My kinda town...

I love Visakhapatnam (Vizag... as the pet name goes :-)) and its old city charm. There are so many different things about Vizag that I love, little things that only someone who's lived there would know....

I love the mornings in Vizag. The cold nip in the air, the feeling that a new day is starting and anything is possible.

Mornings in my university campus, where the air is so clear that you can hear the kids in the campus servant quarters preparing for school.

GITAM campus Vinayaka temple

The pujari clipping flowers off the campus garden for the Vinayaka temple at the campus entrance, the aayamma meticulously drawing out the rangoli...

I love the greenery in Vizag. I love driving or walking in tree lined avenues.

Aerial view of the city greenery

The road that goes through the Andhra University campus with red stone buildings lined with trees, or even some parts in the heart of the city, like Siripuram or Station Road.

I love it that I've seen it's transformation from a sleepy town to a new haven for IT companies rushing forward to grab a bite in the city’s real estate (that too in just a span of 2 years!!!), simultaneously a source of pride and consternation! From a place that used to come to a standstill every time a probable cyclone or high tide in the sea was announced, to a city that never stops moving come rain or storm. I love it that it has become a hallmark of progress and better things to come.

HSBC

Satyam Development Center

Victory at Sea is a memorial for the Indian victory over Pakistan in the 1971 War. You cannot miss this memorial on the beach road.

I love it that Vizag has so many naval establishments. Gives a dignity and sense of discipline to the place.

I love the way the city has been planned.

The way you would see the sweepers sweeping the roads at midnight when the town is sleeping, so that the morning joggers wake up to a spotlessly clean beach road.

I love the Vizag weather. Even the annoying times when it's too cold in the mornings and too hot and humid in the afternoons. Even when one part of the city is pouring cats and dogs and the other part of the city is completely dry.

City view from kailasagiri hilltop

I love the local malls that have come up in Vizag. And I like old eateries like the Punjabi Dhaba near the Gurudwara and Jia’s Ice creams, Fillers (yummmm…) and the pav bhaji wala near the beach road Kali temple.

I love the old buildings that you stumble upon near the Collector’s office. Most of these buildings are gone, or are being pulled down. But you could still find a remarkable old house sandwiched between an ultra modern shiny glass door office and a cyber cafe.

I can still picture the historical statues lined along the beach road.....

.....the Submarine museum

.....the Ramakrishna Mattha

.....the Buddha Statue

.....the Sampat Vinayaka temple

.....Simhachalam temple

.....Kailasagiri hilltop

.....the Bheemili (Bheemunipatnam) beach

.....the picturesque Araku valley

.....the serene beach view.









I like the way the old and the new co-exist. The cotton-sari-mallepuvvu-in-her-hair aunty, with the tight-jeans-streaked-hair daughter.


I like the polite Vizag people. When a Vizag person is rude, he really takes the cake. But there are still a lot of awfully sweet people around. Take our very own hostel cleaning lady who always gives her best smile and goes "Enti amma? Tiffin ayyinda?". The rare honest auto driver; the friendly bus conductor who makes the bus wait when you wave from the far end of the other side of the road, and no one seems to mind.


Most of all, I love the fact that I can be myself in Vizag. I like it that there is no need to prove myself there. There isn't the rush or the competition... or at least, it can be ignored :)

Two years of my stay in Vizag showed me all that I had missed in Delhi. I liked Delhi too... Now I am in Bangalore, the IT capital of India. I love Bangalore too... but well... these cities are different from Vizag...What’s different one might wonder... I would say “There is no innocence left in these places”.