Hyderabad: First Week & Pongal

We touched down in Hyderabad minutes after midnight on 11th Jan. As we emerged from Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, the first thing that caught my eyes were the clearly defined tangerine spheres around the streetlights. They were like suspended jack-o-lanterns with almost pitch darkness stretching into the distance. Between the sumptuous mid-flight supper and the desire to catch a glimpse of the stars, I only managed a catnap. I did wonder if my squinting eyes were playing tricks.

As we boarded the company cab with the radio blaring with energetic Indian songs and speeding through roads in as many varying stages of construction as conceivable, I was convinced that it was the air. The texture of the air in Hyderabad was palpably or rather visually different. The world seemed to be under a different filter than all other places I had visited. Radial radiance of rainbow hue were all too common around the lights of approaching vehicles. Along the way, we also saw a few burning barrels where the night workers and poorer people huddled. It was near the end of winter, though much more comfortable than an English one.

This was the first picture I took, waking up at dawn, looking out through the window of my room.

Same view in the late afternoon. (I would revisit this time and again.)

Along the way to the office: dust, boulders and stones, pulverized or whole dominated the landscape wherever you should turn.

These pink pompoms adorned a tree outside our office. They bloomed only briefly. Within a week, the same tree would be bare once more. Yet even a tree with shriveled leafs can be beautiful.

On the night of 13th Jan, we found this wretched creature caught within a spider's web. As we would soon learn, mosquitoes, ants and cockroaches were our most intimate housemates.

14th was a holiday. It was the festival of Pongal and Makara Sankranthi. I scouted the Malaysian Township where we stayed and found some Kolams (a form of sand painting drawn using rice powder) on doorsteps and entrances of buildings.

These are my initial impressions of Hyderabad.