Sunday, August 11, 2013

The Lost Hyderabadi Ways

I miss this particular trait of the Hyderabadis of my young days. Whenever any excess was being committed on the road - auto drivers misbehaving, young boys teasing girls, boys fighting, women being harassed, bus drivers acting funny - the good old Hyderabadi would in a leisurely manner stop the offending person and put the context right.

With a few choice abuses and a tight slap or two thrown in the errant auto driver, young lad, bus driver, car driver or whoever, would instantly understand the folly of his ways and move on, a chastised soul. I have witnessed this so many times, this leisurely setting right of the world where the ignorant commit mistakes, in what can only be the Hyderabadi version of Kangaroo courts.

For example, I remember an incident near Adarsh Nagar where a young lady carrying some luggage stopped an empty auto rickshaw. The driver  asked her where she wants to go, quoted some price and let the matter rest. The poor lady was stuck there with her luggage. Enter the Hyderabadi heroes on a motorcycle. They stopped the auto and asked him what the matter was. He said it was too close or something like that. Before he finished his sentence he was clutching his cheek, a stinging slap having ensued. He did not need much coercion after that. Justice well delivered.

I am really missing this wonderful trait now, of people who could see right from wrong, and who would use their muscle to back the right and punish the wrong. Now everyone watches impotently as the wrong doer openly commits his crime, and in some cases even join him.

Ah, for some of those Hyderabadi souls. There is so much good work to be done.

1 comment:

Rajendra said...

Hou mian, sahi baat bole.