The Hindu Business Line : Silicon implants

Before setting out for Hyderabad, friend Amit had briefed us on the flavours and varieties of Hyderabad biryani offered at Paradise. "That's the best place," he told us, and good friend Soma agreed. Paul was keen on tasting chicken biryani while one preferred a plate of placid veg biryani though there is no dish to that description.

At two in the afternoon, most tables at the three-tiered hotel abutting a street corner in Secunderabad were full and it took some time to locate an empty table beside another at which some six college-girls were relishing a bunk from lectures.

For a veg, the biryani was okay and one enjoyed more the three-course lunch at Adarsha Family Restaurant, run by a women's cooperative on the road from Badvel to Hyderabad. The restaurant located at Sankalmaddi (Musapeta), Mahabubnagar district, is spacious (in Mumbai they would have trebled the number of tables) and the sambar gave off a fine aroma. Rice, sambar, rasam and curd (in that order) with two vegetables were served in plenty by women and their children without fuss and the bill came to Rs 81.

In step with global times, Paradise prefers quantity and even Paul did not go ga-ga over the biryani while we felt happy at Adarsha.

Hitec City.

The second item on Paul's tour list was a visit to the famed IT city or Cyberabad and Soma kindly took us on a tour of the techno site presided over by the closed in, glass offices of the country's IT Trimurti — Infosys, Wipro and TCS. This writer has not seen anything like Cyberabad. Cold lines of glass and cement make it to the skies and are kept away from common gaze by a tight line of security force. Mumbai has nothing like it.

In Cyberabad, young men and women sitting in their air-conditioned private bays chat on screens in binary lingo, cut off from the air and sky around and have quietly pulled ahead of the others in Hyderabad. The IT world has splintered cities like Cyberabad with a few earning wages and the rights to live in gated communities.

Soma is appreciative of the vision of Chandrababu Naidu, who flattened rocky, green stretches of land to put up Cyberabad. "In the 1970s this place was a quiet green," he mused as our car went round and across IT worlds packed in cement and glass silos.

Today, one can see traces of the past in large chunks of rocks standing alone and about to roll down whenever a new IT company makes a billion dollar entry; a few pieces of wetlands are still around and Soma reminds one that Hyderabad and its neighbouring areas had about 60 lakes some 10 years ago; today just about 20 are left. "They will also go," he admits as the current Chief Minister, YSR Reddy, matches wits with the regime in Bangalore to get more of the IT dollars.

It is hard to quarrel with the one-way vision of the Naidus and Reddys as it has got jobs for the middle class in return for their votes. They may not understand wetlands and rocky terrains can be around in a wiry e-world, if allowed. Black topped roads make entries and exits from Cyberabad easy and for its residents work is a 24-hour occupation.

"At midnight, Cyberabad becomes a giant glow-worm as a sleeping India traffics with an awake America, Europe or Australia. Hoteliers are pushing the government to keep hotels and other spots open for 24 hours," said Soma as the powerful West gets a sure grip on the economic proceedings of developing nations like India.

In the 20th century they put their men and women at risk; now they risk stray breakdowns of a few computers to make India their own.

The Indian IT world is well aware of the US Independence Day but not when India became free. BPOs, KPOs and the rest are shut on July 4 to accommodate the US but not on August 15. The same morning we were with a few poor women trying to improve their lives by clinging to each other in Self-Help Groups.

If Cyberabad has power for 24 hours, the women in Shankarpalli Mandal, Mokila village, Ranga Reddy district get power for about 16 hours, if at all. The 25-year-old K. Shobha, the first woman whom we met in the area, is happy with her fate and does not wish for more.

One doubts whether they have ever visited Cyberabad though a few of them are aware of the wonder-machines — computers — which can do everything except give birth or death to humans. Some day computers could be ahead of humans to beat the Creator at his game — that's the claim of some of the best scientists.

With the coming into being of a fresh Cyberabad, the distance between the ruling elite and the poor could only get worse. Governments and their middle-class supporters see no urgency in mending the lives of women like Shobha while every rule on government files is scratched to house million-dollar investments on middle class existence.

The poor like Shobha exist under a broiling sun of 38 degrees by leave not by right.

Pictures by P.V. Sivakumar

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