Hyderabad, India in 2007

I’ve always felt that when I travel from the western world back “home” to India – it’s almost like traveling across time and entering a different era, a different world.

This time my experience has been even more unique as I have constantly been zapped back and forth across time warps in my one and a half day here. I’ll explain how.

Upon landing, I was quite shocked to see the face-lift given to Rajeev Gandhi International airport. No more the rickety fans battling against the merciless heat, and the swarm of the mosquitoes in the dimly lighted terminals. The present day airport is air conditioned, well-lighted, clean and polished. My first thought – Hyderabad has arrived.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the roads had been widened and pot holes repaired. New buildings, fast food joints and malls have sprung up all over the place. Not only that – big tall trees have been planted on the dividers and the roadsides making my once shabby beat up city look green and clean!

But my trip to Hyderabad so far has been all about the contrasts. I fell asleep mulling over all that has changed. Come morning, as I entered the bathroom and filled the steel bucket with water and inserted the immersion heater to heat water for my bath – it occurred to me that maybe not much has changed after all. As if that wasn’t enough, the three servants in our two bedroom home scrambling to make me breakfast, iron my clothes and unpack my things left me once again transported across time into the era of the nawabs.

And off I was to the office at 11 am in true Hyderabadi style for my 10 am meeting. My dad gave me a ride to the office and the heat was quite tolerable from within the confines of the air conditioned tinted windows of our second hand Maruti Zen. Which I must say looked like a vintage car (and that too not a good one) among all the glossy new Hyundais and Opels and Toyotas that the Hyderabadis of today are driving unlike us poor visitor people from the States.

So, after an afternoon spent in our techno-savvy office, a bunch of us crossed the road and entered a rather high-end mall where seeing the mix of 10% firangis and 90% Hyderabadis made me think for a moment that I was in Chicago. Lunch was in a restaurant on the top floor of the mall which was more upscale than any I’ve been to in the U.S of A. I got a ride back home in our company’s chauffer driven Toyota Innova. All in all a very futuristic day in Hyderabad city.

But alas my time travels had not ceased. Just as I was settling into this time groove, I beheld the sight of my mom’s aunt sitting on the terrace and drinking water from her chaandi ki pyaali (silver drinking bowl).

Wham! I fell once again across time and landed flat on my nose with head reeling, soul screaming. My last thought - I swear Henry never knew how good he had it!! (reference to the novel “The Time Traveller’s Wife”)