Saturday, and a visit to the old Hyderabad: Charminar.
I mentioned earlier that the city of Hyderabad has grown tremendously in the last 5-10 years. The new parts are predominantly Hindu, while the old parts are Muslim. Charminar is a great monument next to a mosque called Mecca Masjid. Stepping up the stairs of the monument will get you a better picture of the monument itself, but also over the old city. A stunning view that starts one wondering if it is wise to blend in in that colourful and chaotic spectacle of market, traffic, and mosque.
Traffic is even more dense here than in the more modern parts of the city. Sometimes it is difficult to tell where the sellers stop selling, and the drivers stop driving. Crossing the street is an adventure, but because of the slow speeds it is usually successful. One should be careful though. Not yielding enough will mean that you will get hit, not hard, but nevertheless a clear indication that you should quickly learn the tacit understandings between drivers and pedestrians.
All the time an intense sound level. Cars, bikes, and autorickshaws signalling, sellers loudly presenting their goods. Apart from being brushed by the traffic, westerners are constantly approached by beggars.
In some shops, there is a constant banging sound. Young men and boys are crouching over a slab of flat stone, beating it with a wooden club. They are flattening silver. When sufficiently thin, it is put between paper and sold for use in cooking! The ultra-thin foils are used to wrap sweets, some delicious pieces of food, or a special after dinner wrapping of a bitter-sweet aromatic and perfume like blend of spices in a beetleleaf. It does not taste much at all, but is supposed to add luxury to the food item.
There were stacks of these foils between paper. I wonder how long time it takes to make one foil. One stack of them looks like a year’s toiling and sweating.
Beetleleaves, bananas, pomegranates, sugarcane, and lots of other items are sold in a big chaos. Bangles Street is dominated by shops selling bangles and other items of (cheap) jewellery.
And from all places one can view the dominant profile of the Charminar monument. […] This throws more light on the use of silver in food that I wrote about in a previous post. Maybe that was what saved my stomach last time? […]
