The other day I was talking to another friend of mine, Vinaya, who is also currently exiled in a Law School and we both noticed a very disturbing trend. If you meet a person who's not from Hyderabad but has a relative/friend/friend's friend/someone who they know exists, who happens to live in Hyderabad, and casually ask them, "So where does your friend live?", the answer more often than not is, Banjara Hills.
Yes, agreed Banjara Hills is Hyderabad's most happening place. Agreed, the place does have some really cool places to hang-out, but that's really not the only place that is hangout worthy!
The Hyderabad I remember growing up in was so different and had so many other things to offer, this despite the fact that I was living pretty close to Banjara Hills. You could go to Anand or Skyline to watch an English Movie. You could go to Ohris, Himayat Nagar for great food and ice cream. Gone are the days when long drives meant going to Tank Bund and Necklace Road, and people used to go to Lumbini Park and Indira Park for morning walks and not KBR Park.
For most people Hyderabad is restricted to Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills and the like. The City really has a lot to offer for someone with a car and a lot of time and a little enthusiasm. Growing up, there were times when we used to go to Banjara Hills, but we used to go to a lot of other places also. The best Chinese food in the city was in Nanking, yes, the one in Secunderabad and not Mainland China. Shopper's Stop and Lifestyle were the only malls and nope they were not in Banjara Hills.
It was suddenly after the IT boom in the early 2000s, the center of the city started to shift towards Banjara Hills. Most yuppies who came into Hyderabad settled in that place and places nearby owing to their proximity to the IT Parks. And as they say, the rest just built up on that.
Banjara Hills is a really nice place to live in, but what we, people from other parts of Hyderabad would like to say is, HYDERABAD is not BANJARA HILLS!
