Hyderabadi Nostalgia

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Hyderabadi Nostalgia9 articles
Rai Mahboob Narayan Sahab
Hyderabadi Nostalgia

Rai Mahboob Narayan Sahab

Me, a fifteen-year-old random unknown boy. He, a seventy-year-old scholar who was hugely respected everywhere. This consideration and manners (Rawadari in Urdu) were a unique element of the Hyderabadi culture. When I recall those days and think of the times we are living through, I wonder what went wrong. How did we become like this? Where did we go wrong in communicating our values, ethics, and morals? We, my generation are the missed link. Something went very badly wrong so that we now have the corrupt, ill mannered, hostile society that we have condemned ourselves to live in. Truly we sleep in the bed of our own making.

28 min read
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Shows respect where respect is due
Hyderabadi Nostalgia

Shows respect where respect is due

“Girte hain shahsawar hi maidan-e-jung mein. Woh tifl kya gire jo ghutno ke bal chale – Mirza Azeem Baig (Only the horseman falls on the battlefield. How can that child fall who crawls on his knees!)

16 min read
Akhal-TekeCharminar
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Horses, elders, Ustaads
Hyderabadi Nostalgia

Horses, elders, Ustaads

The stories we hear mould us. Not all of them need to come from our parents. It is the variety and diversity of life experience which is the foundation to build a lot of skills. This comes from adults who have led interesting and challenging lives. We learn through their stories; we see with their eyes, and we exercise our own judgment.

20 min read
AP Riding Clubhorse riding
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Shillong – A place in the clouds
Hyderabadi Nostalgia

Shillong – A place in the clouds

Summer in Hyderabad has temperatures in the high 40’s Celsius while Shillong is a mist covered heaven, so the invitation was most welcome. Money, as always, was in short supply and so I traveled by third-class train. I took the East Coast Express which I had to catch at Vijayawada on its way from Chennai (called Madras in those days) to Kolkata (called Calcutta). This journey was the longest that I had ever taken – two nights and three days. During the journey I felt like I had been born and grew up on this train. And that I would always be on it.

11 min read
Birla PlanetariumEast Coast Express
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Who is a Hyderabadi?
Hyderabadi Nostalgia

Who is a Hyderabadi?

Black granite outcrops dotted the land, culminating in Banjara Hills, which was the high point. This ridge sloped down the other side to the plains before rising again, a sharp, steep granite wall on top of which sits Golconda Fort. This part of the Deccan Plateau was characterized by huge granite rocks balanced apparently precariously on needle points, granite castles with huge portals leading into caves and defying the imagination about how they were created. The rocks used to be a significant part of the landscape, indicating volcanic activity in the past. Thousands of years of wind and water erosion cut these strange shapes alive today, unfortunately, only in the memory of the generation that was fortunate enough to see them. Today most of them have disappeared into the foundations of concrete and glass buildings and grotesque houses which are our hallmark of progress. Testimony to our non-existent sense of history, heritage, and beauty is our willingness and ability to blast and destroy the work of millennia of creation because it is convenient for us to build our own horribly ugly dwellings and workplaces. These balancing rocks were the signature of the Deccan; gone forever.

14 min read
Banjara HillsChiran Palace
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Last of the Generation
Hyderabadi Nostalgia

Last of the Generation

Monsoon began always on June 7, and we went to buy fish as it was believed that it was good for health to eat fish on the day the monsoon set in. My father would take us to the Monda Market in Secundrabad, and we would gingerly tiptoe through the slush of the fish market, trying not to get splashed by the tails of the live Murrel, thrashing about in shallow tubs. Bargaining was a big part of the whole experience and if you didn’t bargain, even the fisher-women thought you were peculiar.

13 min read
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Of dogs and boys
Hyderabadi Nostalgia

Of dogs and boys

I believe that the commercialization of medical care and education are the two major causes of social corruption and breakdown of values in our society. How we were unable to transfer the wonderful values we grew up with to our own children, remains a mystery to me. It is not that there were no corrupt people. It is that they were not accepted in society and so had to hide. Today corruption is not only accepted but is seen as a sign of intelligence and being worldly wise and people who stand against it are seen as stupid and naïve. Corruption is an aspirational goal in India. How did this happen?

21 min read
culturehonor
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Hyderabadi Nostalgia
Hyderabadi Nostalgia

Hyderabadi Nostalgia

We did not have telephones. Only those with ‘pull’ could get a phone. For ordinary mortals, a phone connection took fifteen years to materialize. If you paid Rs. 15,000 (an absolute fortune) you would get a telephone connection in three to four years. We had to either go to the post office to make a call or request a shopkeeper who had a phone to allow us to make a call. They charged Rs. 2 for that and listened to the conversation and dispensed free advice if you sounded like you needed it. After the call, you were closely questioned about what you had said, to whom, why and told what you should do about the matter.

9 min read
Allwyn Metal WorksCzech Colony
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Hyderabad Public School and other matters
Hyderabadi Nostalgia

Hyderabad Public School and other matters

We were taught to distinguish fact from fiction and allegory and to draw lessons. We also learned to laugh at ourselves and to have a good sense of humor. This seems to be in short supply currently with people taking themselves far too seriously and carrying their sense of offence on a hair trigger. Such people are condemned to a sad, desolate life of loneliness where they take satisfaction in the number of people they criticize or think badly about. For my part, I believe that laughing, especially at myself is very important to my physical and psychological well-being and that it is essential to shun all self-righteous morose creatures who walk around with a permanent bad smell under their noses.

30 min read
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