High Society

Friday, after a morning of phone calls and other office business, the KnoahSoft VP of Administration, Ramana Reddy, took me for a tour of the main call center facility in the Hyderabad commercial district.

Quite unlike the other parts of the city I had seen so far, this part, called Banjara Hills, was all new construction, glass, and steel. This is clearly where the well-heeled of Hyderabad shop, dine, and hang out. After visiting the call center, Ramana took me to lunch in a restaurant outfitted with a vintage railcar and fabulous Indian food.

The people in the restaurant, as well as the rest of the shopping center, were clearly the benficiaries of the IT boom that has lifted some peoples boats throughout India. It was almost like not being in India at all.

The contrast between this one mall and the rest of the infrastructure is pretty stark. We drove back to the office from this modern commercial district in clogged traffic on worn out, potholed roads desperately in need of the kind of spending and attention as the place we just left.