Chilkur Balaji temple in Hyderabad is popular in many ways. The temple doesn’t take monetary offerings from visitors and all visitors are treated alike. No concept of VIP visitors. Today, I spotted an interesting news item about the temple. The organizers of the temple are planning to enforce a dress code during weekends. It is a very simple dress code. Visitors should wear clothing made of handlooms (hand woven textiles.) This code would indirectly benefit the weavers in this area, who are in tough economic situation right now. Enforcing a dress code may look too much, but I fully support such an idea. If more and more places and outfits encourage handlooms, the local weavers will have a better financial situation.

Spurthi and Surya got their renewed passports. Surya’s passport arrived late last week and today we got Spurthi’s passport. Interestingly, it seems the police inquiry, mandatory for adults, is a post process for children. Surya’s police inquiry is done on Sunday and Spurthi’s is yet to happen. Overall, the passport renewal process is smooth.

The street-side (curb side) bookshops are iconic in India’s print industry. You normally find two types of such book shops: the ones that sell daily/periodical material like news papers, weeklies and other magazines; the ones that sell (often pirated or used) books on the curb side.

For more than six years after I relocated to India, one single book store (of the first kind) primarily served my newspaper and magazine purchases in Hyderabad. This is the one at S. R. Nagar circle off Umesh Chandra statue. Today is the last day of that book store, because their lease is expiring and they are not renewed.

This shop is so convenient for me that I used to go there by bicycle or scooter. The best part is that there are no traffic signals in either route from home. About five times a week (when I am in town) I used to go to this store to purchase print materials. I am a very regular early morning customer for them. Going there is as regular as my morning glass of chocolate milk.

I am going to miss this shop from tomorrow. The friendly smile of the shop owner, his 6.00am activity in that block and the occasional exchange of his concerns and pains. All of them. Interestingly, I don’t know his name and he doesn’t know mine. We always greeted each other with a smile. I am going to miss him. Bye Bye!

Read synopsis of railway budget 2008 introduced today. Given that we have an election year, the budget is made attractive enough. Unfortunately, the state of Andhra Pradesh gets (the usual) step motherly treatment this year too. The state gets no good benefits in new trains or infrastructure improvements.

Good:

• Reduction in fares
• Infrastructure improvements
• Emphasis on safety
• Improved ticketing (cell phones, etc.)
• Reduced fright charges for certain types of fuel

Bad:

• Additional berths in three tier, making life more miserable
• New concessions have a potential to clog the already busy travel networks, especially during peak holiday season.

Overall, it is a good budget. People in Andhra may still have to suffer in busy routes like Hyderabad-Bangalore, Hyderabad-Visakhapatnam and other internal routes.

Today I collected my RC book (for my Santro; read more) from RTA office in Khairatabad. The process is very simple and I got my RC book within a minute or two. Good service!