HOME | TRAVEL | INDIA GUIDE | HYDERABAD | HARSHA BHOGLE |
|
|||||||
Hyderabad is a charming city with a most delightfully
unhurried air to it. A city where ambition left its nemesis, satisfaction
behind and moved towards another civilisation. To the average
Hyderabadi, time is something to be savoured, not lost to the
dizzying speed of modern life. He's a left lane man, the Hyderabadi,
drives his scooter contentedly while the limousines hurry past.
He cannot, for example, understand the fulfilment
that the Bombayman gets in scrambling aboard the 6:18 fast from
Churchgate, his left foot perennially aspiring to be ahead of
his right. Or that obsessive all encompassing urge to get 99.3
per cent in the optionals in the 12th standard. He'd much rather
let a crowded bus go by and continue talking about Madhuri Dixit
in Tezaab. Or better still, walk across to
the Irani restaurant on the corner and chat over a bun-muska
and one by two chai. On a good day, he would
order a pauna instead. Again one by two.
The Hyderabadi is invariably, therefore, a satisfied
man. Even laid back. The urge to conquer that comes from an unsatisfied
mind is a largely alien concept to him. He is more likely to aspire
for happiness and having got it, to share it. At his daughter's
wedding he would invite the entire community to a lavish biryani
and baghara baingan meal, most probably in
an open yard, rather than to just an ice cream in a classy hall
of a five star hotel. To him that would be impersonal. It wouldn't
be symbolic of his daughter's wedding.
He is more likely to be polite and unassuming. And
you will always be aap to him; only occasionally
tum but never ever tu That
would be sacrilege. Or a concession made to someone very close.
Correspondingly he would be greatly offended if somebody addressed
him as tu The nawabs always
said aap and the Hyderabadi has kept the tradition
alive.
Not surprisingly, Hyderabad has produced very few
heroes, in any walk of life
that demands grit.
Sarojini Naidu was one of them. A freedom fighter
but more familiar perhaps as a poet. "You don't know. Bapu,
how much it costs us to keep you poor," she once said of
Mahatma Gandhi. And her Palanquin Bearers features
in almost every anthology of Indian poetry. Almost every Indian
schoolboy has grown up reciting, "Lightly we bear
her along, she sways like a flower in the wind of our song; she
skims like a bird on the foam of a stream. She floats like a laugh
on the lips of a dream".
Mukhdoom Mohiuddin, the communist leader, was another,
known as much for his leftist leanings as for his sensitive verse.
There was the qawwal Azis Ahmed Khan Warsi
and, of course, there was Ghulam Ahmad, an excellent off-spinner
and in later years a distinguished civil servant and cricket administrator.
In 28 Test matches, official and unofficial, he took 99 wickets
with 5 wickets in an innings 7 times, and 10 wickets in a match
twice.
Perhaps the late N T Rama Rao would qualify to be
a Hyderabadi too given the amount of time he has spent in the
city. But his ascent towards acquiring the status of a legend
on the Telegu screen was made in Madras which was then the centre
of the Telegu film industry. And the former Prime Minister, Mr
P V Narasimha Rao, has had his share of Hyderabad too.
Shyam Benegal returned to his roots and captured
the ethos of Hyderabad brilliant in his first film Ankur
and then again in Mandi. And Dr Anji Reddy gave the world ibuprofen
at a price they could not believe. His company, Dr Reddy's labs,
is now a stock market favourite and his achievement is the stuff
corporate case studies are made of. But none of these people have stirred the country like cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin has. And yet, the fact that one can remember the city's success stories on one's fingertip shows how little Hyderabad has contributed to the national achievement pool. Frequently, an atmosphere of success acts as a seed to more achievement and in Hyderabad, Azhar did not have it. As another eminent Hyderabadi, the celebrated advertising professional Mohammad Khan, who had a role in starting Rediffusion and Contract before he set up his own agency, Enterprise, says, "Hyderabad is for people who want to get up at nine in the morning stroll into office and have a cup of tea. It's not for someone with fire in his belly. I'd give anything to be able to live there but in the profession I am in, I think I'll go mad if I did."
Harsha Bhogle is one of India's best known cricket commentators. Excerpted from Azhar by Harsha Bhogle from Penguin
Books |
|||||||
Landmarks Where to eat Where to shop Quick getaways | |||||||
Where the fun is
Info you can use
|
|||||||
HOME |
NEWS |
BUSINESS |
CRICKET |
MOVIES |
CHAT
INFOTECH | TRAVEL | LIFE/STYLE | FREEDOM | FEEDBACK |