Back-from-the-Break Post

Another New Hotel in Banjara Hills

I may have taken a break but there seems to be no break in this trend of hotels opening in the Hill area. Another hotel opened in Banjara Hills called the Al Faham. As per the write-up in Metro Plus by Serish Nanisetti written in his inimitable style, the place offers patrons a ‘Taste of Arabia’ with a lot of stuff like on the platter. It sounds like something that I shouldn't miss tasting at least once. So the next time I’m in Banjara Hills I hope I remember about Al Faham since I am rather keen to check out some of the dishes there.

A New Newspaper in Hyderabad

At the same time someone else brought out a new daily newspaper called ‘The Hans Times’ which makes it another of the umpteen newspapers coming out of Hyderabad. I bought a copy of the paper the other day to check it out. There isn't anything different in it that the others do not have. Since it has just been launched it takes some time to get everything right. It isn't a newspaper that I would want to read everyday though.

Books

I have been checking out the second hand bookstores in the city now and then which pays off in unexpected ways. I had thought it would be a tough and time consuming task getting together Robert B Parker’s series of Spenser novels but a visit to some of the bookstores here proved otherwise. I picked up ‘Hush Money’ that I read right away in two days flat and also 'Playmates' a couple of days later. I am confident I can get at least half of the Spenser titles at one go. Sometime during the end of the month I plan to take an inventory in all stores and do something very drastic to have as many Spenser titles as possible on my bookshleves.

The SundayHaul

On Sunday at Abids I picked up three books. The first find was Elmore Leonard’s ‘Bounty Hunters’ which is a Western and quite unlike anything I have read by him.

The second find was a book I once had and lost- Len Deighton’s ‘Yesterday’s Spy’ that I got for twenty bucks. I plan to stock up on a few of my favourite Len Deighton titles like ‘Only When I Larf’ and ‘Billion Dollar Brain’ since it has been quite a long time since I read his books. I am planning to reread some of his books especially those featuring Bernard Samson, one of my favorite Len Deighton charecters.

The third find was ‘How to Do the Times Crosswords’ which I got for only thirty rupees. But more about this book, another similar book, and my crossword addiction in a later post.

There were other books as well that piled up on the table. My friend Daniel presented me with Nicholas Sparks’ ‘A Bend in the Road’ that I plan to read quite soon. I have seen his books almost everywhere but haven’t yet read any title. ‘A Bend in the Road’ might be the first book I might read. Then I got another book, one that I was saving up for since a long time, as a present from Umashanker. He gave me a surprise by taking out Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘Living to Tell the Tale’ and handing it over to me at our usual haunt at an Irani cafe near home. It was a beautiful hardcover Borzoi First Edition and I am waiting for the moment I’d finish reading ‘the Bounty Hunters’ and Rohinton Mistry’s ‘Such a Long Journey’ before beginning ‘Living…Tale’

The First Haleem of the Season

It is that time of the season when nothing weights more on the Hyderabadi's mind than plans to eat haleem as many times (and as much) as possible. So being no different in other Hyderabadis in this respect I too had, for a change, only haleem on my mind which normally is occupied with thoughts of books and fountain pens. I wanted the first haleem of the season to be the absolute best so I decided to go to the nearest joint where I can get it.

I took my kid along to Paradise and had the first haleem of the season. The price of haleem per plate was a lot higher than the price of a litre of petrol. At eighty rupees per plate it beat the price of petrol by a clean nine rupees. Maybe you are wondering why I am comparing haleem with petrol. On a litre of petrol I can travel about fifty kilometres or four days of going to and from office. But if I can get a plate of good haleem then maybe I can go through the entire season without refuelling. But that is not what I intend to do- my plan is to taste haleem at least five more times at different places. Next in line is the haleem at Bahar.

That was what I've thought up during the break. The next post would be on Tuesday, as usual.