NEWS: A typical hyderabad occurence--Address c/o electric pole
According to Gowri Shankar of the Deccan Chronicle newspaper, Hyderabad Municipal Corporation officials were slightly puzzled-- while applying for a voters' ID card, scores of people were giving their address as 'care of electric pole number so and so". They suspected it was a ploy to enrol bogus voters in the ensuing elections. So they did a surprise check, but all the guys were there under their poles. It was genuine--the applicants were poor street people who were very much regular residents of the area, with a cardboard box or plastic sheet to call home. Seems they didnt really want to vote, just liked the laser-printed and laminated hologrammed photo-ID card becuse it was some identity in a faceless 'lumpen proletariat" existence. Good to see hi tech trickling down, eh?
Naveena( --):--
I found your website a while ago by chance and ever since then I have become addicted to it. Whenever I feel nostalgic for home (Hyd'bad-Sec'bad) I look over the website and re-read all the articles. I have learnt so much not only about the city but also about the various communities (I dislike the word "caste") that have lived in the area.
I belong to the Mudaliar community and I was pleasantly suprised to read all about their Hyderabadi roots. One of my great-grandfathers (on my mother's side) moved to Sec'bad from Poigai, Tamil Nadu. He ran away from home (evil stepmother according to my grandmother) and lived in a hall in the church across from Clock Tower (its near the Sec'bad railway station).
My great-grandfather on my father's side was a civil contractor for the Nizam - he had a construction company (??) and lived in a house close to Golconda fort. He moved from Warangal though how he got from Mosur, Tamil Nadu to Warangal, I have no idea.
I feel so deeply connected with the city and even though I am not a Telugu, I consider myself a native of Hyderabad. I have heard so many stories about the city while I was growing up - the Musi River flooding, Razakar time, the Nizam and his eccentricities, the Amman temples, I can go on and on... Do include something about the Musi River flooding and the Razakar times. I know there are a lot of people who either have first hand experience or whose parent's have experienced them. Thanks again for the wonderful site!
Jagan( ):--
Just reading about the 'Hyderabad' floods.. guess who were the happiest lot? The roadside mechanics..they made hay repairing all the bikes and cars that were submerged. Rs 1000 to clean and repair a bike that spent 12 hours totally under water... The area near Bowenpally. somehow also went under water due to insufficent drainage, choppers from bangalore came in to rescue people and drop them in the parade grounds.. The tourist attraction seem to be the bridge part on the tank bund opp hotel viceroy..more people stopped to see the gushing waters and made a traffic jam than the floods themselves.
nice reading bout hitech city.. you should write more on the phase II building which is more beautiful and purposeful than the 'cylinder' phase 1!
Sreenivas Motupalli (anjanatm---hd2.dot.net.in ):--
You seem to be very knowledgeable about trees. Can you pl tell me the name of this plant at nnn.nn.com/nnn.jpg, Thanks.
---Spathodea campanulata, familiy bignoniacieae. It is a popular middle sized tree in subtropics and tropics. The dark green leaves and large reddish -- scarlet flowers at the top ( canopy) makes a good sight specially when the rains arrive. The buds contain water and children love to use them as water pistols.
Abel( ----- ):--
I came across your article on ukku steel; do you have any genuine pieces for sale [ even fragments ]?
--- No I dont have any pieces of Ukku for sale. (even if they're fragments I wouldnt sell them, besides they are ridiculously expensive). Y'see it is next to impossible to get genuine wootz. The ones with the surface pattern are already in museums, the crytalline ukku is even more difficult to identify properly. Very rarely somebody in a remote village may have some rusty sword /dagger handed down for generations, and they might part with it... but the efficient archeology department has cleaned up most of such chance finds. Besides, without attested provenance the pieces ( or for that matter ANY antique) have little value. The genuine ones are not spectacular--looking, by the way. Most of the wootz pieces for sale are clever fakes. Thats why archeologists dont even consider anything that hasnt been found in a particular strata in a particular area. Also there are hundreds of quite old steel swords available in India-- but ukku, unlikely. You may have some luck with rajasthan dealers, though. Watch out for the "joined" pieces made up of assorted bits of steel and forged into ancient swords dating back to c. 2002 AD.
