Hyderabad: From the lens of an NRI

In December of 2010, I visited and worked out of Hyderabad city in India for 3 weeks. My last visit to Hyderabad was 5 years ago and this time it seemed like the city has been on a fast track literally and otherwise in terms of growth and infrastructure development. The airport is truly world class with its magnitude of space and comforts. The roads leading you to the city from the airport compare with the US freeways with the only exception being official speed limits imposed! :) The Hitech city, where I spent most of my work time, has grown tons of times its size 5 years ago with hundreds of corporate offices of Indian and foreign tech companies and educational campuses like ISB and shopping malls and restaurants and the likes.. During this stay, I also visited several tourist spots of the city and my experience was surprisingly spread across a wide spectrum of emotions. Each place had a charm of its own that was either pleasantly reflected in the energy around it or dishearteningly lost among the camaraderie of crowd and its mundane activities in the arena.  Here is my mini-guide for tourists who visit this city with my lens.

Charminaar and Chudi bazaar and Laad Bazaar: These beautifully carved minars (pillars) at the crossroads of one the busiest junctions of the old city is worth a visit to wonder how lonely and neglected a structure of such historic and architectural significance might be! You need to do some ground work before you can brace yourself to shop in the crowded markets, that are most known for pearls and bangles, along the Charminaar crossroads. Warnings of cheating on price and originality of those gems float around in plenty especially if you are an accented English speaking, camera holding admirer of Charminaar's intricate design.

Golconda Fort: The Sound and Light show in the evenings at this huge fort is an experience I will never forget. In the voice of Amitabh Bachan, this show takes you back in time to the days when this fort was full of life and riches and a symbol of strength and power.

Hussain Sagar Lake & Buddha statue: My only low point on this happening area of the city is the strong stench of the stagnant lake water that is quite discomforting after a while. The good news however is that the largest monolithic Buddha statue in the country at the center of this lake is only 10 minute boat ride away and absolutely worth a visit.

Eat Street: This is the most happening food place in the city with a variety of options from Mumbai Frankie to South Indian dosas to Indo-Chinese to MacD to Chaat and several more... They have a comfortable common seating area facing the lake. This place offers some great night shots of the lake and a ride to the Buddha statue as well.

Chowmallah Palace: This is a group of beautiful well-maintained palaces built by successive Nizams. The collection of photographs, crockery, furniture, apparel, currency, weapons and many other royal artifacts including the royal throne in a room roofed under magnificent chandeliers is very interesting.

Ramoji Film City: The film city is huge and can easily consume an entire day worth of time exploring. It has amazing sets in the form of replicas of India's most famous monuments, boasts of a variety of gardens each with its own theme and color, and an arena full of demonstrations of the tricks of the film world. Since I have been to film cities of the likes of Universal Studios, I should have reset my expectations from film themed rides and shows to outdoorsy exploration of natural but not original lawns and parks sets to feel content with this plan.

Birla Temple: Built at a height this temple offers a view of the entire city spread around the lake. The different levels of the temple connected with quite some flights of stairs have a unique layout and magnificent sculptures on the walls.



Qutubshahi tombs: These are domed structures built on a square base and reflect a blend of Indian and Persian architecture. If Charminaar's neglected state can cause any bout of pain, then these tombs will only make one cry for the lack of maintenance and solitude these endure.



Salar Jung Museum: This is one of the oldest museums in the city and has the largest compilation of personally collected artifacts from all around the world. It has hundreds of rooms and requires a lot of time and patience to see each artifact at ease.

Snow World: A big room full of artificial snow, a dirty ice-slide and an igloo and maintained at a temperature below the freezing point is no fun for the ones who have had the experience of snowfalls for entire winters. This place was the biggest letdown of my trip and a complete negative experience being a part of hundreds of visitors packed together in an environment that lacked hygiene and discipline.

A visit to Hyderabad is not complete without eating the famous Hyderabadi biryani. The most popular Paradise restaurant and Zafraan Exotica with awesome ambience and tasty food were among my favorite biryani places. Based on my trip experience my last thoughts on this city - it is now ruled by rickshaw drivers who impose exorbitant fares for rides and tourists like me have no option but to obey their HIGH command!!! 

My favorites Live in Concert!!!

