[Hyderabad - a precious gem, below it is the ground and on top it's lime stone]
- with this line Jahangir - our driver, introduced us to Pearl City. So we went around the historic city with a driver with the royal family tag! He also went on to become my Father-in-law's source of Paan [a concoction of betel nut and leaves] and information.
Hyderabad is one of the oldest cities of India and is the capital of Andhra Pradesh. It is also called the twin city...as its merged with Secundrabad...one of its kind. We were told that the city is named after one of its queen's Hyder bano - who was a Hindu and was married to the Nizam family- it was of course a love marriage.
In three days we went all over the city, looking for places to see and food to eat :) The first place we reached was the NTR gardens..it is a wonderland kind of place with blown up figures of bugs, fruits and vegetables. There were a couple of water fountains and the dying day cast a rainbow on one of them.
From there we went to the Lumbini park - a fantastic laser and light show awaited us. It was one hour of mesmerizing visuals on fountain waters that kept us glued to the seats. But somewhere deep in my mind there was a tingling sensation of fear remembering the bomb blasts of last year.After that great show we went to see the Birla Temple. Its on the highest point of the city and the view from there is breathtaking....unfortunately due to security reasons visitors are not allowed to take cameras along....this one is something you have to see to believe.
By the time we climbed down the steps of the temple, we were getting ready for the famous Hydrabadi biryani [a special flavoured preparation of rice with meat] :P but were too exhausted to go to the famous Paradise [the name truly fits the food available here] and decided instead to try out another outlet Bawarchi [said to be the best by locals]. Well, the try was not too satisfying and kept us longing for Paradise...
After a good night's rest we were ready to face another day under the sun. We headed to The Ramoji Film City - the biggest studio in India. Its another wonderland where snippets of entire India -and a few foreign location- could be seen within a single bus trip! The bus took us through narrow alleys of a Bombay market to reach the Taj Mahal of Agra at the end of the road and then with a turn of the road we reached the Bengali markets of Kolkata!!!
There we also acquired a first hand experience of making a movie. There were three stages of filming - shooting, sound mixing and final premier screening. In a very simplistic way we were shown what goes into the making of any movie. The scene was the famous chase from the film Sholay where Basanti [the leading lady] with her Dhanno [her beloved horse] were chased by Gabbar's gang. The guides there asked one among the visitors to come up and do the role of Basanti while they called two others to create special effects :) Well... special effect was very interesting, the two men were asked to sit on two sides of the cart body where Basanti was seating and they had to shake the cart from side to side giving a feeling that its moving and shaking over rocky terrain! Sound mixing was also interesting - they created all kinds of natural sounds just sitting in the studio! The guides asked a couple of kids to produce the various kinds of sounds and they did a great job. The premier was a big hit :D
Even after half a day of the tour Hubby dear was enthusiastic to try his hand at cricket. So we reached the nets for a shot. I have to accept, he is as good as he claims to be....scored some 60 odd runs in 5 overs! Good going all rounder!
As we returned to the hotel we were taking along a treasure of visuals to cherish for long.
The night was hot, we were tired from the full day's walk and tour. In that state of health we drove to the famous Charminaar. In the growing evening as the lights came up in the monument, it looked awesome. But the surroundings were a crowded market place with people milling all over and there is the famous bangle market of Hyderabad. Being woman that we are, myself and Mom-in-law rushed to one of the shops. We were well warned by Jahangir about the bargaining skills that we needed to hone for buying anything from this market. Rule of thumb was to half the price the salesman quoted, whatever it might be! It felt a bit weired to counter the salesman's 4500 with a 2000, but it really worked!!!! yuppie!!!
Next attraction was Irani chai under the Charminaar...yes the same one made famous by many a Hindi movie songs. Yeah it is as good as its ame is.
Next destination was the Paradise :P finally we were there....yumm its so tasty......mummmmmm and the drive on the Necklace road after that treat was another experience. This road, by the Hussain Sagar, looks like a string of jewels at night...
Day three and we still had to cover a lot of places and very little time at hand :( we headed straight to the Golkonda Fort. The dilapidated fort of the Nizam's stands as a testimonial of the scientific brilliance of ancient India. The hub of the fort lies at the top of a hill - takes 700 plus steps to reach the top - now think how would the king get water up there? Surprise!!! they had a technique to pump water from the ground level ponds up the hill for the king - without using any machine. Broken pipe lines could be seen engraved on the stone walls. The pipes have a few more qualities...they are made of mud and lime stone - mud kept the water cool and the limestone absorbed any poison that the traitors or enemies might have mixed at the source of water. Amazing isn't it?
The fort also had a telegraphic communication system. The architecture was such that from certain points in the fort when you clap your hands the sound is carried to the top of the hill. A specific combination of claps could well convey a message to the king. Apart from this, the architecture didn't allow any conspiracy to survive. Whatever one spoke at the visitors quarters could be heard from the floor above where the sentries stood in alert. Time constraint didn't allow us to explore the hub above the 700 steps and also the diamond mine in the fort....something left for the next visit.
Moving back to the city we headed for the amusing and amazing Sudha Car Museum. This is a store house of unique cars modelled by a person called Sudhakar. There was a car in the shape of bed, one like cup and saucer, one another like a computer and so many! You can check that out any many @ http://www.sudhacars.net/
From the museum we reached the Chamillah Palace. It's one of the newer palaces in Hyderabad and houses a huge collection of the Nizam's life time - clothes, furniture, cutlery, weapons what not.
And at last we reached the Salarjung Museum. Its a very famous and has an enormous collection of things by one man - Salarjung. Of all the things there I had heard of the "Rebbecca". Its a statue carved out of one piece of marble and depicts an Italian lady covered in veil and is drenched. It is very hard to believe that its not real and is just a stone carving. The folds of cloth the silhouette of her face....everything is so real as if I a clap my hands and she would come to life...
With that ended our tour of Hyderabad ... lots remaining to be explored. But how could we leave that place without having tasted the famous sheek kabab and rumali roti? We headed to Kababish [another amazing place to try out food in Hyderabad] to taste just that. yummmmmm again!
Jehangir then dropped us at the railway station...time was up but with a desire to come back we board the train.
