40 glimpses of old Hyderabad - Precious !!

Precious…..Nostalgic and Wonderful

Here's 40 pictures of bygone times of Hyderabad

When Diksha showed me these pictures, I could tell even she was touched by them, though she’s never seen Hyderabad anywhere like that, but that's what it does....... this nice feeling of longing or wonder for a time that was.

There are three anecdotes from three different generations that come to mind. Mine, my mothers and my grandmothers.

1) I’d moved to Hyderabad from Srisailam, class 6, and it was my first day going to school alone. Four years in Srisailam, and I was as is quite scared of the city. Maybe because of that fear (which I can recall even now), I couldn’t find the way to school, though I thought I knew it. So half way through, decided to take a cycle rickshaw. I call one, and say Rosary Convent, and he’s like ‘Baara Aana’. I had no clue what that was.....it didn't even sound like currency to me. I ask twice, thrice and its the same. And I go, ek rupaiah. (to those not familiar with aana and paise, I was offering more than he’d asked for) Pretty foolish moment there....brings a smile now. 

2) My mother and her sister would take a cycle rickshaw to college each day, (which, by the way, is the British Residency Building in these pictures…The Koti Women’s College, and for those who've read The White Mughals.... it was also Kirkpatricks and Khair un Nissa's house and it still has her picture there).  Each time they passed the purdah gate of King Koti Palace, they had to maintain absolute silence, you weren’t allowed to even talk..... the royalty couldn't be disturbed you see.  Non negotiable rule. You'd think subjugation.....but she takes so much pride in her Mulki status, you can hear it in her voice when she tells me these stories. Something about those days I guess.

In fact just last week when we were driving to Warangal together and we saw this lake with a lot of cranes, she was saying their house in Barkatpura was a conglomeration of five houses at one end of a huge lake just like this one, and with so many cranes and other birds. 

3) My grandmother.....her story dates back even further. Early 1900's I'd think. It was the time when the plague hit Hyderabad. Back then all their houses were penkittillu ( tiled roofs) and there were only a few scattered cemented houses. So when the plague hit, because all penkitillu just had lots of rats, and rats were the medium for the plague, they had to all leave their houses and go live in a camp outside the city. And where was this outside? In Nallakunta!

I had to stretch to imagine Hyderabad like that, Nallakunta outside the city......Barkatpura with a huge lake full of cranes, and a gollodu who brought around sheep for grazing on the banks, and penkittillu all around. So pretty huh? Well 'progress' will happen :)

A huge thanks to whoever put those pictures up, enabled a lovely walk down the nostalgic road !