The Tour Guide

My aunt lives in hyd, and I visited her place over the weekend. It was a comfort to spend some time with family.

With them, I traveled a bit of the city over the weekend. Aadil, who drove us, is a guy my younger cousin's age. He has two cellphones, one of them is an Nokia N72 with a broken screen. He saw my phone and said why couldn't I get a better phone from Amrica. He told me to go to Jagdish bazar, where I could get awesome phones, just I had to know how to negotiate. A guy was selling 4-in-1 charger which he bought for Rs100 when we had stopped on a light, and realized that it didn't work for one of his cells.

We drove through Jubli Hills, Banjara Hills, Panchguta, and lots of other places. Aadil showed us many major landmarks in the city and gave me a lot of information on when they were built, who built them, with what material, for how much etc. I asked him where had he learned all this. He told me mostly by reading himself, as by asking and hearing from people one could only learn so much. His information was half-baked, but it was still pretty good. His driving was excellent. He chose driving a cab over the auto, because there's no respect in driving an auto, even though one probably made more driving an auto. He had no plans to do anything else which paid him better.

Aadil is a hyderabadi. He is single and lives with family. His family has lived here since atleast three generations. He told me Banjara hills are called Banjara for people like me, who are outsiders and come live there. I don't know if that's true, but that's what is true for him. I suggested he could become a tour guide since he was good at it. He complained a lot about traffic, and said that people here don't know how to drive, and are always doing the wrong thing. He would like to drive a BMW but it doesn't matter. All cars are like Indica, the pricier the car, the easier it is to drive and some other added comforts you have, he said. He told me if I had to learn driving, I should learn it on Tata Indica. If I could drive Indica, I could drive any car, and if I could drive here, I could drive anywhere in the world. He asked me if I had seen 2012, and that the special effects were super in that movie.

At the end of our trip last night, he gave the whole explanation of Islam, who the prophet was, who the prophets before him were, what all was written in the book and why Islam is such a great religion. He told me that everyone says Muslims oppressed women, but it was Islam who liberated women from the Arab atrocities long long ago. And that in US and Europe they say Burqa is bad, but see, no Muslim had swine flu, because Muslim women wore Burqas. It acted like a mask. He wants to visit Mecca some day. He had a small sheet of paper which he puts behind the rear view mirror, and that's what keeps him safe. He doesn't do Namaz everyday, but he bows to God every morning asking him to keep him safe from accidents.