The house in Hyderabad always brings back memories of my college days spent here. At that time, there were a couple of houses and a burial ground nearby. The windows would rattle if it rained and Koka’s house was half a kilometre away. I had a lot of fun living alone for a year or so.
I would wake up early morning and go to a cowshed to get milk. The milkman was called Yelliah and he would ask me “don’t you get scared? Coming in the dark alone?” And I would laugh it off, thinking in my mind, that am scary enough to not get scared :):).
Then I would come home and make a lot of tea and take out a lot of Marie biscuits, eat them sitting on the roof and then get dressed to take the first bus towards Secunderabad station. There I would change another bus for my NIIT class at Basheerbagh. From the NIIT class, I would go to college and then get back home in the evening. Twice a week, I had my regular NIIT classes in the evening so would do the reverse trip.
Sometimes Govind would drop me home and sometimes Prasath would come along. We sat around having my “bad” tea and yes, Marie biscuits. Now to fast forward to the present, Govind’s elder son has completed his degree in Nano technology and is planning his doctorate at a French university !!! Govind would bring his TVS 50 moped and he was so thin then, that he drove over a buffalo in the dark thinking it was a speed breaker 🙂 and then the buffalo got up and walked off :):).
I would go to a particular store near Monda market to get those large tins of Marie biscuits. We bought a pack of Marie biscuits today and that set off all these memories. I miss the “mirchi bhajji” made behind the tank at Dr. A.S. Rao nagar. That guy seems to have disappeared. There are so many eateries all over the place now, it almost seems as though no one cooks at home.
The other special memory was making Rajma, when Vidya came over. I didn’t know then that they had to be soaked and we kept pressure cooking them and they remained hard :):). So we just ate bread with butter and jam.
We were taken to watch “Ten Commandments” movie by the college and all we girls looked at were Charleston Heston’s muscles 🙂 so much for trying to make us have some moral education. They should have chosen a non-hunk for the part.
The best sugarcane juice was just across the Head Post office at R.P Road. There was a card shop around the corner which again had a great collection. Meeting Rose and her “would-be” husband in one of the by-lanes of S.D Road and the first time we ate Pizza with dad’s friend, Mittal uncle, was also in one of the by-lanes of S.D Road.
Hyderabad has several memories attached to it, in every phase of our life. Today was reminiscing my college days :). Can’t forget the fight I had with Padmasini Periyamma because she gave me a bread slice with too much butter and the Hanuman dance that Naanu and I did.
Today I went and got a mirchi bhajji to eat, so that the tradition was kept up, and it tasted ok. Mom made tea so it was good too. 🙂