My husband and I end up visiting Select CityWalk Mall every other week or so, invariably combining shopping with lunch, followed by coffee and cake, mostly at either The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf or Starbucks. When we saw that … Continue reading
Middle Eastern cuisine is a firm favourite with both my husband and I. We love the flavours, we love the textures and the light, fragrant dishes—all the way from relatively rich rice-and-meat dishes to simple pita-olive oil-za’atar snacks. So, when … Continue reading
Amongst India’s best-known museums, Hyderabad’s Salarjung has the distinction of being possibly the largest collection of art and artefacts built up by a single man: Mir Yousuf Ali Khan (Salarjung III). The Salarjungs were one of Hyderabad’s most important aristocratic … Continue reading
‘Seven Tombs’—the name by which this tomb complex in Hyderabad, one of the city’s major heritage attractions, is known—is very deceptive. Firstly, because while the large tombs, those of various rulers of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, do total up to seven, there are dozens of other tombs, of everybody from dancers to physicians to queens. And more, making this possibly the largest necropolis in the Deccan. Secondly, there aren’t just tombs in this complex; there are also several other types of buildings.
The tomb of Hayat Baksh Begum.
Of the forts of the Deccan, Golconda is one of the most famous—and it’s one of Hyderabad’s major tourist attractions. We’d decided this had to be among the first sights we visited, so after we’d seen the Qutb Shahi Tombs, … Continue reading
Sadly, the only thing I knew about Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid, before I began researching the city to create our itinerary, was that it was the scene of a brutal terrorist attack in 2007. Someone mentioned to us that, in the … Continue reading
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
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
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