. ]. Main course again was a combination of pizzas and they were delicious this time. [ We took extra care to avoid the ones with beans ]

When it was time to pay the bill, manager informed us that the credit card machine was down and that he could not accept the corporate credit card. After a few tries he gave up and offered to pick up the payment at the office the next day. It would have been a major pain to let him into the building etc., and we pooled the cash to pay off the bill.

Overall we enjoyed the food, but I would not recommend the outside seating since you are pretty much on the road and can hear and smell the automobiles around you.