5:30 is normally the time when you experience the best sleep of the day, but then, when you are in the compartment of a long-route train, one prefers to enjoy the first light of the day rather than.....doze off.
It was 5:33.....it was Kanpur Central.....and there was me , a 'tea-bagged' tea in my hand ,lying down in the freshly occupied side-lower....previously owned by a cute girl who was heading towards IIT-Kanpur (place I dreamt of heading 5 years back). In my long journey down to the Deccan , 10 days there, and now back in the Doabs, these were , perhaps the most peaceful and serene moments.
The train started off gradually , taking us through the rare morning calmness of Kanpur until,past some jhuggis I saw a boring yellow railway board,,G A N G A..and then what I saw - an expanse of greatness in the form of serene snow-white water ...yet again explaining the greatness of the divine. And I with my tea-cup empty and my not knowing about it, was exclaiming- MAJESTIC.
Majestic is the same word uttered when i first gazed at the Char Minar. Ever since my visit to Hyderabad, I was dying for an encounter with this famous gateway, also wondering why this four-legged structure attracted so many eyes until, I faced it...in the midst of Ramadan, among the crowd of about a thousand waiting for Eid ,a claustrophobic me, was amazed on seeing a minaret-cum-mosque that was constructed by Quli Qutub Shah in the late 15th century to commemorate the end of plague in the region - a building dedicated to the everlasting peace of the region. A thought in stark contrast with the recently concluded Hindu-Muslim and Telengana riots.
Hyderabad, in fact, on the whole is a city of contrast. Here you get to a weighing machine, toss in a coin, only to discover the weight printed in Telugu- one of the oldest and poetic languages of the subcontinent spoken by stalwarts like Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, the modern day Vedantist. Simultaneously ,you cannot get away from a flimsy Auto-Rickshawwalllah who, on getting to know my plan of going to the Hi-Tech city told me, " Hi-Tech City kaae ko jaate saab...nakko jaaoo..waan kyaaa haii..oonchii buldingaa dekhnee koo jaatee kyaa??"
A city, it was, I discovered , with a magical culture,a mixed bag, where you can eat Hyderabadi Biryani along with a dosa , without the brows being raised. Here you can note down the Sehri timings from a Sanskritized Telugu paper. Also, can savor the delicacies of Haleen in bustling Ramadan nights(a dish made of meat, wheat,walnut,supaari....phew) only to start the next day with a kadhi-patta flavored sweet of some Brahminical Vratam.
Hyd -a region established by the Qutubshahis,the Asafjahis in the form of Char Minar,Jama Masjid, identified by Potti Sriramulu, who due to his determination, carved out a state of Andhra Pradesh, and alas ,developed, and still being developed in the form of Hi-Tech City by the brains of Eastern- Godavari and Vizag.
An empire that was once the ambitions of Aurangzeb, ending up as the centre of affluence of the Nizams, and today an IT hub, an area of CCDs and SubWays, Hyderabad defines INDIA. A nation, that is not defined by Kareena Kapoors, KJos and Ambanis, nor by the poverty struck lot....identified by the middle class ,the common men, who question the supremecy of the ultra-rich, by bringing the ultra-poor more closer to common life-style. A class which banishes all contradictions and carve them out into beautiful comparisons. A strata which really is the face of Hyderabad,thus ,defining India as- INCREDIBLE.
