The Charminar on Ramzan eve

The Charminar, Hyderabad’s trademark monument, is unlike other iconic monuments you have seen elsewhere.  Serving as a rotary around a U-turn in the middle of a heavily congested predominantly Muslim locality – it presents an explostion of experience on the Ramzan eve. The intermittent showers had kept my camera indoors. Pictures or videos would not have captured the platter of delight – words are needed anyway.

The evening prayers had just finished when I landed there. The street leading to it were adorned with two lanes, totaling four rows, of makeshift stalls selling almost everything the visitor might buy on the festive eve: from haleem to underwear, surma to beef, lime soda to buckets, jewellery to banana chips. The new shops are in addition to the two rows of permanent shops along the street. Nobody was idle – and huddles of entropy swarmed chaotically, jamming everything else. The parking attendant was auctioning parking slots.

The mild drizzle had not made any difference. Till a brief spurt of heavier shower made the place almost vacant in less than a minute. A thela of chocolate wafers was lying across one of the streets when the owner, a lad of 13-14 ran back to cover it.  The rain was gone already – he swore and slapped his forehead. No one noticed, as he was in business in a few minutes.

There were unusually high number of burquas today. Burquas were more common around sellers of clothes and leather items. A bevy in all black, probably wives or daughters of one man, with just slits to see, carried exact replicas of pink shining vanity bags. They tried cheap jewellery at the street corner, with a middle aged bearded man in guard. A fair and tall Middle Eastern man with sharp features, wearing a traditional white robe roamed around, accompanied by a strikingly beautiful fair woman in a colorful attire, covering everything but her face. They behaved like European tourists,  keeping a safe distance from anything filthy.

It must be a paradise for Pickpockets and shoplifters. Petty snatchers made hay in the gloom and crowd. More organized schemes involve fake Haleem delivery boys with a fake badge with a fake name and ID number. A gentleman shouting at the shop owner had paid the tout real money – to avoid the fistfight at the queue for haleem. A real delivery boy does not earn a salary – he earns only the tip – about 5 rupees for a hundred rupee portion, from every second customer. After some futile bargaining, I bought a knit skullcap, to feel as one with the everything else. With my skullcap on, I savored some Haleem after generously tipping the sweet and honest delivery boy. He was keen to go but I asked him how it was so tasty. His master rears his own goats, feeds them with his own hands, and before cooking the recipe, butchers them himself. “That is what makes it so tasty”.

An old beggar woman on a walker repeatedly reinforced the frown on her face. She has made hay too. Unlike practicing Muslims fasting for the month, she fasts for 10 months.  And unlike practicing Muslims who enjoy goodies for a day, her whole month of evening goodies has climaxed today. I don’t know why I enjoyed watching this circus of man’s most profound invention – and perhaps his worst. I may crib about it, but I cannot ignore it.

Bharat Darshan

My trip starts from my home town Kolkata. On that typical hot and humid summer afternoon, I went to that drowsy rickshaw puller. He barely heard my calls, and on trying a bit harder, half opened his marijuana blessed red eyes and muttered, “Can’t go …”

“Why?”

“Because I won’t! Don’t bother me!”

… somehow reaching the Hospital’s reception for the clinical test, I asked the reception where to proceed. The glossy faced overweight woman was chatting, presumably women stuff, profusely over her mobile phone. Visibly disturbed, she frowned at me …. and came her irritated response:

“No tests today … today is a bandh …”. Yes there was a strike call by some Autorickshaw Unions.

… and thus you are relaxing. “… but … this is healthcare …how ..”

“What do you understand about politics ? It is about rights … everything can wait.”

“But … ”

“Wake up! A revolution is unfolding!”, said she, and resumed chatting.

 

 

 

And back in Delhi, one Saturday night at the pub, a group of senior school kids were stealing the show.

“Patiala Blue Label for all my friends … “, the tall and fair leader announced.

.. the confused waiter vanished .. must be to talk to his manager …

“Why won’t she like me? My dad is a minister … I can do anything… and that 10 lakh bike is sure to steal her heart”

“But …”, his friend objected … “that’s about your father … because of that incident you had to leave the school …”

“Yes … my father will settle that too … ”

“And if they don’t agree ? You almost raped her!”

“Simple … I will shoot her … all her family!”

“Cummon …. you cannot do that”

And here came the shocker: He drew a pistol – a real one … and roared “How dare you **** … I will shoot you down and your whole clan …”

Before someone says, “Aarey! Ye tow mar gya!” – We fled!

