Hospitality, thy name is Hyderabad

The muezzin's call, looming minarets silhouetted against the setting sun; five minutes in Karachi and you can roll down the window of your ...

The muezzin’s call, looming minarets silhouetted against the setting sun; five minutes in Karachi and you can roll down the window of your Toyota cab and dump such stereotypes in the yellow trash can at the next petrol pump-cum-shopping complex. In fact, a transit visitor to this port city might easily be taken in by the glitter of swanky neon signs that light up the main roads in this port city.

But, spend a day with the people who matter — taxi drivers, polite shopkeepers at the Sadar Bazaar, the hotel porter — and a different kind of picture flickers into life. Not many are keen to talk cricket nor is there much hysteria about the Indian team’s first visit here after eight years.

However, the conversation gets animated when they talk about life in general. A kind of intense disgust shines through as people narrate tales of corruption and nepotism at every imaginable level; now, you feel at home. The disgust is not directed at any particular government but at the system; as cabbie Nazim Gul spits out "Qaum bigad gayi hai." Then, as you take in the night air, watch the swanky cars whizz by on the Nursery area, recall the rickety buses that ferry sweat and grime across the city, you suddenly realise that there is no middle class in this part of the country. The divide between the haves and the have-nots seems so stark without the babu’ class to act as a buffer as they do back home.

Forget Karachi; as you trail the Indian cricket caravan, through the plains of Sind to Hyderabad, the contrast becomes clearer. Tattered salwar kameezes fluttering in the harsh and sandy wind and the odd police outpost break the monotony of barren nothingness on either side of the highway.

Vacant and bored eyes watch the posh limousines whizz past garishly painted lorries carrying grain across the country. Are we on the Karachi-Hyderabad highway or the Udaipur-Jaisalmer road? That feeling only grows as a flat tyre gives you half-an-hour atop the bridge spanning River Indus, minutes outside Hyderabad. A shirtless boatman on a dhow bobbing up and down the muddy brown waters looks up and smiles broadly. He could easily be anyone of the 90 crore on the other side of Wagah. "Mohenjodaro is just one and-a-half hours away," informs a fellow-traveller. Hyderabad, like Karachi, welcomes complete strangers with a kind of spontaneous affection that can be unnerving for those used to cold indifference.

Now, if you are asked to spot any difference between the two countries, this something which would be on top of the list. People here take the concept of Mehemaaan-nawazi to unbelievable levels. From the telephone operator at the Karachi GPO who sets aside his fax for the exclusive use of the mehemaan from India,’ to the sentimental studio owner from Allahabad, and the receptionist at a Hyderabad hotel who opens the conference room for those stuck without accommodation; India seems to be a kind of magic password here.

Much more than where it should be; back home.