Old Hyderabad 1

When I was in school there were rickshaws in Hyderabad. The motorized versions came much later and eventually drove their predecessors to extinction. There was much in Hyderabad that is only a memory now. It has always been so with a growing city and Hyderabad is no exception to it. There is one inalienable part of Hyderabad, however, which remained immune to change. It is the old city. It has retained its quaint historical character, its crowded streets and small shops overflowing with their items for sale. Economic pressures and lack of political will perhaps ensured its continuance in its outmoded lifestyle. The captains of industry and the patrons of education have not made any inroads into its rigid social and economic structure; they preferred to leave the old city alone and turned to the salubrious though harsh landscape of the Banjara and the Jubilee Hills. Elsewhere, they preferred the outskirts to its dense and populous streets. The old city's only stake to modernity is in its use of auto-rickshaws in place of their traditional tri-cycle counterparts.