Hyderabad

For my last weekend in India, I went to Hyderabad to visit some friends from Stanford and to see the city. Hyderabad is about 350 miles northeast of Bangalore, in Andara Pradesh state. It's known locally as "Cyberabad" and by many accounts has taken the mantle of India's Silicon Valley from Bangalore. Bangalore and Hyderabad are similar in many ways, so I will describe Hyderabad mostly in contrast to Bangalore.

Hyderabad was actually one of the nicer cities that I have been to in India. It was pretty similar to Bangalore in appearance, but a little nicer and better organized. The downtown was more substantial than Bangalore. There were many nice looking shops and a few nice looking parks. The roads were fairly well paved. Traffic was terrible, but did not seem quite as bad as Bangalore.

A quick history note. Bangalore is basically a British town. It was just a small village when the British came in the mid-1800s and used it as a hub to monitor south central India. Hyderabad on the other hand was ruled by a strong maharajah. It was one of the few regions of India to never be ruled by the British, and it only joined with the rest of the country some time after Indian independence. As a result, Hyderabad has an interesting culture and unique feel to it where Bangalore largely does not. This NYT article describes the rocks that give Hyderabad some of its character. Perhaps another sign of Hyderabad's position versus Bangalore - I have 5 Stanford classmates who are working in Hyderabad this summer while I am the only one in Bangalore now.

But, Hyderabad's heavy Stanford presence made this weekend a good opportunity to catch up with some friends from school. On Saturday, my friends Jim and Anu picked me up at the airport for a day of sightseeing. We saw the Chaminar (a 16th century monument to the ending of a plague), the Mecca Mosque (a big mosque whose arch contains soil from Mecca), and ate some great biryani (like Indian paella). We also went to the big Fort which overlooks the town, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately at the fort the South Indian monsoon brought the noise. We got completely soaked, and eventually opted to cut our fort visit short. We headed home and skipped viewing Hyderabad's famous Buddha Statue (which sits on a pedestal in the lake in the center of town).

It turned out that the rain was fortunate, as Saturday evening tragedy stuck Hyderabad. Two bombs exploded Saturday night in the city, one at the park by the Buddha Statue, and one at a local restaurant. Over 40 people were killed and dozens more were injured. 19 other bombs were found unexploded around Hyderabad Saturday night and Sunday, as security was stepped up.

Hyderabad's population is about a 50/50 Hindu/Muslim mix, which makes its Muslim population much higher than most Indian cities. It is not clear if this is why Hyderabad was targeted, if it was targeted because of its growing high-tech presence, or even who was behind the attacks. The local government immediately pointed to Pakistan or Bangladeshi terror groups, but it is not clear whether there is any evidence to justify that connection.

I heard of the bombings on Saturday evening at dinner with Jim and Anu. Jim works for Google, and one of his coworkers called him to let us know and to tell us to come back to Google's campus. We finished dinner pretty quickly and headed home. I stayed there with Jim and another GSB guy, Stephen, who was out of town until late Sunday night. Sunday, Google did not allow us to go into town, which was probably wise. Instead, we stayed around Google's campus in Hi-Tec City (Google employees here have an awesome setup incidentally, with unlimited food and drink, access to 24 hr car service, a nice gym, etc), went to the nearby Novotel hotel for a great Sunday brunch with another classmate Ohad and his wife, and crashed the Novotel pool. A bit of a surreal day, spent mostly trying to relax and settle back into a normal life.

The bombings really brought home India's terrorism problem, of which I had largely been blissfully ignorant. I now at least understand why the airports and public buildings have such extensive (if amazingly poorly implemented) security measures. Since 2004, India has had more deaths from terrorism than all of North America, South America, Europe, and Eurasia COMBINED. Over 3,674 people have died over the past 3 years and 3 months, making India the country with the 2nd most terrorist deaths (less than Iraq but more than Afghanistan).

All in all, I still have a favorable impression of Hyderabad as an Indian city. If I were ever to be forced to return to India for work, I would likely prefer Hyderabad to Bangalore. But I am sure it will forever be connected in my mind with the dark cloud of terror.