Looking at how an old capital, of the youngest state in India, became its most liveable metropolitan city!

A view of the Financial District in Hyderabad, Telangana. Pic/X/@adakshtrader

As someone familiar with both cities should know, Hyderabadis are Delhiites of India’s South. A sense of entitlement, of course, naturally permeates the rent-seeking rich in most political capitals. 

As New Delhi has been, since 1911 (and for the seven cities before it). Likewise, for Hyderabad, that pretty much remained the capital of India’s richest, largest princely state for 224 years, under Asaf Jahi dynasty, or Nizams, as it were. 

That’s until the Indian government took over Hyderabad state, through military intervention, termed Police Action, post-independence, in 1948. 

The party language of Hyderabadis, I notice, is a mix of showy brashness, and warm generosity. The latter lasts so long as the former doesn’t prevail over a prickly ego. 

For a popularly favourable surname, an usher at a casino in Goa told me, he followed a simple rule: Watch a Reddy enter, just follow the money!

A friendly, young, well-connected Reddy has got me into a night-spot in the after-hours, while the city’s presumably shut. It’s essentially to know someone in Hyderabad. I’m told, a guy behind me just a flashed a gun at the terrace bar. I don’t turn around to verify.

The cover of the book, The Hyderabadis, by Daneesh Majid

Albeit in the newer landscape of Hyderabad (around HITEC City), my host is an old-time local, I know — from his peculiarly........

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