jamAnA thA when Seunderabad and Hyderabad had quite distinct personalities. And telangANA was a foreign "country" for our relatives in Tenali, Vijayawada, Kovvur, Chirala, Bandar, etc...
My father was from Tenali, and mother from Kollur. Though I was born in Kollur, I was brought up in Secunderabad, first in Sivaji Nagar (though it may have had a different name then), Buruguchetty Bazaar (a little gallee back of Rashtrapathi Road (then called Kingsway) in a house almost behind Bejagam VenkayyaUs Cloth shop. Later when EMESCO established its head office on Rashtrapathi Road, I used to be able to go into their offices by going onto our terrace, jumping over to neighborsU terrace, and going down a flight of stairs.
The nearest intersection of a major street with Rashtrapathi Road was probably called General Bazaar. It had a small maseed at the intersection, and led to Chitra Talkies (later called by a different name). The emergency doors of the theatre that opened up onto this street provided us with free audio of the movie being played. When walking by, we used to stop, and hear a piece of the movie by standing real close to the doors.
If you keep going, you would go through a quite narrow street, with cloth shops on either side. VeeresalingamUs (a middle school, high school classmate) family owned one of those stores. Sometimes I used to see him in the store. Go a little bit more, and you would come to a majestic (relatively speaking!) street, called James Street(?), probably called Gandhi Bazaar or some such name now. There is a statue of Gandhi on that street now.
At this point, if you turn right and proceed, you would approach the intersection of this street with Sarojini Devi Road (it had a different name then, forgot) where you would find Paradise Theater. It was the first Air-Conditioned theater (perhaps not including Plaza, Tivoli, and Dreamland which used to show English movies exclusively. I remember seeing The Greatest Show on Earth, some Tarzan movie, and some others). It opened with the screening of Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, probably one of the first Hindi movies in color. The movie, because of the content was a super hit. My grandmother, who didnUt understand Hindi went to see the movie too.
For some reason, I remember an optometristUs store around there. I think he lived there too. There was a long driveway, and the house/store was inside. Outside, on the pillars around the gate, I remember the advertising /inscription in telugu, "bEramu cEsi konna sulOcanamulu pramAdakaramainavi". I couldnUt figure out if he was cautioning you, or threatening you! For some reason that stuck in my mind. So is another sign I used to see on the bridge between the Central and Western stations of Andheri in Bombay - another opticianUs sign - which said "eyes freely tasted".
On Sarojini Devi Road, if you turn right, and proceed, you would eventually come to the big intersection with Rashtrapathi Road. There was the telephone exchange on the left, PatnyUs (bus stop) on the right, Mahbub College High School on the right on the other side of the road, and some establishment I forget the name of which on the remaining corner.
I studied in MCHS from 6th grade to 12th grade! Yes, ours was the first batch of the Multipurpose Higher Secondary System of education. When we entered the 10th (or was it 9th?) they introduced the grouping system, MPC, BPC, Commerce, and Humanities. That usually was the order of preference by students, or more appropriately, by their parents.
MPC in our school was taught in English medium, and so the last three or four years of my education was in English medium, including the other subjects, Elementary Math, and Social Studies. The only remaining subjects were Telugu and Hindi, which were mostly taught in those two languages, with only a little bit of Telugu or English mixed in for Hindi.
We had excellent teachers for Math, Physics and Chemistry. Our math teacher, E. Veeraswamy later became the principal of the school. We had a slight problem with the foreign accent of the Chemistry teacher. I remember his name as Mohammed. DonUt remember the other part of the name. The physics teacher was Silar Khan. He came from Visakhapatnam, and thus spoke pakka telugu, with that regional accent. It was a strange experience for us, seeing a Moslem gentleman speak so fluent and chaste telugu, albeit with a Vizag accent. He was simply great in his teaching. I wouldnUt mind attributing what success I had later in Engineering studies, to the solid foundation he gave us in Physics. I saw him about ten years ago. He is now the principal for Railway High School, in Secunderabad (or Lalaguda).
I have lot more to say, but would wait to gauge the interest before proceeding in this fashion. Till then.....
Ramakrishna