Why i love to be called a Hyderabadi...

An article not on sports , on my blog, has as much possibility as Federer had of winning French Open with Nadal in the draw, but since that has happened , for a change i have decided to write on some thing else ...

So here we go ...

There is no bigger topic of debate which has concerned me more than this.....

Being called a " Hyderabadi "

Before some of u start bashing me on talking about being an " Indian " first and not going to regionalism, lemme clarify, this has nothing to do with nationalism and more to do with my love for the beautiful city that ' Hyderabad' is ....

I was born in Delhi, lived in north india till i moved to Hyderabad in my 5th standard, and even though i left the city in 2005, my love for it has never changed a bit...

Enough of background stuff, lemme get straight to the point...

Every one loves their city, and i am not gonna argue on that, and neither am i here to brag about why 'Hyderabad' is better than ur city, which i am sure of and which u are not gonna buy...
So here are my reasons for loving Hyderabad...

1. Accent :

" kya miyan kya karre....." " baigan bataan nakko karo ".....,
Well there is no city in India which has the hindi accent the way Hyderabad has, it's unique, it may not be old school hindi but tht's wht sets it apart, believe it or not, people love it!!!!

2.

The People :

City is what it's people are..It's name and fame are built around it's people....True that we may not have the history that u can associate with a city like Delhi or Bombay, but the people here compensate for all those things....

They aren't cocky as people from India's 2 major metro's are and neither are they regional bounded like the people of the 2 other metro's.. Simple, helpful,down to earth and humble. I am trying to use the best possible words to describe my people, and if u don't believe it you can look at the famous son's and daughter's of this city..

1.V.V.S Laxman
2 P. Gopichand
3. Harsha Bhogle
4. Azharuddin
5. Sarojini Naidu

and so on....

It is easier to choose the names of these stars and prove my point but if any of u have been to Hyderabad or have met any one ( ahem ahem :P :P) from that city then u might know this anyway...



3. Deccan Chargers..

Don't ask me to rub it in..we have the best team in India's most watched and most followed sporting event of calendar year..and for the year 2009 we won it.. till then shut up and let us bask in glory.. don't talk about past and don't tell us what might happen in 2010.. we live in present so talk about now!!!!!!!


4. Chandra Babu Naidu

Till Narendra Modi burst onto scene post Godhra events, no regional leader had more national importance than he had..... When Bill Clinton came to India they gave India's so called " silicon valley, bangalore" a miss but not Hyderabad..I came to Hyd in the year Naidu came to power in A.P( i think the way he worked i should use Hyd not A.P). There was no necklace road, no Hi Tech city, not a great airport.. The city could be compared to a beautiful girl in a very ordinary dress.. he glamorized it..........

He was the most talked about politician of this country in the last decade and he set a benchmark in terms of I.T and technology which C.M of other states hope to match!!!

There are many more, food, the HI Tech City..etc etc but to wrap it up. the final reason


5. My Heart...

Before you think out of the box and try to ruin the emotional part of the blog which may tilt you towards the concept of hyderabadi, just stop.. i am not talking of love and stuff here.....

I love being called Hyderabadi because thts my identity and thts where i still relate to despite not living there...

I think of the great times i had with my frens from school and college... the evenings i wandered to IMAX with Nag and Harsh for... lets say bird watching...
The cricket matches outside Shanti Apartment or football discussion(where i was totally hopeless!!!)

It's nostalgic... May be repeating again and again that i am a 'hyderabadi' keeps those memories vivid in my heart...the memories of a lifetime which i don't wanna forget....

An Age for Sport Lovers....

Just a few hours after Roger won his 14th Grand Slam and that too the French Open( more on that in coming days!!!!) to tie the Sampras's record of 14 Slams, a certain Stanford alumni scripted a sensational comeback to win yet another golf tournament, this one, the prestigious Memorial. If you are not into golf the first person you would have still guessed must have been Tiger and you are damn right!!!



If a poll is conducted by sports lovers across all ages and across all generations, to choose the best sporting era, the present one would win hands down....

If you think Roger and Tiger are the only 2 reasons for that then go ahead and finish this article....
Yes every era has athletes who raise the bar to new level, who challenge themselves to scale peaks which have never been scaled before, but this era is different..



Jack's record looked invincible till Tiger came along, Federer and Nadal have been more dominant than even Andre and Pete or Borg and Mcnroe were together..., Sachin is irreplaceable and so would be his records...



Lightning never strikes twice and it will take years before some one like Usain Bolt emerges again, Phelps has reached where no swimmer ever reached,Yelena Gadzhievna Isinbaeva has literally scaled new heights in every single tournament she has entered, Tom Brady is no Dan Marino but he is not very far from that either.. Lebron maynot be Jordan when it comes to winning titles or finishing but the way he has progressed who says he might end up better than him when he retires in another 15 years!!!.....and i have not even included Michael Schumacher and Lance Armstrong the most decorated athletes of this generation...!!!!!


Phew!! I never thought i might come up with these many names when i started this article about 2 hours back...but hell yeah this sure is the greatest sporting era of all time...



We are lucky to be part of this era, and for a sport fanatic like me this quote from Lebron James sums it all up

" I'm just thankful for every day that I wake up."