Blogs from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, Asia - page 24

Wow, what a day! Today I joined the Hyderabad Sai Young Adult group to do grama seva (service to villages) in a small hamlet called Pitalagudem. Pitalagudem is made up of several half built brick homes, thatched huts, and homes built out of plastic and bamboo sticks. The people here live in abject poverty, work as day laborers in a near by village, and get by on eating a watery rice mixture called "Kangi." Apparently two to three years ago, the Indian government made a pact with the village chief (referred to as the Sarpanch) that if the villagers paid a minimum sum to construct the basic foundation of the homes, the Indian government with subsidize the remainder of the cost to construct the homes. Somewhere along the way, this deal fell through leaving the villagers ... read more

The landscape of South India, especially the Deccan plateau, is rife with ancient large rock formations that are dated to be millions of years old. Driving around Hyderabad, it is surprising how many of these large clusters of brick-red freestanding rocks stand, some almost teetering, amidst their neighboring buildings and hills. Interestingly enough, there is a non-profit organization in Hyderabad whose mission it is to foster public awareness of these natural wonders and to help preserve them from destruction and vandalism. This group, started by a few nature-lovers of Hyderabad, is called the The Society to Save Rocks (www.saverocks.org) and a couple of weeks ago myself and a few others from HMI joined the group on their regular monthly trip. The Society’s trip this month was to climb the large rock formations just north of Hyderabad ... read more

I guess it was inevitable, but the controversy over those Danish cartoons was the reason for large riots last Friday in the Old City of Hyderabad, a predominantly Muslim (Sunni and Shi’a) area. I found out when I was told not to go into the city for three days, for fear that the sight of a Westerner would make rioters even angrier. While the police knew that there would be some activity after Friday prayers, they did not anticipate the large size and unruliness of the crowd; in fact, the Old City was hit with a curfew on Friday to try and quell the disturbance. I wonder if this will affect the impending visit of George W. Bush--? Yes, he is expected in Hyderabad in early March. I’ve posted a nice picture of a local advertisement ... read more

Hi Everyone, Right now in Hyderabad it is Muharram, and I have been busy going to mourning ceremonies (majalis) and touring the many houses where these ceremonies occur, called ashurkhanas. An ashurkhana can be as simple as a closet in someone’s house, or a large structure similar in size to a mosque. Besides a gathering place, an important function of the ashurkhana is to house the alams, which is a metal crest on a pole that is meant to suggest the battle standards of the Karbala martyrs. Alams are usually passed down from generation to generation, and can be made of simple metal or sophisticated materials. Also, some alams are covered in sandalwood. As you can see from the pictures, some alams are more than life-size, and some extend the length of an arm. I’m sure ... read more

Today was of sensory overload. We ate and slept last evening in Secunderbad, St Paul to Hyderabad’s Minneapolis, in the twin-city that is Hyderabad-Secunderbad. Our driver for the day was a Hindi-speaker, so it was out with our trusty phrase book, into pointing and naming, to communicate that our first stop was India Rail’s Station. There, to dicker over the nature of our berthing for the Hyderabad to Kolkata (Calcutta) leg of our travels. We will be on the train from 07:00 one morning to 14:00 the next afternoon. The challenge was that we need comfort and privacy for this length of journey, as in a coupe, a two-berth compartment; but there is no first class on this train, second class is the best that can be done, meaning there is no coupe to be found. ... read more