For all those who haven’t had a chance to visit Koti -one of the busiest places of Hyderabad-here’s the description of the place and its people and for all those who know the place, I’m sure you wouldn’t agree more.
Well to start with, this is the place where you can find anything- u name it and you r sure to get it-if not the original, then at least the duplicate (something is better than nothing.) For instance, the novels by foreign authors, which costs you at least 200 bucks will cost you just 90 bucks here and if you are good at bargaining u can walk away with a good book for just 55-60 bucks (The Da Vinci Code cost me just 65 bucks!!)
Now if you driving a vehicle and want to come alive from this place then my advice is-
“ DON’T FOLLOW THE TRAFFIC RULES” Yeah you read it right! Don’t follow the traffic rules –and if you do then you are wasting your time. The heavy flow of traffic never stops and the civic sense of the people is nil. Pedestrians cross the road as they wish and not to forget the stray animals on the road. But the surprising fact is there is no traffic congestion unless there is a traffic police (no there is no mistake here- if there is a traffic jam then u can be sure of a traffic police managing the traffic.)
There is a great understanding among the citizens here- the 2 meter wide pavement is for the
1.beggars who beg with a style (every beggar has his own style of begging some beg and some demand –that’s another story for some other blog)
2. the petty vendors who sell everything from a duplicate cell phone to a pocket radio, from posters to t-shirts(3 shirts for 50 bucks!!)
3. The pani puri bandi waalas and the juice sellers who do a brisk business there.
4.and not to forget the roadside Romeos-the jobless idiots
5.And the fruit vendors who actually know how to do the business-1 month of training under them and I’m sure you will be one of the finest businessmen.
The other day one of the orange vendors was shouting ”DUS KE DUS, DUS KE DUS “ (meaning 10 oranges would cost 10 bucks) and then when he saw a customer coming by Mercedes suddenly changed “DUS KE PAANCH DUS KE PANCH” (meaning 5 oranges would cost 10 bucks) the customer in Mercedes bought the oranges and left. On our enquiring as to why he had changed the cost, he replied in atypical hyderabadi hindi,“ kya madam aisa kya poochre? Unke paas bahut paise hai na? Isiliye unko double rate Aap ke liye dus ke dus bolo kitna diyun?”
Now you might be wondering as to where did the pedestrians go-well they are all walking on the main roads. They occupy more than half the main road. After all the main roads are public property-anybody can use it the way they want to. {The MCH (municipal corporation of hyderabad ) has the roads dug every time it is newly laid-they always have some reason for digging-to lay the cable wires, to rectify the defect in the water pipelines or the drainage system or some crap-but the bottom line is the roads are never in good condition and for person who has visited the place for the first time-it’s a nightmare.}
But for the people who have been here all their life, life goes on and they love it that way…