A trip to "Old city"

One fine day I got really restless and decided to take a trip to "old city". Old city, clearly, is the really old part of Hyderabad. It's Muslim-dominated and contains the traces of the Nawabs who ruled this part of the world. In particular, I wanted to visit the Salarjung Museum which is one of biggest museums in the country and the biggest in the city. I hadn't been to this place in about 20 years and since I was in Hyderabad anyway, I felt I should use this opportunity to check it out. Since the temperatures had cooled down a bit, I felt I could take the bus, but luckily my friend who lives here wanted to come along too, so we took his car. Good thing too since Chiranjeevi was hosting a big meeting in the city and I could have been stranded in the traffic.

We managed to get there late so we were kind of in a rush to see all the galleries. It is quite an exquisite collection from all over the world. (A note to my friends who are lovers of all things Italian - this is a fun museum to explore for some of its paintings and sculptures.) The best item in the collection probably is "The Veiled Rebecca" (fourth image in this page - http://www.berkshiremuseum.org/galleries/art_sculpture.html). It's beautiful.

Another big attraction in the museum is the clock. Everyone in the city has heard of this clock. Every hour, a tiny person steps out and rings a bell to indicate the hour. Thing is, I assumed by this time, ages after the museum opened, visitors would tired of this thing. But even this day, a few minutes before the top of the hour, the hall which houses the clock got filled up and everyone eagerly awaited the arrival of the little man. A new addition here is the camera that focusses on the clock and shows the magnified image on two giant TV screens for the people sitting further away from the actual clock. Everyone laughed out loud when the guy actually showed up.

After the museum we made a trip to Charminar. For all the times I've seen it, I've never climbed up to the terrace. I did this time. Beautiful view all around. This might sound like I'm kidding but seriously, I loved the view of all the autorickshaws parked all around the monument. From above, it looked beautiful. My friend and I even walked into the Mecca Masjid which is right next door. You know, being Hindus, a lot of us have a lot of apprehension about entering mosques. We feel we don't know the "protocol" and in general, we feel we will stand out and hence be kicked out. Nothing violent just embarassing. But once in a while I do get the courage to enter some of these mosques and you know what? They're OK :) This place is famous for the large number of pigeons that hang out there. People feed them and the kids love to run among them and scare them. It was very peaceful sitting there and taking it all in. We then walked around the mosque itself and admired its great walls and overall architecture. The prayer hall of the mosque itself had a sign that said "No outsiders allowed" which we assumed meant that non-muslims weren't allowed. That kind of stuff, when any religious monument prohibits people of other religions from entering, troubles me because it's just more walls between communities. But oh well, atleast we got to see the pigeons!