 

 

 

Once when I visited Chennai, a guy in our group had lost a piece of luggage on the train. De-boarding at the Central station we visited the station master’s office. At the complaints desk, our guy committed the master blunder … he started in Hindi.

“No Hindi!”

“Okay … someone stole my bag …”

“… or you lost it …”

“Well, …maybe I misplaced …”

“You North Indians … don’t know what happened to your own bag ?”

“I am from Assam … and not a North Indian … ”

It was simple to spot an alien: “You speak Hindi … you North Indian” … said the dark guy, his heavily powdered face bubbling with perspiration.

 

 

 

My friend Rajat’s prospective landlord in Hyderabad is a stinking rich man – and wears a massive bunch of bright yellow chains. My friend says he stinks too! He otherwise looks similar to his own driver – only with a bigger belly and a cleaner shirt. The man stuck all the gold when Hyderabad stuck the cyber-tech buzz and expanded to engulf the neighbouring villages. He owns half of the flats in the society.

They met at the lift foyer, with the landlord’s bright young son also accompanying him.

“The cyclone Thane will cause a lot of damage to those Andhra guys”, he smiled.

Oh boy! You must have totally forgot this was Telengana!

The boy goes to an international school and his dad soon went gaga about its greatness. Without any insistence he boasted of his memory skills – and soon started listing the 51 US states. And lo! He was done in below 30 seconds.

“All my flats are perfectly Vastu compliant. It works like magic in your life”, he described his flats, all of which have two things in common – their terrible design, and a kitchen in the south east – usually the best place for a balcony.

At last, my friend got his first chance to introduce himself to the boy. When he added that he hails from Tripura, the grinning boy quipped, “Welcome to India!”

 

 

After Kashmir cooled down in recent years, Deepak’s long desire to visit materialized.

An inquisitive tourist, he talks with every man he can. Riding a Shikara on the Dal Lake, he befriended his boatman. Discussing about the spate of tourism in recent times, his boatman was quick to agree, “Indians are visiting a lot nowadays”.

 

Hyderabad

This is my second stay in Hyderabad. Thanks to my wife and daughter, this time I really got to know the city.

Hyderabad is one of the least xenophobic cities in India. In addition to the native Telugu speakers, the presence of a large Urdu speaking population creates an all pervading balance. Tolerance after all is a learnt phenomenon – not  seen in two types of people. Those who could not learn it. And those who cannot. The first is of course caused by extreme  statistical homogeneity. The second is called xenophobia. Hyderabadis are none of them and this makes settling here  much easier. Albeit, peace in recent times has been injured by some divisive political hunters.

Chandrababu Naidu mapped Hyderabad to the global IT map about a decade back. While fortune has since turned tables on him, the IT revolution has made a profound global impact on Hyderabad, at least on the names here. Cyber, Tech, Silicon and International comes up in almost all contexts, be it localities, malls, residential societies, hotels, restaurants or schools. But they seem to follow the old adage: “What’s in a name …. “. If you see foreigners, the whites I mean, in other parts of India, a good bet is that they will be tourists. In Hyderabad, chances are that they live here with their families. They huge presence of  global technology giants is the only reason, since the rest of the parameters of living fail to impress.

This uneven city’s infrastructure is mostly makeshift. There is no standard common man taxi service like the bigger metros, although costlier private ones are available in plenty. Pesky autoriskshaws also ply, usually too overloaded to board, each wearing a meter which was never used. The dirty government bus services frequently – and recent additions have been cleaner AC services. Hyderabad does not have a Metro but it seems to be coming up – as I often  see hoarding boards declaring acquired land.   Most of the city’s roads are of low to moderate in quality. There are  a lot of  flyovers already in place, and some waiting for the right political moment to be inaugurated – sometimes for years altogether. The elevated fraction of Hyderabad is inhabited aptly by the rich – the politicians and film stars. And obviously the roads are nicer.

