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hyderabad's glitch: a consultant's drunken detour

@Mason Grey2/9/2026blog

i hate starting things with capital letters but here we are. the moment i walked into that dusty bus station in hyderabad, my suitcase felt like it was judging me. 26.29 degrees celsius? that's not a number, that's a vibe. i just checked and it's like a sauna that forgot to turn off. not my vibe, but here we are. the air smelled like old tictacs and existential dread.

someone told me that the street food here is haunted by a 1990s food critic. i don't know if that's true, but i saw a vendor selling vada pav with a side of existential questions. it was delicious. or maybe it was the cheap rice. hard to tell.

if you get bored, pondicherry is just a short drive away. i didn't go there. i just bought a mango from a guy who looked like he'd rather be anywhere but there. his mango was perfect. i ate it in the street and cried. not because it was good, but because i felt like i had finally found something real in this city that felt like it was holding its breath.

i heard that the local cafes are all run by people who used to be bankers. i went to one called 'the quiet desk' and the barista asked me if i wanted a latte or a existential crisis. i ordered the crisis. it came with a packet of cheap cigarettes. i lit one and immediately regretted it. the smoke tasted like a broken promise.

i just checked the weather again and it's still 26.29. no change. no relief. it's like the city is trying to say something. maybe it's trying to tell me to leave. or maybe it's just bad at communication.

someone warned me that the traffic here is a metaphor for life. i didn't believe them until i got stuck behind a minivan with a driver who was clearly texting while driving. the vehicle looked like it was from the 90s and it was driving faster than the queens of the road. i almost hit a cow. the cow was fine. i wasn't.

there's a place called 'the old library' that's supposed to be a hidden gem. i asked a local about it and he said, 'it's where the ghosts of failed entrepreneurs haunted by their own failures hang out.' i didn't go. i'm not that kind of person.

i found this old map online from a tripadvisor page. it showed a spot called 'the forgotten alley.' i took a detour there and found a guy selling handmade clocks. they were all broken. he said they were 'timepieces for people who can't handle the present.' i bought one. it doesn't work. but it has character.

someone told me that the neighbors here are all either very rich or very sad. i don't know which. i saw a man watering his plants at 3 am with a hose that looked like it was made of denial. his plants looked like they were fighting for survival. i felt bad. i gave him a bottle of water. he drank it and then started crying. i left.

i tried to take some photos of the city but my camera died. i used my phone instead. the pictures look like they were taken through a fishbowl. one of them has a cat wearing a hat. i don't know how that happened.

i checked yelp for food spots and saw a review that said 'the dal was so good, it made me question my life choices.' i didn't eat dal. i ate a sandwich from a truck that had a name tag that read 'i regret nothing.' the sandwich was okay. not great. not terrible. just like my life.

i just checked the humidity and it's 21%. that's not a lot. that's not a problem. that's just the city's way of saying, 'we're here, but we don't care about you.'

i need to go. the suitcase is getting heavier. the thoughts are getting heavier. but maybe hyderabad will stay with me. maybe it will remind me that even when things feel like a glitch, there's still a way to find something real. or maybe that's just me being dramatic.

https://tripadvisor.com/hyderabad-hotels
https://yelp.com/hyderabad-food
https://localboards.com/hyderabad-tips
https://unsplash.com/ search for hyderabad

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About the author: Mason Grey

Observer of trends, culture, and human behavior.

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