Qutb Shahi Tombs

The mix between greatness and decay is most apparent in the tombs of Hydrabad. 

When Srinivas drove me to the tombs, it was actually my first stop. I had moved from Hitech city, an area of Hydrabad comparable to most modern cities today to a land of decay. Litter grew like flowers on the tomb grounds, and as I approached, beggars accosted me for any cash I could give them.  The most amazing beggar that day was my tour guide, Hydra.  He was an older gentlemen who mumbled English as good as any drunk in a bar. Demanding and somewhat entertaining, I learned absolutely nothing from walking the tombs with him. His redeeming qualities were his ability to take me to some pretty good picture spots, his open discussion local customs, and his aged smile.

Normally, I like to write a lot about the history of an area, but this is a rather long one, so I thought a great link out to wikipedia is necessary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutb_Shahi_tombs

I will give a little historical background. The property is composed of approximately seven tombs of the Sultans of Hydrabad.  The Sultans ruled the Hydrabad area for approximately 170 years, and most of them are buried here starting in 1545. Each tomb merges Persian and central Indian cultures and is evident throughout the ruins. The property has a mortuary bath, multiple mosques and various fountains that once flowed with water. Now, most of the fountains lie in ruins filled with green slime and litter. My guide Hydra, avoided most of the garden remnants in favor of taking me from tomb to tomb.  

Tomb of Sultan Quli Qutb Shah

Remember, learning from Hydra was not an option. My best learning came from reading some of the signs around the tombs on my second trip to the Tombs, but Hydra had a pretty good eye form some of my shots. You could tell he had walked the tombs for years guiding unknowing foreigners to the mosques and Indian influenced tombs. It was difficult to ask questions.  I think he had a very set routine, and could barely break from it without becoming absolutely lost in his English. We walked to the first tomb of the first Persian king of Hydrabad, Sultan Quli Qutb Shah.  I've seen pictures of the tombs with grass growing everywhere, but all my pictures suffer from drought, heat, and the soon approaching monsoons.

Hydra guided me into the tomb with it’s high dome roof and dark shadows. The only light peaked through the open doorways and the two rotted wooden doors that provided additional exists from the tomb.  At first, I thought a goat had died in the tomb, but it was my guide, Hydra singing a Muslim prayer. Hydra’s song a prayer was especially unpleasant sounding. He growled and screeched out a horrible song that I heard again at the Mecca Mosque near the Charminar that was much more pleasant, but I couldn’t complain. One, I don’t think it would have helped if I did, but there was a charm in Hydra seeing him smile his proud smile from sharing his song with me. I smiled back and left the dark tomb out the front door. The arches of the tomb made for a few great pictures

He took me to the largest mosque on the tomb grounds and explained to the best of his ability that I was in a mosque. The building looked more like a large stone shelter on the Appalachian Trail with two larger towers guarding the entrance from bears than a mosque. It was still very beautiful in it’s decay, and I really wanted to go to the top and see the view. Unfortunately, the stairway was blocked, and I don’t think the stairway to the top was on Hydra’s tour.  The mosque was a great example of a mixture of cultures between the Persian spires and the Indian archways that make many of the mosques on the property unique.

The mosque and tombs were white, but there were some remnants of the true beauty of this area when I looked closely at spires and and domes around the park. The picture on the upper left shows a hint of green that lined one of the tombs, while I caught a glimpse of blue on another.  The mosques and tombs had amazing stone work on them, and the attention to detail in the scroll work on some of the arches was amazing.  Although the grounds were deteriorated, I loved seeing the amazing artistry close up.

At this point, I'm going to leave Hydra. He was an important part of my visit the first time to the tombs, and her taught me how to avoid tour guides. At the end of my visit, he demanded payment with a pleasant smile and wanted to make sure I was completely happy with the experience, of course I wasn't. I couldn't understand a word he said, and I hated the fact he took it upon himself to be my guide.  I reluctantly paid him, but I learned to be overly blunt and direct with the guides. All in all, Hydra was a pleasant man trying to make a living mumbling his best English. As payment, I made him pose for a picture.

Think of this like a wanted poster and avoid guides like this at all cost. Seriously, I could glean most the things he was trying to tell me off the signs written in English around the tombs.

Children of the ruins

It’s important to note that I went to the tombs twice. The first time on a guided tour from Hydra my unintentional guide, and the next with my friend and coworker, Dipesh. During both trips, I enjoyed seeing the amazing architecture of old Hydrabad as well as the children who played among the ruins.  I’m going leave Hydra for a bit to capture some of my trip with Dipesh.  

I enjoyed the second visit to the tombs more than the first. Importantly, I  was rested, but more importantly, I was touring around India with a friend. Dipesh’s family is from Calcutta, and he can pass as an American any day. Dipesh is both very American, but he is also treated as a local, and he would drop his American accent when talking to locals in favor of his Calcutta voice. This gave us a lot of advantage since I now had a local with me, but Dipesh was also an adventurous American.  My trip with him allowed me to meander the tombs openly.  This freedom captured some of the children of the ruins in some of my favorite still shots of the day.

Dipesh and I returned to the large mosque I so eagerly wanted to climb the first day.  Fortunately, Dipesh’s American side caught him as he got excited at the fact that we could climb to the top of this mosque.  This put me at ease having a foe local to bend the rules with.  We cleared the debris from the stairway on my second visit and took some of the pictures you can see here.