The year 2010 has been awesome for several reasons - we traveled to many different places in the US and to Canada, visited and hosted several friends and family, celebrated the arrival of our nephews, moved into and furnished our new apartment and I can keep going on and on. While counting my blessings for this year, the two other unexpected and major events that made it to the list were hearing my favorite musician A. R. Rahman and my favorite band Euphoria live in concert!


A. R. Rahman

Rahman's concert was announced in May and I was both overjoyed and disappointed. After years I thought I had the chance to fulfill my dream of hearing the maestro live but among the locations where he would perform, Seattle was not listed. However my gloom turned into glee when I saw the gift of my tickets booked for his concert in San Francisco. My emotions were filled with excitement with each passing day counting down up to the concert till they were drowned in sorrow with the news of the cancellation of the event. After several such hiccups, I had very little hope left, but I think I was destined to attend the concert this year and so on a beautiful sunny September afternoon in Vancouver my long wait ended. The stage was the grandest of all that I have ever seen. He started the concert with a fusion of "O Saya" and "Maa Tuje Salaam", one of my favorite songs. I was at the edge of my seat for each of his songs and often jumping like a frog only to amuse those sitting around me. The one thing that I would have loved to change about my experience was the passiveness of the crowd around me. Each time I screamed my heart out, leaped out of my seat to applaud and whistled and waved, all I saw around me were some raised eyebrows.. but who cares!! I did what I wanted to! Focusing back on the concert,  the stage, lights, sound, choreography, his entire crew of singers and performers were flawless. The stage was so dynamic, it changed structure with each performance and the variety ranged from classical and historical touch to acrobatic, western and digital wonders (3D projection of Lata Mangeskar to accompany Rahman for the song "Luka chupi"). Among the other popular singers in his team were Hariharan, who stole our hearts with his "Bharat humko" and Shaan. But words fail to describe my feelings hearing classics like "Yeh jo des hai tera" and "Dil Se" from the man himself. He also surprised us by singing one song from the center of the auditorium just few feet away from our seats. The grand finale to this unforgettable evening was expectedly "Jai Ho"!!!

Our response to the next announcement of the Euphoria concert in Seattle in November was a no-brainer. We booked tickets immediately and were pleasantly surprised to get to know on the day of the concert that we were the first ones to book for that concert! I love the songs Maeri, Kabhi aana tu meri gully and Dhoom Pichuk and have been a huge fan of Palash in my undergrad days. I attended their concert few years ago at a college festival during my undergrad days in Mumbai. And I was pleasantly surprised to experience the same sort of energy, and attitude in their performance even after so many years and in a different set up altogether. I could not stay put in my seat after 1 song and jumped out of my seat into the "standing" area closer to the stage. From then onwards there was no moving back from there! Every song pumped in more energy that the previous one and made me nostalgic as I relived the concert time spent with my buddies from undergrad days. The performance almost seems like a one-man show since Palash is only lead singer and the only one who literally keeps everyone on their toes. The same reason was a cause of disappointment for some who expected the whole band to be sharing the limelight on stage. Others were a bit taken aback by Palash's repeated sarcastic remarks to those comfortable in their seats to try shaking a leg and let go of the seat that they paid for. Since this was not a college concert setting they were justified in their disgruntle however I personally got more than what I expected from this concert and returned home  nostalgic and ecstatic with refreshed memories and renewed enthusiasm!!!

So 2010 goes down as the year of  watching my stars "Live" :)

My diary from the Zion & Bryce trip

7 friends from 3 cities set off on their 3rd venture together on the Labor Day weekend this year to sign off 2 more US National Parks from their list of parks to explore! The chosen ones for this expedition were Zion and Bryce National Parks in Utah. Since we were all coming from several cities across the West coast, a meeting point was to be decided and the closest city to these parks, Las Vegas, was an obvious and unanimous choice. Since we all know the ground rule "Whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", this blog will focus only on the Zion and Bryce memories from the trip and conveniently leave the Vegas nights out of print (though certainly not out of mind!).