Trevor( TrevCls aol.com ):--
Hello! my name is Trevor and i am starting up a cycle rickshaw business in sth of France. I am having trouble finding a local insurance due to the concept being virtually unknown down here, do you know of any French or European insurance company that might insure us or our rickshaws? i am not sure what sort of insurance i need either so any help would be greatly appreciated.
--I dont know about the insurance companies in France. But cambridge UK, Oxford UK, and Paris have some rickshaws for tourists. Since tourist vehicles have to follow regulations they must be insured. The local tourism boards or municipalities may have the information.
Pascal ( paris france):--
I am looking for all information concerning the traditional work on ukku today. etc.
----As far as I know Ukku -wootz -genuine damascus is not made today by traditional steel makers in India. Ancient steelworks used Low grade iron ore with very small percentage of iron, using charcoal and wood burning. Modern large scale steel industry uses high grade ore and coke, so techniques are lost. The tribal smelters I asked do not know anything about the detailed ukku process except that it was a very long process. The genuine ukku today is only in the museums, unfortunately.
Except sometimes in remote tribal area, no one today is actually extracting iron with traditional blast furnaces. Recycled scrap iron from smaller scale electric induction melting furnaces is cheaply available even in these remote areas. So whatever old techniques are there they have already vanished. We can only guess now seeing the specimens. Some hobbyists might be active but I dont have details. You could contact Indian Institute of Science, bangalore. About descendants of old armourers, they may be still there in Rajasthan some areas, andhra -karnataka, maybe Tanjavur in tamilnad. Generally they have long ago SHIFTED to other work like cloth dyeing.
Azhar (Glfrhq@aol.com) :--
Thanks for the memories with the photos. Please put more photos of interesting locations of Hyd. Deccan. It has been a long time . Health & age prevents me to visit my Earthly-Home.-Hyderabad.------ Azhar
Afshan (---)
Can you make a video of some streets, like Abids road All Saints school, Stanley school, Mallepally, etc etc. I am actually interested Stanley School video, I left India about 13yrs and dying to see how my school is now. Or if you could at least zip and email me around if I say 20-40 megabytes of video clip I appreciate it. and I looked the entire website of yours, its very informative and impressive and brought back my memories. Thanks Afshan
---Sorry Afshan, I like the idea, it can be done but the .mpg or .avi files are too large even for a few minutes besides the frame size is too small. In any case the bandwidth taken will be huge and the server people will kick me off immediately. Email is not possible for me. These mpg videos things are done routinely now even in Hyderabad for "wedding videos". What you suggest will take up entire two--three CD's for anything worthwhile, like showing the insides of the schools, streets crowded with children and parents the traffic horns and jams and rickshaw bells and peanut vendors. Anyway I'll see if anyone has the areas you remember. Stanley is fine, just as dumb or bright as it was, just like the rest of Hyderabad.
Sunil Reddy(tmsreddy16---hotmail):--
Some interesting links--
http://mahabubnagar.tripod.com/mahabubnagar_history.htm
http://www.rajahmundry.net/Rajahmundry/History/body_history.html
Jimmy Bomanjee ( tiggy ---cwnet.com ):--
Good site with lotsa insite, but, a minor correction about tarnaka -- the main road which goes past the white house divides south lallaguda and tarnaka, south lallaguda is basically the railway colony and where most of the anglo indians lived, plus south lallaguda is in secunderabad and tarnaka is in hyderabad.
--you're right, actually we planned to have a separate page on steam locomotives, hence covering Lallaguda and Moulali in detail. But they were phased out sooner than we thought so we got stuck. Will update all the pages with more info soon.
usha ( ushageorge60--hotmail )
..write an introduction like including names and number of colonies in safilguda, short history of its development from a quite and sleepy village in the 70s to a busy middle class locality in these 30 plus years...add pictures of the busy safilguda main road.
