My neighborhood

Banjara Hills is a nice place to live in if you're going to live in Hyderabad. I've lived here the whole of the almost-two-years I've been here and I'm not complaining. The park is nearby, the shopping centres are not far, I have all my favorite eating places close by...

And oh yeah, I share streets with the likes of Mohammed Ali :-)

It's also got its little oddities. It's supposed to be a posh area where the affluent and hip and cool Hyderabadi lives. But India is India and I'm reminded of that every time I go out for a walk. You find places like this very fancy furniture store along the street -

And then you walk on and just a couple of minutes from the fancy store, you find dumps like these -

And this..??! Well go figure what a broken toilet is doing sitting around outside people's mansion-like residences :D

The apartment I live in is by no means mansion-like, but I was still a little surprised when I was new here and I went walking checking out my new neighborhood and I found a little slum just a few minutes walk away.

And one thing I still find funny is going walking in the mornings/evenings and seeing dhoti-clad, brown-legged servants walking pedigree dogs of all kinds, the dogs themselves looking regal, furs sleek and shiny. They'd look so off-matched, dogs and walkers. Owners probably sleeping in their 4 poster beds, or sitting in their high-backed chairs reading the news, or eating breakfast in bed, or probably fat-clogged arteries just won't let them. Anyway, I think it's a pity because when it's 'work' you start hating it. Many of these dog-walkers obviously do. I've seen so many of them carrying sticks and hitting the dogs. But I blame the owners more. No one's going to love and care for your dog the way you do. If you have one, you should be ready to take care of it. Owning a dog is not just about having money and buying a blue-blooded dog just to show off, as an asset to your house, to complete your status symbol, to sophisticatedly complete the 'affluent picture' while your friends show up for your tea parties.

But anyway, people can do what they want with their money. But they should know that their servants beat those things they do with some of that money. And that's just sad.

But we don't own pedigree dogs and we only have a visiting maid so we don't have to wonder if our servants are ill-treating our dogs. We walk and see all these sad sights and go home and forget about it and ill-treat the guitar and the camera and sing 'Hot Cross Buns'.
....but since these are inanimate, non-living, inorganic objects, I'm guessing that's better than abusing poor little innocent dogs.