HYDERABAD: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,...it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity...it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair," go the opening lines of Charles Dickens's famed novel, 'A Tale of Two Cities'. And on Friday they aptly summed up the mood at the iconic headquarters of the 75-year-old State Bank of Hyderabad SBH ) at Gunfoundry on the eve of its merger with the State Bank of India (SBI).As the bank and its staff went through the motions of change, shedding the old signages for the new SBI ones, the SBH head office (which was set up in 1942) was chock-a-block with activity and emotions. Staffers and passersby clicked selfies for one last time with the building still sporting the SBH name in the backdrop and SBH staff also bid an adieu by lighting candles on the bank premises."All our branches will sport the new name SBI from tomorrow (Saturday, April 1) but the actual process of merger will take around three to six months to be completed. While the bank branches will have a new name, customers can be assured that the service will remain the same," a senior SBH official assured.At this juncture, one may invoke Shakespeare by asking -- "What is in the name?" But for Hyderabadis, the name is a reminder of the Nizam era when the bank was constituted as 'Hyderabad State Bank' on August 8, 1941.It was the central bank of the erstwhile Hyderabad state and managed the Nizam's currency - the Osmania Sikka, public debt and commercial banking operations those days.In 1956, the Reserve Bank of India took over the bank as its first subsidiary and it was rechristened as the State Bank of Hyderabad. The bank became a subsidiary of SBI on October 1, 1959.In fact, after Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh, SBH also became the lead banker to Telangana state.