Flickr, the online photo dump, has about 7000 odd photos tagged Hyderabad. The following are some of the photos, which after ignoring numerous one showing the usual suspects like Golconda Fort, Charminar, and the latest ahistorical monstrosity Ramoji Film City, I decided to drag to this place. The short musings underneath followed as I indulged in nostos on a rainy day in these other distant meridians.

Please note none of the following photos were 'taken by me. Also I am in the process of chasing down credits etc, so that I can acknowledge the original photographers soon. Shukriya!

Places like this is where scavening for good books happened. Most memorable find: Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. The above batch seems to be entirely dismal, and without any promise of literary gold for the seeker.

Only in the backward glace does, what in my last visit couldn't stop calling 'madness', it all appear to be oozing color

Parrots, when they were not stalked in the the guvava tree in the backyard of my parents' house - this was before that semi empty locality descended into urban chaos shown in the next photo, and most birds left - were avidly chased on the street by trailing behind 'totaram' fortune tellers. What cards did this parrot draw?

Creation of chaos. And negation of all good sense. Laurie Baker rightly condems such dishonesty and pretense.

Another early memory is of my father dropping me off at pre-school on his Raleigh bicycle; a bicycle which was subsequently bequeathed to me, and was much hated and abused me both for its vintage and stolid heaviness. This photo, also, shows a movement, perhaps, from rural mores to a faux urban, i.e., western gentility, as sybolized by the ties. Also it would be ironic for me not to point to myself as someone who will soon be condemned to wear a tie every day!

Street barber. Barber under the tree. Movable barber. Barber on house visits. And which also was the preferred mode of shroning myself at Kharagpur.

Paan. Sutta. The brands I recognize in the shelves: Charminar & Gold Flake. For one reason or the the other I never did manage to accquaint myself with these finer refinements, and thus can't provide a comparitive study of various cigarette, i.e., sutta brands

A game of pickup cricket in progress next to an decaying tomb. In the absence of play spaces, kids learn(ed) to improvise and play where ever possible. I have played cricket in the middle of various alleys around my parents' house, and also in what were then empty & unbuilt pieces of land. The tools of trade were similarly primitive; a discarded & flat piece of wood or a sutiably cropped piece of a coconut frond were the bats, and three piles of stone or three lines marked against a 'compound' wall formed the wickets. As for other pharnaphelia like gloves, leg pads, who needs those for real cricket!

Hyderabad is a city that stands on a rocky Deccan plateau that one saw substantial volcanic activity leaving numerous mad rock forms, which next to the roads are used as billboard surfaces.

Interior of a typical Hyderabadi Chai Shop. You say Starbucks eh? Bring it on! The only issue is that chai shops are predominantly masculine domains.

Road Kings. HORN PLEASE. OK. TATA.