Tale of Two Cities

The disparity between the two cities situated within Hyderabad has perhaps never struck me as much as it did last week.
The Old City of Hyderabad and the Hi Tech city are perhaps as different from each other as the colour black is from white. It is difficult to assume that the Charminar area is in the same city as the ever-grwoing IT hub expanding from Hi Tech city to Gachibowli, where the biggest multinationals have set shop.
While the difference between these two poles of Hyderabad has always intrigued me, it was last week when I was working on a story that it became most obvious.
On a hot afternoon, I was touring the Old City, where the Charminar is located, interviewing young girls in their burqas who had taken up computer classes with dreams of getting jobs at a call center. These girls were smart, spoke their mind, and very candidly shared what they wanted to do in life.
It was during my interaction with these young girls, aged 9 to 22, that I realized how these spirited girls assumed that the computer classes they were going for were perhaps the best vocational programmes on offer. They spoke about their parents with a modest monthly income of a few thousands shelling out a princely sum of Rs 7000 for their classes. I also realized that despite the poor quality of the course, the fact that these girls were coming out and taking up the programme said a lot about changing mindsets in this part of the city, once known to be conservative.
After a long day’s work, I was gathering my thoughts, writing down the quotes I wished to use for my story when the ISB crorepati news broke. Four students from the Indian School of Business had been offered salaries over Rs one crore each. By late evening, there was a mad chase for the names of these students. While the ISB was tight-lipped about the names, they did help in getting some students speak to me. One of the girls I spoke to had over five years of work experience, had traveled all over the world and said that ISB was the best institute in the country and had helped her get an almost 100 per cent raise from what she was getting in her previous job.
Even as I was interviewing her, the images of the burqa-clad girls I had interviewed earlier in the day in the Old City kept flashing through my mind.
I saw the contrast between the two ends of Hyderabad through the people I had interviewed during the day.
At one end of Hyderabad, an ISB girl was getting ready for her job in London, her dream fulfilled.
At the other end, girls in the Old City were mouthing English words and learning computers to embark on perhaps their longest journey __ from their homes in the Old City to a plush call center in Hi Tech City.