--Sure Usha, pl. send some details, like two or three colonies you know well. make a start.
Kumar Balabhadra ( kbalabha--yahoo.com):---
Love this site. Its been a while since I visited my favourite city and your site just brought all the good ol' memories back. Can't help share one of those memories that still makes me feel happy and sad. Happy to have lived a life like that atleast at one point, sad to be missing now that I am longer living there. (link to the detailed article)
Jagan Pillarisetti( jagan-----warbirdsofindia.com ):--
LOL at the Linguistic observations.
Its was always a pleasure to visit your site and learn local info. But now its more fun to read the feedback and your comments!
Give my congrats to MPT for his linguistic observations. "Seedha jao, phele ek gulli ayenga, usko chodo (leave it), phir dusra = gullich ...." ----- had me in splits.
And i agree with you 100% in not letting that other site use your work..webmasters who run free websites have to stop giving out freebies ...especially to people trying to make money of the web. Keep up the good work. I actually came revisiting to find out about the Trimulgherry cemetery.. found it...many thanks.----Jagan, http://www.warbirdsofindia.com/
Ankit Rahul(ankitrahul@yahoo.com)
(Hyderabad) Freedom Fighters who are still alive and are working towards making the society a better place to live in. Namely :-1. Vavilala GopalaKrishnaiah 2. Suryadevara Rajya Lakshmi Devi 3. Gouthu Lachchanna 4. Dasarati RangaCharya 5. Rajbahdur Goud 6. Kodati Narayana Rao 7. M.S.Rajalingam 8. Moturi Hanumantha Rao 9. Koloji Narayana Rao 10. Darma Biksham
These are actually people who have fought for the independence and are still very much alive.
Flavius ISAC (flavius.isac@c-s.fr):--
Hello, Just wanted to share some info about wootz. There are several modern metalsmiths that succesfully reproduced wootz:
1.) Achim Wirtz from Germany. I own one of his wootz blades. I made some pics and scans: http://membres.lycos.fr/gmk2000/friction_folder1.jpg
2.) Al Pendray in USA.
3.) Daniel Watson (http://www.angelsword.com/)
4.) a group in Russia reproduced the russian wootz or bulat (http://wootz.ru)
5.) a group in Finland
6.) Larry Harley in USA
Harish Batlapenumarthy( harish.batlapenumarthy oracle):-
your website is a pleasant surprise and has really made me nostalgic about Hyd. The enthu you have put into the data collection and your presentation style are all very good, have not yet gone through the site completely but will butt in with some advice if I can think of any.
Great work there!!
Jeremy Liebbe( jeremy@swordarts.com ):--There is now a swordsmith in Texas who is working with both the crystalline and pattern-weld forms of Damascus steel that I think should be added to your links section on your web page discussing the wootz steel. Info on the swordsmith:---Master Daniel Watson , Angel Sword Corporation. Website http://www.angelsword.com.
Murali Apparaju(murali_apparaju--yahoo):--
The write up on Tarnaka is ok. However, Uppal-Tarnaka-Habsiguda area is undoubtedly the foremost 'hitec city area' of Hyderabad with its collection of Basic R&D institutes in Chemistry, Biotechnology, Geophysics, Geology & academic centres like OU etc. (Attn geeks ! Hitechnology also exists in fields other than computers !).
(list of URls of institutes follows)
thnx for the urls, placed in morelinks page.additions. Now the geeks will flame you ;-)
Shailesh Kuber (skuber----hotmail):--
I am a Mumbai-based journalist, originally hailing from Hyderabad. While surfing I came across your website and collection of articles. It was awesome reading up on all the localities of the twin-cities and I could recall Hyderabad with much vividity. I have added your site to my favorites list. You folks are doing a great job. Keep it up!
S Vedamurthy(SVM at Tmsimage.com):--
Hyderabad is one of the most cosmpolitan city in the world.
