Hyderabad Diaries-Part 1

Hello folks!

I am back with yet another one of my stories. I wrote a serious story and my Mom was saying it is not that good :P It seems my funny blogs are better! My own mother doesn’t like me being serious? But she expects me to be matured in real life :P That’s not done! As of now, as I have joined my PG class, I am trying to behave in a matured way. That is what’s expected from someone of my age and experience. I don’t think my basic character has changed a lot, but still there’s a lot of improvement from the silly cry baby me :P

Now let’s got to the topic of the day- Hyderabad. This wonderful city has presented me with some of the best and worst memories of life. The capital of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, it’s a city which is very close to my heart. We have close relatives there, and they have been inviting us for years but I never got a chance to really visit Hyderabad. In spite of hearing about Hyderabad from Sushuamma and Shashi cheriyachan, visiting the place remained just another entry in my to do list .

Years passed and one fine day during my final year, it was decided that we are going on a four day trip to Pondicherry, Mahabalipuram, Chennai, Hogannakkal, Coorg and Hyderabad...HYDERABAD!Eh? HYDERABAD? Finally after 21 years, my dreams about to come true..Hyderabad here I come..

Initially I was very excited about the trip…Like a prisoner who’s is about to go back to prison after his parole period, I got this feeling that this would be the last college trip in life and after stepping out from college life would be so different and i would be showered with responsibilities. So I was determined to enjoy the tour. Come what may, I will enjoy this trip at any cost!

But as the trip drew nearer I started feeling a bit uneasy..I didn’t feel like going. The main reason being the split in our class coz of politics. Looking back now I feel we were all very silly! Not a single guy or gal entered politics after college and the principles which ruled their life then were forgotten after they stepped out of college. Now I feel that such silly things shouldn’t have bothered us. But it did and there was a very visible split among the classmates. The sad part is that the gap was never bridged and I have absolutely no idea what majority of my classmates are upto now. Also when it comes to wedding invitations, the people who belong to our party are conveniently forgotten! God!

So with very less interest I set out on the trip. The fact that we were going to Hyderabad also didn’t help to create any difference in my attitude. But as soon as the trip started we got into the jolly mood and could enjoy to the core with our respective ‘gangs’.

So on the third day, we reached Hyderabad. The tragic part was, we had to run an extra of 100 kms as the driver went through some wrong roads (Or was it a trick to charge us for extra kms? As we are in India, anything can happen!) So everything went wrong and we did not reach Hyderabad at the planned time. The funniest part was there were no restrooms anywhere in sight and majority of the people were really unhappy ;) Nature’s call can come anytime anywhere :P I’m sure that the bus driver’s life span would have reduced atleast by a day coz of the cursing by the 40+ people in the bus. Being very frank, it was a sight. People couldn’t stand or sit and there was no place in the bus to walk about!! A few of them were standing near the bus door so that they could jump as soon as the bus stopped some place ;) In this one situation everyone stood united :P Nature party nokkiyallallo vilikkunath ;) Many of us tried to sleep but in vain ;)

I still remember the ‘dialogue’ of one of my classmates who could not take it anymore. He was a “stud”( :P ) and he was telling the co-ordinator, “If the driver doesn’t know to drive, ask him to move! I will drive” Onnu poda! Badayi!!!

So after maybe more than an hour of waiting (Poor God! His ears must’ve been buzzing with prayers the whole while!) the buses stopped infront of Ramoji Film City. Not a soul stopped to admire the beauty of the entrance! We all ran towards the washrooms and that morning the film city washrooms were filled with Electrical Engineers! Thanks Ramoji Rao! Your washrooms are great! And the film city? Ehh..we will come back tomorrow ;)

That was our very first experience in Hyderabad ;) But the day before there was something even better. After dinner, we all were waiting near our buses. About 5 minutes prior to that we gals went to the washroom. There were three of them. One of them was occupied and so we used the other two. We were commenting and bitching about the guys and we got out and went to the bus. After some time one of the guys joined us. His face was all wet and he looked fresh. I asked him, “You took bath?” but the guy didn’t answer me and he looked all tensed. It was then we realised he was wet with sweat :P and the reason was- he had entered the gals washroom by mistake and he had occupied the third room :P And he was scared to come out fearing if the locals might hit him! We laughed our hearts out!!

Poor guy! I just hope he was tensed enough to be deaf to our bitching ;)

So we directly went to Bawarchi and had Hyderabadi biriyani after brushing (Bath? What’s that?) That was some place called Abids. I was planning to go for GATE coaching and the coaching centre was in Abids. I tried hard to find my coaching centre but in vain.  Then we set out to the hotel we were going to stay in. It was in a place called Koti.

