Visiting The City of Nizams

Last weekend I got a chance to visit Hyderabad, The City of Nizams (that's how I like to call it). It was for another hiring event and I had a very tight schedule with hardly any space for planning any city tour. I stayed at the Courtyard Marriott and the experience was great. I'll put the details in another post.
The plan was to start from Delhi on Friday evening, take interviews on Saturday and have lunch in Delhi on Sunday. The Kingfisher flight was good and the food was good. Parull and Gaurav from the Gurgaon hiring team were also there (Another four people were to meet us there). We were the last people to board the flight and were lucky enough not to hear our names being called out all over the airport for boarding! I made an observation that day (I am sure all of us know it already) "when in hurry we tend to overlook the signs in front of us and follow those which are farther away and get misled". While trying to make it to the boarding gate we took a wrong turn and had to quickly double back.

Arrival gate at Hyderabad's new airport (Rajiv Gandhi International Airport)

It was the weekend just before the Valentine's day and I wanted to ensure some gift from Hyderabad for my dear wifey! I had two things in mind - pearls and biryani! For the former I had employed the help of my friend Aditya and for the latter, I had been advised by my brother-in-law to pick some from the airport counter of Paradise Biryani. Besides the shopping plan I was looking forward to meet my old colleagues from NIIT Singapore days (Chary, Aditya and later Keshav). Its been a decade and the thought of meeting them again made me nostalgic. But as luck would have it, I could only meet Aditya (Chary was in Bangalore attending a wedding and I came to know very late that Keshav was in Hyderabad).

Basil interior

Thanks to Aditya, I had a great evening with dinner at Basil (had a sizzler with Redbull). He came to Marriott to pick me. Due to my long day, we started late with the result that all the jewelers (in the Jublee hills area) were closing or were already closed. I thought, "here goes my valentine's gift!". But Shoppers Stop was my saving grace. I could manage to buy pearl sets for my wife and daughter.
 
Next day was another early start. I and Parull had the same flight. By mid day we were back in Delhi. I missed not being able to see the Char Minar, Salar Jung Museum and many more places of the Nizams. Hope to be able to plan a better trip next time!
In case you are interested in knowing what happened to the Biryani, write to me!

BTW, did you know that the air hostesses on Indigo airline (with blunt cut hairstyle) wear wigs? I didn't and Parull gave me this eye opener ;-)