A very familiar name to all hyderabadis is the Hyderabad Industrial Exhibition also known as Numaish which happens every year from Jan first week to mid Feb and is one of the most sort after shopping paradise to look out for. It has been happening in Hyderabad for quite a long time now and has become sort of a tradition. It happens at the Nampally cross roads.
It was not anything much different from any of the previous years, but the crowd seems to have tripled or may be quadrupled. I happened to go on the 26th jan, Republic day, a public holiday, oops.. We reached there at 4:45PM and there was car, car everyhwhere and not a place to park. All the parking spots were full. The roads were completely jammed, honking cars, scooters and the monstrous buses, with people bustling and jostling everywhere.One guy stopped us and told, we could park our car, but we had to give him 200 bucks, we were hell ready, but then he said we had to give him our car keys, not a chance, dad was not ready. Then i felt we would probably go back home but that also was a distant dream since if we had to take a u turn and go towards home, it would not take less than a hour. But then luck shined upon us and we started following a few cars into a tiny little street, only to find that the space in front of the shops were being used as car parking spaces at a lot of places. I was impressed by the space utilization.But it was a cheap deal at 60 bucks and it was pretty close to the exhibition.
Yes, so finally we got the grand entry into the 73 All India Industrial Exhibition. The tickets costed us Rs20 each. Yes we still have our small toy train running around and a hoard of shops mostly catering the women shopping arena as usual, 😉 sorry boys. There are a lot of kashmiri shops selling beautiful churidars , stoles, bedsheets and crape sarees. The stoles start from from 150 and range up to 400. But anywhere you go bargaining is a must. You have to leave your shopoholic heart at home and be ready to let go your favorite item if the shop keeper does not give you the item at the desired price. I too got carried away and got duped at a few shops and regretted later. I went into a stall selling Lucknow chickan work kurtis and loved a white kurti, but when he told it would cost me 1500 i backed out, because a local hyderabadi would not spend so much in one store at the exhibition. Then he showed me one worth 950 bucks, i said 500 and looked at dad, who was already disappointed with my poor bargaining skills, dad said 350, but first price is always the first price, the man knew i was ready to pay 500 and did not reduce a penny more. So i took it, though it could have come for less. So advice tip is, quote your first price carefully.
There are also Bengali saree shops who are ready to give Bongs a special discount 🙂 🙂 . As usual you would also find, a lot of snack food joints, a few gas goli stores :P, lots and lots of casual clothes, jewelry and accessories stores. Also there are kitchen ware outlets, where the guys outside are busy showcasing there vegetable cutting tools, wasting loads of vegetables. But people also were no less making the place around dirty, littering them with plastic bags, ice cream boxes and left over food. 
I could not explore all of the exhibition, but a few takeaways for my readers who plan to visit it, would be, be there before 4PM, well in advance, do not wear or take expensive items, because when there is crowd, there are pick-pocketers, a bag to dump in all your shopped items, and most importantly be a smart shopper, “BARGAIN”, don forget this mantra. 🙂 🙂 A nice experience with family and friends 🙂
On a long journey with Calvin and Hobbes 