A Microsoft senior executive's nostalgic memoir about growing up in Hyderabad in the 1980s and 1990s caught the attention of BRS working president K. T. Rama Rao — and his endorsement comes with a cause attached. Ravi Vedula, the book's author, has pledged all proceeds to the H2H Foundation's healthcare initiatives, turning a trip down memory lane into a vehicle for community giving.

K. T. Rama Rao shared on Sunday, 15 November 2026 that he met Vedula personally and described the book, titled Hyderabad Days: The code we lived by before we coded, as 'a delightful journey back to Hyderabad in the 80s and 90s, reliving our colony culture, gully cricket, childhood friendships and the memories that shaped a generation.' The title itself is a quiet wink — coders who learned life's first lessons long before they wrote a line of software.

Colony culture, gully cricket, and the city that built a generation

Hyderabad's transformation into a global IT hub did not happen in a vacuum. The late 1980s and 1990s were the years when residential colonies around the city became incubators of a distinct shared culture — joint cricket matches in narrow lanes, tight-knit neighbourhood friendships, and an atmosphere that many early tech professionals credit as formative. Vedula's memoir draws directly from that world, speaking to a generation of Hyderabadis who left for campuses and corporations but carried the colony in their memory.

K. T. Rama Rao, who as Telangana's former Minister for IT and Industries helped shape the very industry those colony kids grew up to populate, frames the book as more than nostalgia. 'It is heartening to see Ravi dedicate all proceeds from the book to the H2H Foundation's healthcare initiatives,' he wrote, calling on fellow Hyderabadis to 'come together, celebrate our shared memories and contribute to this noble cause.'

All royalties flow to H2H Foundation's healthcare work

The H2H Foundation — the beneficiary of every rupee earned from book sales — runs healthcare initiatives in Hyderabad. The decision by Vedula, a senior executive at Microsoft, to channel the memoir's commercial output entirely into community health work gives the project a dual identity: cultural archive and philanthropic instrument. The book is currently available on Amazon.

Diaspora professionals turning their personal stories into fundraising vehicles is not new to Hyderabad's ecosystem, but a prominent political endorsement from a figure who sat at the centre of the city's tech policy amplifies the reach considerably. For the H2H Foundation, the attention could translate directly into healthcare resources for residents who never left the colonies Vedula writes about.