Restaurants- My Michelin Rated ones

Hilton- at Osmania campus, Hyderabad- Irani chai, biscuits, bun-omelette. At that age and in those golden days, the best of the best. There were several similar joints in Hyderabad at the time. Kohinoor on MG Road in Pune is another one with similar things on offer.

Raj Bhavan in Davangere, Karnataka. We spent many evenings there with family, dining at leisure. It was a garden restaurant, which meant that the kids (small then) could roam around and we could hold a conversation or admire the garden.

Taj Mahal at Abids, Hyderabad. A simple veg. platter (thali) which was tasty, filling and within budget. Kamat's at Koti next to Women's College was another.

Lucknow chat place, the name of which I forget. Great chat and mithai. I think it was in Aliganj. Also, the gilawati/Tunde kababs and biryani in Hazratganj and beyond-the film Dawat-e-ishq rekindled some of those memories.

Alpha restaurant, Garden restaurant in Secunderabad area were among the best for biryanis when I lived there. Paradise, too.

Bharwan da Dhaba, Amritsar. Makke di roti, and Sarson da saag.

MTR and Maiyya's, and lots of darshinis in Bangalore.

Savji restaurants in Nagpur for fiery stuff.

Nanking, an old Chinese restaurant in Secunderabad.

The Bong Adda in Belapur, new Bombay.

and of course, food eaten anywhere in good company, accompanied by nostalgia, laughter...

Hyderabad Blues

Actually, there aren't any blues, just that the title sounds catchy, coming as it does from a popular debut movie made by Nagesh Kukunoor, a Hyderabadi with a stint in the U.S.

We were celebrating our annual IMT alumni meet as we do every year, and this was at The Green park hotel. A good number of our alums work here, in companies such as Ramco, Deloitte, ICICI Bank, Asian paints, Dr. Reddy's Labs and so on. Some are venturing out on their own too. It was a pleasure talking to some of the young minds and trying to understand their views about life and career. And get some feedback on how to do things better back home.

About five of us faculty from IMT Nagpur came here for the meet, and made the necessary pilgrimage to Paradise restaurant for the mandatory Biryani and kababs. They tasted wonderful as ever. As if to welcome us, the skies opened up in the evening too, bringing us some coolness- not that we lacked in it ourselves (ha, ha).

The next two weekends will see us in Delhi and Mumbai meeting even larger numbers of alumni, rounding off the five chapter meets. IIMB seems to be doing what we are too, and they call it Anusmaran. Cheers to more meetings of the minds. This is even better than the IPL.