Bang in the heart—literal and spiritual, so to say—of Hyderabad is the ornate four-towered building known as Charminar. We visited it on our second day in Hyderabad, but even on our first day, while sightseeing elsewhere, we were constantly asked: … Continue reading
When my husband and I were setting out to draw up an itinerary for our trip to Hyderabad, most websites we visited raved on and on about the Charminar, the Golconda Fort, the QutbShahi Tombs and the Salarjung Museum (all, … Continue reading
Several weeks back, a two-day festival called Dilli ka Apna Utsav was organised in Delhi. As part of the festivities was a heritage walk led by my sister, Swapna Liddle. This walk took us to buildings and landmarks associated with the poetry spawned in Delhi: famous venues for mushairas (like the Ghaziuddin Madarsa and the Haveli Razi-un-Nissa Begum), or places which were once residences, even if only briefly, of famous poets (Ahaat Kaale Sahib, Zeenat Mahal, Ghalib’s Haveli).
What connection does all of this have to Hindi cinema? Just that it got me thinking of the links between Hindi film songs and classic poets. I can’t think of too many classic poets (except Mirza Ghalib and Meera Bai) who have been made the central characters of Hindi films, but the works of famous poets crop up every now and then in Hindi film songs. Sometimes in their entirety, and very well-known, too (as in most of the songs of the Bharat Bhushan-starrer Mirza Ghalib).
One of the must-try dishes we’d hoped to savour during our stay in Hyderabad was haleem, that velvety combination of cooked ground meat, cracked wheat and spices that is the very epitome of Hyderabadi luxury. Sadly, everywhere we went, we … Continue reading
A Hyderabadi colleague of my husband’s, whenever he’s trying to describe something or someone that he thinks very highly of, uses the adjective ‘pista’. “That means ‘excellent’,” he once explained to my husband. “Something that’s the best is pista.” Which … Continue reading
Hotel coffee shops, I’ve learned from experience, are often not the best places to go to if you want a taste of the local cuisine of a city. In India, especially, most coffee shops tend to serve up pretty much … Continue reading
4 Seasons hadn’t been on our list of places we wanted to eat at in Hyderabad, but we’d come to this little complex of eateries, only to find that the place we’d been looking for—Pista House, which calls itself the … Continue reading
Frankly, ‘Republic of Noodles’ sounds too kitschy a name to me to expect anything other than an Indian Chinese eatery, offering the usual suspects: the vegetable Manchurian, the Hakka noodles, the sweet and sour chicken. Stuff I wouldn’t touch with … Continue reading
Left to book a hotel for ourselves (if we’d only been visiting Hyderabad as tourists), my husband and I would probably have chosen a heritage hotel, or something possibly closer to the tourist attractions of Hyderabad. However, since this was … Continue reading
In one pivotal scene in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, Kammo (Padmini), the daughter of a dacoit chief tells her naïve beloved that they, the dacoits, are not to be scorned or derided, because they wield guns to make things equal between the rich and the poor. They take from the rich and give to the poor, because the poor have always been preyed upon by the rich.
“Kammoji, tum log chochilist ho?” asks Raju (Raj Kapoor), wide-eyed. Because chochilists, as he informs Kammo, also work to make things ‘barobar’ between the rich and the poor. And when he is reassured that yes, that is the philosophy of the dacoits, Raju decides there and then that he will no longer think of dacoits as evil people.
Dustedoff 