And suddenly I saw direction boards springing up all the way from Punjagutta to Begumpet and beyond.

Yes, sure I knew that Pranab Mukherji, the Hon’ble President of India, was coming to Hyderabad for a few weeks as part of what has euphemistically been called his ‘Southern Sojourn’. But in all these years, the other Presidents, Fakhruddin Ahmed, Sanjeeva Reddy, VV Giri, Zakir Hussein, Abdul Kalam etc., did not ever warrant this kind of signage. Of course we had the sycophant's ‘Welcome to Hyderabad’ banners and all that, but nothing which directed us to Rashtrapathi Nilayam.

So why suddenly was Hyderabad being decorated with these signboards? And put up by the Traffic Police no less.

I have no definite information and no idea whatsoever why this was done but me being me, I had to wonder why…and in fact postulate a theory, however outlandish it may sound.

You see, I rationalzed to myself, when the President visits any state, he does bring with him a retinue of staff and perhaps even a couple of bullet proof cars. But local hospitality and security are usually looked after by the host government.

Now, in a bifurcated state with a common capital, albeit temporarily, who is the host state? AP or Telangana?

Not wanting to get caught in the crossfire, I have a feeling that Pranab babu decided to bring his own people and avoid any clash. So his convoy will be manned by either the Delhi wallas or his trusted Bengali Sena.

The problem is, that none of them knows the Hyderabad roads. And the convoy travels at breakneck speeds as we all know. So to avoid any confusion, the President asked the Telangana Government to put up signage to show his team the way.

Of course he could have opted to rely on GPS, but who the hell knows? I’m just having fun anyway.