I had been to Hyderabad at least half a dozen times and my last trip was back in 2006 when I had spent a couple of months there. During that long stay, I got to explore the town extensively.

The city has a rich history that goes back to the year 500 BCE when it was known as Golkonda. It has been ruled over a period of time by Chalukya dynasty, Kakatiya dynasty, Khalji dynasty and Bahmani sultanate. Later, the city was ruled by Qutb Shahi dynasty and Nizams of Hyderabad before moving under oversight British rule.

With such a rich past and more than 2000-year-old history, one can expect a rustic charm in the city and many historical places both ancient as well as modern which can be explored. These would include Golkonda Fort, Charminar, Mecca Masjid, Chowmahalla Palace and Salarjung Museum amongst the many other heritage monuments. Amongst the modern ones, Buddha Statue in Hussain Sagar Lake, Birla Mandir, Ramoji Film City are the few amongst few more. In a nutshell, Hyderabad, in fact, is an explorers’ delight.

One of my favorite pursuits to follow in the cities which I would have explored earlier is to revisit those monuments and sites which I would have seen earlier. It helps me in refreshing the memories and provides a different prism to look at the monument. As my job takes me back to many cities that I would have visited earlier, I use the opportunity most of the times. Last week, I had to travel again to Hyderabad albeit after a gap of 12 long years for a quick business trip. Considering the duration of my trip, there was no time to move around or revisit the places which I had explored during my earlier trips to refresh my memories.

However, while I was traveling within the city from one corner to another, I could not fail to notice a new revolution going on around the city. Twelve years back, the city had just emerged as a global IT hub and was getting an attention from all around. There would be regular stream of visitors that would be visiting the city from various parts of the globe. I would frequently bump into them at the airport. The city administration as well as the state planning authorities were in the process of augmenting the city infrastructure as well as working towards giving the city a new aesthetic look. One could hardy fail to notice the construction activities that were going on across the city.

Now after twelve years, what I saw was the fruits of the tremendous amount of efforts, thoughts and the funds that the town planners, law makers and administrators had invested in over a period. The city has acquired a brand new look with expressway connecting the airport with the city as well as flyovers across the city to make the ride across the city seamless. This apart, the city has also acquired a new face and an identity literally at least whatever I could notice during my brief rendezvous. The public places across the city like flyovers, traffic crossings, road-dividers and the empty spaces on the walls alongside the roads were being given a facelift. The street art was in full display and seems like street artists were having a free run to have their imagination run wild.

The public places alongside the roads have been imaginatively beautified using the street-art creatively. Various forms of street art like wall paintings, street installations and sculptures have been used in this beautification process. If you happen to be traveling to the city, aimless roaming around in the city shall be one of the task in your bucket list.