After a long Vegas Friday night behind us and an early lunch, our journey to the one of the most scenic natural wonder began. The 5 hours on road breezed by in the company of good old friends, music, games, food and fun. The early signs of what was in store for us came as we reached close to the park and saw some unbelievable stone structures on either sides of the road. We stopped at the park entrance sign for our customary group snap and then halted at several vista points within the park. The view of the canyon is breathtaking and unbelievable. The erosion over many hundreds of years has led to a natural pattern formation on the rocks, which almost seems like delicately chiseled stonework by hundreds of sculptors. When you set your gaze on this marvelous canyon you also realize that there is more detail and synergy to the reddish, brownish, orange tinges to these structures than meets the eye. After sinking in the reality of this picturesque place and capturing it in our lenses for future pondering and reminiscing, we called it a day and supposedly headed for some rest at the Best Western hotel. We played a card game called Dalmuti which was completely dominated by one of our friends, and we played until he lost a round for the first time. Whoever coined "sadistic pleasure" was a wise man! :) Pillow fights and an iPad and iPhone app "Talking Tomcat" advertised by our Apple savvy friends added to the already entertaining session of watching our favorite Hindi movie "Welcome" for the millionth time!

For a group that deeply and whole-heartedly values food and sleep and leisure, getting up and winning the race with the sun for the first spot at the Sunrise Point in Bryce canyon is truly the most remarkable feat of the trip. As the sun's crisp rays touched each layer of the canyon, it gradually brought the dark hidden patterns of the rocks into bright shining visibility. We then rewarded ourselves with a lavish breakfast at the hotel and set off on our hike into the deep corners of the canyon. The trail head was 0.4 kms from the Visitor Center and the 1.8 mile hike though short was not an easy one with the steep uphill climb on our way back. This Queen's Garden hike was filled with close encounters with the amusing shaped rocks and arches and beautiful lookouts into the nooks of the naturally sculpted canyon walls. We undoubtedly captured the most amazing photographs posing beside these marvels. At our next destination, Zion National Park, after a 2 hour drive from Bryce, we stopped at the park sign for a group snap. The 2 photographers of the group gifted the rest of us one of the funniest memory of seeing them run a few meters towards the sign setting auto click on the cameras. Zion has a majestic charm of its own. In striking contrast to the delicate patterns of Bryce, Zion boasts of huge sandstone mountains formed by the pressure of flowing river water and other geological activity over time. We hiked a short trail in the evening and were humbled by the enormity of the rock walls on either sides. After the sun left to explore the other half of the world, the dark trail roofed with star filled sky became scary and fast paced. We realized that this was an apt time for narrating stories about snakes and ghosts and wild animals revealing their hiding spots at dinner time. At the end of this trail, our thirst for some adventure was not satiated enough, so we went star gazing in a dark, secluded corner of the park. While deeply engrossed in identifying constellations, a random unrecognizable sound of an animal from the dark was followed by all of us jumping into the car, locking the doors to discover that no one took the driver's seat. So we tasted our share of peril for the night before settling down in the Best Western again in Zion.

Our target for the morning was Angel's Landing, a 2.5 mile(one way) hike to a landing on one of the peaks for a grand view of the Zion canyon. We geared ourselves with heavy breakfast, backpacks filled with water and snacks, and a lot of enthusiasm and reached the trail head in a bus operated by the park authorities. From then onwards the word on everyone's mind was "Lakshya" (meaning target). We were astounded by the trail path that varied from steep winding zig zag pattern to long stretches of upward slope accompanied by several photographic elements like mini-caves and crevices in the walls seeking our attention for exploring and capturing in our lenses. It was an arduous hike and we rejoiced at our first milestone - Scotts Lookout. The last 0.5 miles ahead of us kept our hearts pounding heavily. This stretch had no paved trail, and involved almost rock climbing skills with a chain to hold onto while looking into the 900+ feet deep valley on the other side. Setting each foot on a stable but slant rock while trusting the grip of my hands onto the chain for the safety of my life sent some chills down my spine. After about a quarter of this stretch, one of us realized his fear of heights and this was not a good spot to be in. So he and I backed out of this mission, while the rest of our group went ahead and hoisted the flag of accomplishment at the peak. I strongly recommend attempting this hike, if only to realize your hidden fears and I hope to mark my footsteps at this peak some day for sure. After the relatively easy downward hike back to the base, we saw the other mystifying spots in Zion in a bus ride through the canyon. A well deserved lunch and a drive back to the entertainment capital marked the end of our Zion experience.

Words and pictures may fail to justifiably match up to the memories that we hold from this trip. The destinations left us in awe of the wonders of nature and a strong beckoning for another visit. Looking forward to exploring the unexplored ...