The traffic police is usually very touchy about vehicles registered in other states. You may buy your innocence with that  occasional bribe, or more legibly by paying a life-time road tax for your vehicle. The toughest problem you will face while driving in Hyderabad is the result of the compulsive obsession of the random pedestrians to cross roads. They appear any time and everywhere, even on flyovers, ignoring  vehicles, or may be the road altogether. Some are gracious to show some heavenly hint of a raised hand which they believe will magically save them from anything untoward. Few who care to notice you display a signature jerk, another heavenly gesture hinting at their intention to cross over. They repeat the gesture with an increased frequency … until you are past them, or give in. Among my other niche driving experiences has been a guy  who was tying his shoelace in the middle of the road – exactly the middle of the road. You cannot just blame the pedestrians for being irresponsible. All the city’s roads are devoid of any fenced divider which will discourage this, or enough footbridges or pedestrian crossings which will encourage good habits. Though wearing helmets is most probably banned in Hyderabad, you will find a very few bikers flouting it.

The new state of the art airport has a surprisingly innovative name and is connected to the city by a ring road with as much innovative a name. No wonder us Indians are so obsessed with idol worship,  in  Hyderabad idolatry reaches epic proportions.  Tollywood idols or  politicians often have followers immolating themselves at the slightest pretext. The explanation is most often: “You people will never understand!”.

You will have two water supplies at your apartment. The strange tasting borewell water is meant for common use, and the treated Manjira water is always in short supply. Most apartment have gas banks and nice piped gas supply. Power outages are frequent, and there is a very predictable one in the early morning hours in my locality. The backup generator in my society takes about 15 minutes to get started – the same time the security takes to wake up the guy who turns it on.

Malls are the most common hangouts in Hyderabad, and till date we have liked Inorbit the most. Hyderabad probably has the highest density of jewelers in India. Pearl is the specialty which outsiders buy more often, while relatively massive gold jewelry is more popular locally. The sludgy and stenchy Hussain Sagar Lake has a number spots of public interest along its necklace, though most of these are prohibitively over-visited. The Hyderabad zoo has relatively healthy looking animals, if you compare them with the Delhi Zoo, for instance. For some reason, most of the zoo visitors are from poor Muslim households, and there will be a flood of Burqas around you. The zoo has a nice drive-in and ride-around options. While a 70 km drive to the airport and back is the best long drive available, a relatively unspoiled visitors-delight is the Osman Sagar or Gandipet, accessible from the same road.

The Old City around the Char Minar is an old world delight. It is already very congested – and Ramzan makes it even more congested. 24 hour makeshift stalls, six rows of them, come up on the narrow adjoining streets, selling everything from jewellery  to chocolate wafers,  sherwani-s to beef korma. It was raining lightly the evening I went there, and it was an utterly overwhelming experience, deserving a dedicated description which I am yet to complete.

Our driver being a Muslim makes it much easier to communicate with him. A young lad in his early twenties, he knows the city like the back of his hand. But everything comes at a cost – he is overtly religious, and requires a compulsory break on Friday afternoons. The service workers available for household work are mostly Telugu people and it is only gestures which comes to our rescue in dealing with them. Some speak very accented Hindi, which is as good as my Telugu. We have experienced six of them in six months. While most of them work exceptionally costly, fast and dirty: one used to steal, another was lazy, and another was a mentally unstable clean maniac – once cleaning my fridge with sand paper.

Non-vegetarianism is more prevalent here than in most parts of India. The ethnic Telugu cuisine – tangy with tamarind, spiced with curry leaves and hot with Guntur chillies is a treat. People here have an affair with salt, like Bengalis with sweets. This may be the reason of the huge number of “Salt Monster” Ads I see around the city. My real culinary delight came from the cuisine influenced by Hyderabad’s Islamic past – the fusion formula for the Biryani, with some  Telugu influence. There are plenty of restaurants serving every pocket – but be sure to expect a mild Telugu flavor in almost everything. For a pure Islamic preparation try the awesome dish called haleem, available only during the Ramzan in Muslim localities.

The terribly dirty NIMS is the most reputed hospital in the city. Try the Private OPDs in the afternoons when  you will  find  senior doctors of repute. The cleaner Apollo is more frequented by techies and Middle Eastern medical tourists, where you should be ready to pay extra for their jazzy advertisements.  Other than the salt monster, another noteworthy fact is that every second hospital in Hyderabad is a Dental Hospital. I am yet to know the specific factor which makes people living here so prone to tooth diseases, although I suspect it is salt. Too many dental colleges may be yet another reason.

Having stayed in Delhi for the last five years — I was relieved to be in a place where you may use public transport without getting molested, or graze someone’s car and not risk being killed on the road. Yes I am talking only relatively.  And again talking relatively, I do miss the grandeur of Delhi. There is a small town smell in the air.