Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Dining Trouble or the Growing Food Problem in Jubilee Hills

If one were rich enough and also crazy enough to get into one’s head to have dinner at a new restaurant every day, one would require more than a year just to go through the restaurants in Jubilee Hills alone. While they are opening new restaurants at Jubilee Hills almost every week with a regularity that has now ceased to surprise me, at the same time restaurants in my part of Hyderabad are closing down at almost the same speed. The latest restaurant to shut shop is the venerable Gayatri Bhavan at Himayatnagar. A couple of days ago I happened to notice this tragic development and I felt extremely sad because I had spent many a morning there having delicious breakfasts rounded off with equally delicious coffee. If it has managed to sadden an occasional visitor like me I am sure the news of the closure of the decades old Gayatri Bhavan must have caused a lot of heartbreaks in the oldies who frequented it, if it hasn’t already caused their hearts to stop altogether.

Steeped in such sadness I wasn’t really overjoyed to read about two new restaurants that had opened in the Jubilee Hills-Banjara Hills area in the previous week. If such a thing had happened at any other time I would have felt happy for the lucky folks who live in Jubilee Hills. I’m sure they must have been really glad to know about the opening of ‘Bikaneri’ restaurant sometime last week. Then there was the news of ‘Blue Fox’ opening yet another branch somewhere in Jubilee Hills. Blue Fox already has about three branches in Hyderabad, running quite well, thank you, so they must have decided it was high time they made their presence felt at Jubilee Hills. After all, it is the place where all the action is taking place.

Of course, Marriott opened ‘The Courtyard’ last week, but mercifully, not in Jubilee Hills. It is located in my part of the city but I am unlikely to be seen there for the simple reason my pockets do not go deep enough even to afford coffee there. Anyway, I guess it is time the people opening new restaurants in Jubilee Hills stopped for a while to let the Jubilee Hills folks to catch their breath. I can already hear their collective groans, trudging from one newly restaurant to another. I can only feel pity for those poor, poor souls who everyday face the agonizing dilemma of deciding where to have their next meal. Underneath my stern bureaucratic exterior lies a soul that cannot bear to see anyone undergo such stomach churning dilemmas. Apart from that and quite coincidentally we are adequately equipped to tackle just these sorts of situations also. Since we bureaucrats are trained to serve the public I offer to swap places (and also, wallets) with anyone from Jubilee Hills and do my best to face their dining troubles on their behalf.

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