Living, loving and surviving in urban India: HT

In 2005, when SP Padhy (27) arrived in Hyderabad to work as an engineer in a telecom MNC, he hadn’t planned to stay on. After working for a year, he would move on to the IT Mecca that is Bangalore, he had thought. Five years later, not only has he remained in Hyderabad but has come to terms with the erstwhile city of Nizams.

From a lower middle class family, Padhy’s father retired as a government school teacher in 2009 and his mother is a home-maker in the sleepy town of Berhampur in southern Odisha. After doing a Computer Science degree from the College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar, he joined a US-based MNC at Hyderabad.

“Initially the language and the food were big problems,” he says. A few months into his stay into the city, the water tap went dry one morning. He was told that there was water scarcity in the summer and the pressure was not enough to reach his floor. “ Every morning, it was a struggle carrying buckets of water from the basement through the steep steps to my floor.”

He also misses the warmth of his home town. “There, people stop you on the street to ask about your well-being. The soul is missing in big cities.” he says. Still he wants to continue in Hyderabad. “Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore may offer better job opportunities but I will be cut off from my hometown. At least here I can catch a train from Secunderabad in the evening and be at home next morning, which will not be possible if I work in those cities.

— By Ashok Das

Source: Hindustan Times