Tulyata

I was born in Hyderabad, India and I live here today. There is a lot to worry over, here in Hyderabad, but there is also a lot to love. Focusing on both sides to living in the city is what helps me like living here. The political landscape is forever changing and so is the skyline. Swooning over the skyline and the facilties available here doesn’t stop me from paying attention to the poverty, homelessness and the basti life in the city.

IT, and global tech giants making their homes in the city, as well as world class healthcare and fertile lands is what catapulted the laidback mid sized capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh into its metrohood. Today it’s a cosmopolitan city, with the IT and Healthcare zones looking like something out the Jetsons.

Whether people agree with the above assessment or not, the truth is that a lot of money has flowed into Hyderabad. Brain drain has resulted in foreign money being invested into the real estate and back into the Indian IT sector. Fertile lands and age old farming techniques, passed down from generation to generation, have brought great wealth to the land owners, allowing them to incur loans to build more infrastructure in Hyderabad, as well as to send their children to the US. Real estate booms have made hundreds of thousands of people INR millionaires and more. The technology giants that took a bet on Hyd have now expanded and built entire campuses where thousands of employees work each day.

With all this growth, and all the hunger the people have had for wealth to return India, and their daily lives, post colonial times, is slowly being sated. With so growth and progress, and with investments doubling and tripling in value, the support staff that is required to run a city like this have also made their homes here. Often times, they scrimp and save to build houses in their hometowns, driving the economic engine into higher gears.

To top all of this, the Telugu Film Industry has broken barriers and produced talent that now does the VFX work for Hollywood movies along side Indian and other global movies. Be it action, direction, story telling or production, every part of this industry is growing by leaps and bounds, bring prosperity, fulfilment and purpose to thousands of technicians and professionals in its wake.

It’s the people that are left behind by all of this growth and prosperity that keep the city running. From city’s GHMC workers, to the daily wagers, to those who show up at the countless apartments and homes to cook, clean and be ayahs to small children, that are being, but should not be, left behind.

Another swatch of this city’s population that writes its destiny is comprised of the lakhs or students and future IT professionals that move to the city each year, fuelling the growth of educational institutes in and around Hyderabad. Both professional as well as vocational training is provided to these students and professionals, selling dreams of life in the US and other wealthy countries.

All these groups of people make Hyd what it is today. The call to action is, can Hyd write the destinies of all these people and truly become a city worthy of being the heir to the glorious cities and kingdoms of the past? Can we, who live and breathe and relish the city, help make the city of pearls a city of the future, worthy of our inherited past?