Hyderabad – A city so used to Telangana strikes that no one bothers!

The auto drivers are off on strike!

The bus drivers are off on strike!

The police haven’t registered a case of murder, robbery, dacoity etc. for months!

The attendance in offices has dropped miserably because of the strikes!

This is the state of Hyderabad for the last couple of years. It seems as though bandhs and strikes have become so common that people don’t seem to care anymore. It has become a daily / weekly / monthly activity. And it is hurting Brand Hyderabad real bad with investments falling dramatically over the last year or so. At one time Andhra Pradesh was regarded as one of the best places for FDI but it has slowly lost spot to Chennai, Bangalore and other cities.

But this time the situation has gone completely out of everyone’s hand. It has now been more than 25 days since the general strike began. In between there has been the auto bandh, the regular power cuts, the rail roko, the rasta roko and what not. You could just wonder if there would be an AIR ROKO!

Government officials, even those who are not involved are not getting paid. Some auto or bus drivers who may think that with such strikes they are losing their hard earned money are being made to join the movement. Obviously, Kalvakuntla Chandreshekhar Rao (KCR), the leader of the Telangana movement needs this so that he can continue his movement forward by saying that everyone’s dying to see a new state.

Discussions in offices and on the nearby kirana store are getting heated up because of the seemingly strong divide between Andhra and Telangana. In my opinion the crime rate must have risen several notches due to the unavailability of the police for anything else but controlling the bandhs and arresting protesters.

But amidst all the hullabaloo one just wonders what the hell is the government doing? Whether it is the one in the state or the one at the center in Delhi, it seems as though no ones really bothered rather than make stupid statements such as condemning the protesters and nonsense of that sort.

And that’s why today no one really cares about strikes in Hyderabad whether its the media or the common man. Instead, whenever there isn’t a strike or a bandh, people are shocked as something is amiss in daily life.

So in the end its we who suffer – The common man who isn’t for or against Telangana! Even for the strongest of supporters, one really wonders if he / she bargained for this much suffering in terms of paralysis of daily life.