The hotel check-in was funny. By the time we got our luggage and reached the top floor, all the rooms were taken and whichever room could accommodate extra people, they were not ready to take us. Coz we belonged to the other party! Idiots! I would’ve shot them on the spot if I could help it. One beauty queen also offered for us to take the sofa kept outside their suite. Yes darling, we are the illegitimate kids and so we do deserve second hand treatment. When the others were getting ready for the day, we stood in the corridor staring at closed doors! #$*&&#$$ please replace the symbols with all the swear words you know. We finally told the co-ordinator that we wanted to pay for an extra room! Hum kisi se kam nahin. Ego rules! How can we go and beg to the girls of the other party to take us in their room? It’s below us! 4 of us who belong to the red party stood with our luggage like orphans in the corridor of our hotel! But we managed to get a room, even though we had to throw out the unlucky boys who occupied the room. ;) Who cares? Ladies first!

After settling down and having the much needed bath we got ready to go to the first destination of the day- Char Minar. It seems Hyderabad was first called Bhagyanagar after Queen Bhagmathi but later when she married the Nizam and changed her name to Hyder Begum, the place’s name changed to Hyderabad.

 Before proceeding to see Char Minar, we entered Chowmahalla Palace. It was a very beautiful place and was the only palace which was made into a museum, the others served as Government buildings. The various souvenirs you find there tell you that the Nizams were stinking rich and influential. I was mesmerized by the beauty of the palace and set out exploring and heard to the guide who was explaining it to some other group( No one in my group was interested in hearing history by paying for it :P )

It seems the Nizam was gifted with 10 cupboards by one of his fathers-in-law and it was filled with gifts and the cupboard could survive fire for 10 days. But the Nizam being rich didn’t even bother to open the cupboard :P And so till date no one knows what is in the cupboard(I don’t believe that! That too in a country like India where people make it their business to poke their noses into other people’s business!) It seems the Nizam owned swords with the tip coated with a rare kind of poison which if touches human skin can kill the person, and this was gifted to the Nizam by one of his many fathers-in-law(Smart guy! God knows how he managed so many wives :P People struggle with jus one ;) And what a lovely gift to give your sil! Duh!!)

At that point of time, the Nizams formed allies by getting married to the other king’s daughters :O They showed us a room where the in laws were entertained and they could meet their daughters in that room. The entire palace was a real beauty...the chandeliers, the gardens, the furniture.. every single thing was a creation of beauty.

Also it seems the plates in which the Nizam ate were made of a different kind of porcelain which would change colour in the presence of poison and as per plan the Nizam would just not eat and walk away, or else the trick of the plate would be known to all..But it seems the Nizam was never poisoned as he was loved by all.  

We saw the Nizam’s collection of cars and dresses and they were so rich that the wives had sarees with threads made of gold(Chaala over cheysthunthi!! )God alone knows how they managed to walk about with such heavy sarees and I pity the people who had to make such fine threads and don’t you feel it is extravagance. Maybe we middle class people wouldn’t understand :P

Then there was a statue of two men wrestling and it was carved in a single marble piece and looked beautiful. We were roaming about in the well maintained gardens when we were called to move to Char Minar and Mecca Masjid.

Mecca Masjid is one of the largest masjids in India and the commissioned bricks of the Masjid were made from the soil brought from Mecca, the holiest site of Islam. We went inside the gates. In 2007, a bomb blast had happened there which killed 16 people.  The bomb was placed under a huge marble stone and blast on a Friday when about 10000 people were present inside the mosque premises. The security was real strict because of the incident.

The place was beautiful! No words..like a film location with 100s and 1000s of pigeons all over and many of our friends tried clicking pics like the movies by chasing pigeons. Even we tried :P but nothing happened..Even the pigeons were not interested in us ;) The next time we went to Mecca Masjid in 2013, I ran again.. See the foto :D

PATHETIC!!!Jus one word for this picture and all the time we were scared if the pigeons will bless us with their wastes :D Two fat girls running and chasing pigeons, even the pigeons would have thot we are crazy :P

The Minar you see in the background is Char Minar.  It means four towers. It is among the most recognised structures in India.  There are a lot of stories behind why it was built, one being: it was built to commemorate the eradication of plague in the city and the other being: to commemorate the beginning of the second Islamic millennium year.

