| Hyderabad, Christmas 2001 |
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| Written by Administrator | |
| Friday, 25 April 2008 12:29 | |
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HYDERABAD, CHRISTMAS 2001. "Tom, we are in Hyderabad, why don't you come and see us", said Mrs Chopra on the telephone. We looked out the window of our Chennai hotel, at the sheets of rain hanging before our eyes, and we said to ourselves: yes, why the hell would we not? And so we got up and got ourselves a ticket and 48 later we were there, at the Princes Priya compund. And Hyderabad was, after Chennai, like heaven: the weather fine and dry, the countryside the familiar old Deccan, green, undulating, and littered with gigantic red boulders, the city modern, clean, well managed, with all the amenities of the 21st century and yet all the monuments and charm of ancient India. And clean. And -- "where are the begars, yar?" asked Admiral, on one of the drives, with a start of surprise -- clear proof there needn't be anything wrong with Indian city management. 3 hours after arrival we were sitting with our friends to breakfast, and 2 = hours later shopping at the Bazaar for glass bangles. OK, I want to say that I wasn't shopping but, I suppose, I was. I wasn't shopping for myself (am still not liberated enough to wear glass bangles), but I was shopping in every other sense picking the goods, trying them on, haggling over the price. It was, like all shopping in India, fun: there were billions of bangles, all of them absolutely beautiful, to choose from,= and the store clerks were rapacious and haggled as if their life depended on it. 6 months of India have made me a a rather good opponent -- so, as the poet has it, a good time was had by all. The bazaar lies in the old muslim part of the city, with narrow lanes and myriads milling about in every conceivable exotic outfit, though the black = burkas, the favorite fashion among local Muslim women predominate. Unlike the Afghan burkas, these are actually pretty sexy: above the veil they reveal large black eyes staring with undisguised shock and disbelief at the incongruous, impossible Polish pinko-grey tourist, the hands are covered with glittering jewelry, and the feet -- showing -- clad in sexy high heels. With the result that one's imagination adds in all the missing= details and picks, naturally, the preferable ones, resulting in a very attractive picture, if partly a pigment of one's imagination. Really, a style of dress which could be recommended to many, ahem (Men as well as women). Especially the black burka with gold trim on the scarf, which I noticed seemed to be the preferred statement of some of the more daring youn women, a clear indication of what all of this is really about, you know. Hyderabad has more monuments than we had time for in our short stay, but we visited two. First, the rather overrated Golconda Fort (it was once large and impressive, and yes, it is old, but all there is today are piles of stone, a few broken shards of buildings, a few rather poorly restored, and guides demonstrating with moment the fact that the sound of clapping hands is carried by echo), though the trip there is made charming by the fact that one has to get there through the charming, ancient, exotic little town of Golconda, walled in -- of whitewashed clay -= - very "native". From the summit of the Golconda Fort there was quite a view in all directions, and from there, we spotted in the evening light something rather like a field of champignons, popping their round heads here and there among vegetation: the Royal Tombs. The Royal Tombs were the Golconda salvo in answer to the provocation of the royal tombs of Bijapur and of the Mughals. They are all rather small affairs, the bigger ones -- there are some dozen of them -- perhaps some six story high, with five or seven arches in the bottom floor; the smallest -- of which there are perhaps two score -- too small to have a dome at all, no bigger than a beach bungalow. But they are all elegant, graceful, delicate; now stripped of their tile they are, like= mushrooms, pale white, soft in the evening light; and they sport domes of the ball type, the fantastic air bubble about to detach from the building and float off into space. They are -- in agreement with the Muslim discovery that architecture is as much about shaping the land as it is about putting up buildings -- arranged in neat, but cimplicated avenues throughout the once beautiful gardens. Through the gardens, connecting the various tombs, water once flowed in water courses and fountains. And rich flowers once bloomed. But the fruit trees are still there, wind whispers in them, and green parrots flutter overhead and scream in the silence of the growing dark. The only visitors to the park other than us happened to be a few muslims, women in burkas, men in kurtas and muslim hats. They were quiet. They walked in slow measured steps, looking around with the same thoughtful contemplation as we. They seemed pensive, as if relecting on the vanity of past glories of kings and their kingdoms. To us, in the growing dark, they seemed like ghosts of princes and princesses from the past revisiting their own tombs. In the evening we watched with our hosts, into the wee hours, a video of Vijit's and Priya's wedding (of which it was, that night, an anniversary). It was a magical film: we recognized some of the friends we have made since our arrival in India, then so much younger than now. We recognized some who are no longer with us. We saw little Rifq now here now there no more than 3 at that time; and a thin, young, wispy-looking Chopi (hey Chopi how long since you looked wispy?). And it seemed better than the Monsoon Wedding -- bigger, richer, more extravagant, more fun, more traditional, more exotic -- but also wonderfully regretful -- regret being not the sadness that something has happened, but the sadness, philosophically resigned, that time, passing inexorably, changed everything. Happy Anniversary, Vijit and Priya. _____________________________________________________________ And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. (T.S. Eliot) |