ISB Balling & Liquid

While we're still missing out on the Indian 'national sport,' hockey, by Wikipedia's definition, we have played a bit of local basketball pick-up at the Indian School of Business (ISB). ISB is an enclave of slience and peace in the midst of an otherwise hectic but vibrant Hyderabad. It's, to my knowledge, a one-year MBA program that's expensive and taught by American faculty from Wharton and Kellog. This week we took to ISB, and introduced the Iverson cross-over to the sub-continent. After about three hours of pick-up basketball on a slippery concrete floor, we left the manicured lawns of ISB's idyllic setting.

Although the week was incredibly hecitc, with conference calls at 7AM and 1AM on the same day, Champions League games to watch, dinners to attend, trips to plan, etc, we made due. Tonight we topped it off to a trip out to dinner at Fusion 9, and a night at the club with Liquid. Convinced that we'd seen Tollywood stars, we ordered a hookah and kicked back for the evening, looking out over a glassy skyline filled with half-constructed edifices and cranes. Actually, the term Tollywood star is a bit of an oxymoron, so we sat ponderously gazing into the reflective glass, slightly jaded at the fact that we'd been moved from our table to make room for those more C-list spenders than ourselves. While not the skyline of Barcelona or Istanbul, not the scene of Dancatoria or Leb-i-Derya, the atmosphere was a contrasting alternate-side to the faces we see on Hyderabadi streets daily. India continues to strike and enchant me as a nation of extremes.