I had heard one more story, that the King Qutb Shah met his future queen Bhagmathi near the place where Charminar was later built in memory of the meeting and that Hyderabad was initially called Bhagyanagar after the queen and later when she was converted into Islam, her name became Hyder Begum and the place name changed to Hyderabad. What a lucky lady! Along with Mumtaz W/O Shah Jahan, now I am jealous of this queen too.. I doubt..were they really great wives and lovers that their husbands went an extra mile to show their love or were they real irritating that the husbands were forced to do something like this to shut them up. Wives generally qualify under the second category and with a character like mine, I feel that my husband would even build a wall like the one in China between the two of us ;)

So coming back to Char Minar, the first time we went, we did not enter the Char Minar. But the second time we went, we entered or rather climbed the Minar. A lot of people had spoiled the building by inscribing their names on it. How stupid! Who is really bothered if  XYZ loves ABC and if QRS was here on 1/1/2001??

The same day we visited Snow World. For people like me, who have seen snow only in movies, it was a really great experience, but you should never go there with aggressive people. They get all excited seeing snow and then people like me had time only to fall down. I hated all the strong guys that day. You would bend down to get some snow and the only thing you remember is bending down coz people would even dare to bury you in snow! I expected that many people wouldn’t bother to chase girls. But girls were chased and slaughtered with snow! I think all anger and hatred were released through the snow that day :p And sadly even there, in that confusing atmosphere, where you couldn’t differentiate between girls and boys due to the similar attire worn(or was it an excuse for the guys who hugged girls unknowingly?) there was a party based differentiation. That’s another story. How our class was split because of politics.

Then after the torture which lasted for about 20-30 minutes we came out all tired and with no broken bones except for Nayeem, who twisted his ankle and his feet were numb that he didn’t realise the damage done until late.

The rest of the evening was meant for shopping; I went with our relatives Suresh Maman and Lata Chechi and had an icecream from Famous Ice Creams. The drive around the city was nice. It was dark and the city was busy. It was beautiful. I fell in love with Hyderabad on the first day. I still remember that when they dropped me back at the place where we were staying, we waited for my friends to turn up. The girls came and I introduced them but later when boys came, I failed to notice the ‘bottle’ filled bags in their hand and as they did not want to embarrass me they hesitated to come over. Me being me, went on calling them and Suresh maman understood that they had things which were not to be shown in front of family ;) as he had noticed their bags :P

The next day was spent in Ramoji Film City. It was a really cool place. Takes you through all the films you have watched which has been shot from there. And a great place to click “profile pics” But unfortunately I was soo suntanned that I look scary in all the pics. About Ramoji Film City, you feel like you are in some dream place, except for the old crowd around you. The place is a beauty and well maintained too. You can visit it once with friends or family in short loads of people with you. I suggest that because the second time I went to Ramoji, it was just Appu and me and we were bored to death. I was in a nostalgic mood, because the previous time I was with friends and we did have a blast. Selfies were not in at that time and we even forgot to take the camera and we ended up clicking pics of each other in a 3.2MP camera ;) Or maybe, if you go with your partner, it would be fun. Just holding hands and walking about.

Ramoji film city had this ride in which you would be strapped to your seat and you sat in something resembling a ship, which would sway to and fro and finally go upside down. That was my first and last time and being the coward I am when it comes to adventure rides. I was sooo scared to even open my mouth and people misunderstood that as my guts :P  Once I was steady on my two feet, some of the boys came up to me and said, “You were the only girl who didn’t scream!” and my expression was something like “Tell me something I don’t know”  Hahaha! In the process of overdoing it, I also said, “Let’s go one more time!” What they do not know is that I had remembered every single God I know and also that I had taken an oath never to do something this crazy while I was lying like a cloth hung on the line at zero gravity! I will never understand the happiness people get after being on a roller coaster or Ferris wheel! Wow!The adrenaline rush! My foot!!You all are M.A.D! I was clinging to dear life and I am sure that a roller coaster would result in me dying of heart attack!

Ramoji film city was fun. But we were not lucky enough to see any superstars there. All we got to see was the shooting of an Odiya film and the heroine Archita Sahu who looked liked a Barbie doll!

That night we bid goodbye to Hyderabad. Never did I know that I would be coming back exactly three months later. I returned home, deeply tanned but with a whole baggage of memories. The trip marked the end of the most carefree days of life. Never did I know that, after this trip, life would not be the same. Or that post graduation would never equal graduation life or that never in life could I be so carefree and happy.

And I quit my job to join Post Graduation, to enjoy college life! How silly of me! Not that I expected anything great from me!

You know...

I’m like this only!