There is a belief that who ever drinks gandipet water for 3 days will settle down in hyderabad. People have moved from from many places, including Iran, Afghanistan, African countries during the time of Moghul ruling , Nizams and british ruling. Kayasth community moved from north and used to work with Nizam in finance.
Tamil Mudaliars used to work in police and Jail departments. There is market near Sultan Bazaar, known as Kandaswamy market ( Near royal talkies) which was named after Kandaswamy mudaliar who was police chief. Lot of Iyengars were legal advisors to Nizam. Diwan Bahadur Aravamuda Iyengar was legal advisor to Nizam whose bungalow was known as Amrut castle in Bank street. Rustom Fram is a reputed bar in Bank street in existence since decads run by parsi owners.
Tamilians who moved to hyderabad settled in sultan bazaar, Cantonment areas,Tirumalgherry, Lalaguda, were working in either police , or were Military contractors, many of them were working with british in catering as butlers and cooks. Mudaliars have contributed in many fields, they were earliar owners of Deccan Chronicle, distributors of ITC cigerattes. They also established Keyes High School, Mahaboob College etc.
The interesting part of this community is they developed their own lingo which is known as " Hyderabad tamil" which is blend of tamil, urdu and telangana telugu. One has to live in Hyderabad area for 8 to 10 years to understand or talk this language.
Dennis():--
I'm a reporter with the New Indian Express here in Hyderabad. I saw your articles on the Cantonment while going through Google. They were nicely written, and more importantly, informative to a person like me who comes from Kerala.
I would like to have more information on the area for a series I'm planning to do. Like how the Secunderabad Cantonment has changed over the years, how its residents, middle class and the Military people, of course, feel about the changes, their lifestyles, interesting details on the area like where Churchill had stayed - what happened to that building - who are the prominent people in the area and so on.
---You're welcome to use as leads the stuff I wrote. But it wont be of much use for daily stories, though. If you are familiar with the layout of the area try to meet some old guys (in old shops). To make things easy for yourself I sugggest you take a civic amenities angle, so that you have hard facts to report, while it gives you a peg to weave in bits of old stories.
I dont know if your library has old deccan chronicle issues, The reporters used to cover it quite thoroughly. Old issues of Indian Express of election times will also give ward-wise details. Those guys have already done the research. No point in re inventing the wheel.
Madhu Sudhan ( (madhusv-----yahoo) ):--
Hi, Thanks very much for providing a close look at my home town where I grew up. I am from Bolarum, and it was very touching to see it from all the across the globe. Thank you once again.
Dr. Malladi Srinivasa Sastry (sgmalladi-------ntlworld.com ) :--
Namaskaram.I have seen couple of plays by Surabhi in Visakhapatnam. I enjoyed it so much that I get reminded of the plays very often. Is there anyway that I can contribute so that we would not lose this excellent art. I am eager to do my bit to safeguard my culture and heritage. If possible please advise me in this matter.----Dr. Malladi Srinivasa Sastry
--The government has ample funds for promotion of art and culture. They should take the lead. Some years ago a few IAS-IPS enthusiasts started something. I'll find out whats the progress. (...I will not advise anybody on cultural matters until I am 85 years old at least :-)
Rahim Premji(apt AT premjis.com ):--
We are leading dealers and exporters of Bajaj two wheelers and three wheelers in Mumbai, India. We would appreciate a link from your site to our autorickshaw page --http://www.premjis.com/asppages/autorick.asp. Thanks.
Askari( usa):--
Erram Manzil did not belong to the Nizam. It was the palace of Late Fakhrul Mulk (my ancestor) who got it constructed for his residence. On completion, he moved from his residence called Asad Bagh, the present Nizam College, Hyderabad. Kindly correct, Thanks
--thanks for the info. will correct. Any anecdotes about the place?
amancharla praveen (amancharla hotmail ) March 8, 2002 :--
hi there I live in USA and its been two years, and i havnt visited hyderabad, my birth place, and always search the net to see how fast hyderabad is developing, but all the time i get sites wich only hve news in words. I shall greatly appriciate it If you can post the photographs of important places like Hitech city, the junctions of abids, Kotim tankbund, photographs of the changing osmania university , university of hyderabad, national institute of fashon technology located near HITECH city, newly bult architectural constructions like the amrutha castle, etc please post larger size photographs thanks
Sreedhar Byreeka( sreedharDOTbyreekaDOTs1.com):-
re Webcam in Hyderabad zoo :--- Hi, Great to see the continued and dedicated efforts you make for all these wonderful causes... off hand i can think of the national geographic site which gives live feeds of various zoos around the world... I am sure there are more individual zoo sites which offer the same...
Come one Nehru Zoo park (NZP) bosses, we can do it... YES IT IS POSSIBLE.... pllllleeaassssssseeee.... OK. If you need permission CBN, just call your nearest Karnataka zoo and give them this suggestion!
Jokes apart, I always feel great pride talking of NZP... I still remember the day when I read in The Hindu newspaper some 8 years back... that a well known zoologist from usa has commented that NZP ranks among the World's Top 10....
By the way, when are they calling back the giraffes? did anyone catch/punish the culprits for the tiger-killings? how is the train doing? any brand new entrants/animals?.. Just wondering if the newly coming up air port near shadnagar would be of any concern for NZP animals... Please ACT NOW! Even if it is a negligible impact let CBN and the others know about it... if there is anything we need to do... lets plan it ahead and save our park....
Raj Vallabhaneni (vallabhaneni_raj----hotmail.com ):--
Good work, I appreciate all the team members involved in building this website. I bet this is going to be a rendezvous site for the telugu people soon.
Vaishali (no email):--
I am looking for an alumni site for St. Ann's High School Tarnaka. Anybody know of one?
Nagesh Muntha(n-muntha1~~~ti.com ) :-
I enjoyed reading your article on the bhongir fort...I have lived in hyderabad all my life , but have never visited the fort; Here, I am yearning to visit the valley of the kings, luxor and what not in egypt...Right from the days of gautamiputra satakarni, our greatest andhra king , we have had a cherished heritage which we seem to ignore. We all need to understand our own culture first before we turn to other civilizations.
Rex Boxer(LegendForge@aol.com):--
Dear Sirs, I also make a very beautiful pattern welded steel for knife blades. Our website is: www.LegendForgeKnives.com. Best Regards, Rex Boxer
--OK will place a link soon on damascus steel page...but hurry up with the site, Rex...Where's the pictures, huh?
Praveen(ranginenipraveen*****yahoo.co.in ):-
hi, You are doing a great job! Iam from Kollapur,Mahabubnager,Ap. Stayed in Hyderabad for more than 12 years and fell in love with the City! Now Iam in Dublin,Ireland! Can we also include some details of our homw town(kollapur) in that?
Also Habsiguda in Hyderabad. Cheers -praveen
--thanks for the encouraging email. What is Kollapur famous for?.....think there's a large palace or something, transplanted temples, and tree ripened mangoes. Send some details about Kollapur. We have some snaps of the area.
Srinivas(gksr^^^^^hotmail):-
Hi, I have come across your article on net about "areas of Hyderabad series". It was nice and exhaustive to read about Himayat Nagar and surrounding areas. I was grown up there and it reminded me about my childhood days.
Yes u are right in describing Himayat Nagar has changed beyond imagination in the last decade or so. It's become a concrete jungle. It's been 5 years i have been living in U.S and your article refreshed my nostalagic memories about our great city Hyderabad and it's amazing culture. Regards, Srinivas
Pavan (mpr_123`````yahoo.com) :--
The article (reddis.htm) is too good without any biased opinions
--thanks, we try to be objective ! Want to add something?
Rahul ( ):--
I am an amateur gardener in Chennai on the look out for avenue trees. Have just planted about twenty trees- bauhinia purpurea, spatodea companulata, cassia javanica , cannon ball tree and acacia auricoformis. Found your pages very good and interesting. Am planning to grow more of the plants mentioned in your web page. Some photos, growing habit, water, sun requirements and area where it will grow easily would help. Good luck .
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