From this view, you could see the domed spires of the tombs as well as Golkonda fort. The hill fort rises from the flatlands surrounding it to providing an imposing and impregnable perspective.

When I took the tour with Hydra, there weren't a lot of people wandering the ruins but my trip with Dipesh was full of life. It was a joy seeing all the children playing in the area. From small children playing hide and seek to teenagers playing cricket, the area was alive, and it provided some great contrasting shots of the size of the tombs with the children of Hydrabad.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the day, and it made me happy that I brought my Nikon D90 with me.  This picture captures the size of the tombs, but I loved the barrenness of the area.  I didn't see a lot of parents in the area, but there were a ton of children.

This little boy was playing hide and seek with some of the other children.  The tombs provided a great playground for hiding, and the children took advantage of the large columns and dark hiding places.

Living in Hydrabad isn't easy if your poor. The lack of water at crushing heat gave no solace to the homeless. Our visit culminated in 120 degree temperatures that led to one of the deadliest heatwaves in India.  This man had found shade and comfort on a bench in the tomb area.

Dogs are cool, and Hydrabad had a lot of dogs. This dog really tried to make friends with me. No, I didn't pet him, but I wanted to.

Children playing cricket near one of the tombs.

The Baths

Unfortunately, I didn't grab any great pictures inside the mortuary baths, but this is one of the many buildings that were being restored on the premise. the bathes still had a lot of the scroll work still in tact, and they were comparable to the Roman baths in Bathe,England. The difference was that these baths were only used for the dead compared to the everyday use of the Roman baths. In Islam, bathing the dead is very important, and the baths in the tombs provided a central place to clean the royal family before burial. I took couple pictures at the tombs with my Nikon, The first picture shows a view out from one of the windows in the baths and the second shows some of the amazing art work that adorned the arches.

Summary

Rarely do I write a summary of a visit somewhere. Like most places in Hydrabad, its dirty, in in disrepair and totally worth the visit. This is India.  I saw a lot of hope for the future of old Hydrabad. I left these pictures till the end to show the future of these tombs and the beauty of their eggshell white exteriors are being restored. Check out some of the links at the bottom of the page.

 

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/a-new-lease-of-life-for-qutb-shahi-tombs/article7054545.ece 

http://madhulikaliddle.com/2014/04/23/the-qutb-shahi-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutb_Shahi_tombs

Golkonda Fort.

Despite the arid climate, Hydrabad is full of color. From the brightly colored sarees worn by the ladies to the Hindu temples, the people of Hydrabad provide the vibrance that gives a sharp contrast to the brown rocks and dusty streets. This is by far my favorite picture from my trip and captures the beauty of India.

Sweeper in Golkonda Fort

Golkonda fort was the second stop on my first day, but it provided some amazing views of the power and wealth of medieval Hydrabad while providing panoramic view of the emerging Hydrabad of today. The fort itself was immense, and I actually covered it over two visits covering about 5 km which is approximately the size of the vatican.  The peak of the fort looms about 400 feet above the lower levels and uses a set of winding pathways to get to the top making the defense of the high ground much easier.

The current granite fort sits on top of of the remains of previous mud forts, and was the seat of the Persian sultans for 171 years before the fort was sacked by a siege. The fort and nearby tombs show a mixture of Indian and Persian architecture.  Although this was my second stop both days, it set the stage for the introduction of the builders of Hydrabad, the Qutb Shahi dynasty.





Culturally, the fort also shows the mix of Shia Islam and Hinduism that dominate Hydrabad today.  Multiple Mosque little the ruins of the fort, there is an amazing hindu temple at the top of the fort with a beautiful vishnu painting. 

Vishnu at Golkonda

Some of the greatest colored added to the fort were the people. On both my visits to the fort, I was a celebrity, and it was pretty common to have to stop for Indians to take pictures with me. Luckily, I warned my friend Dipesh that this was going to happen the second day so he was very aware of my fan clubs that walked through the fort with me, exploring the bat caverns and other areas while trying to carry on a conversation in their broken english.

On both days, the heat was oppressive, and people favored rest spots in the shade to take refuge from the hot Indian oven baking the climbers as they ascending to the top. When I'd pull out my thermometer, a crowd gathered to read what they already knew, hell had descended down onto Hydrabad, and the thermometer was only a measure of how miserable visitors knew they were.

The view from the top gives some idea at how massive the inner fort is, but its hard to see the city that encompasses the outer wall, the old swimming pool the size of a small lake and the gold course that all remain inside the walls of the fort today.

As I left the fort, ladies clad in multi-colored sarees passed through the green oasis of the inner gates.

Just outside the inner gates is a reminder of home as one of many CocaCola branded stores serve refreshment to the parched pilgrims that have visited the fort.

Golkonda Fort is worth the visit, and its a must see for visitors to Hydrabad. In this section of the old city, you will see a mixture of Hindu visitors and Muslim residents visiting the fort on any given day. The fort is one of many monuments to the sultans that ruled Hydrabad for 171 years showing not only their tolerance of other religions, but their zeal to build great monuments the define Hydrabad today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golkonda

A Tale of Two Cities

I normally don't open a travel blog talking about my driver, and I regret I didn't take a picture of my driver, Srinivas. I spent a great day with him travelling around Hydrabad. He was originally from a small village in India, but moved to the city to try to get ahead. We discussed a lot of things on our drive. From the politics of the Telegu, to the intricacies of the Muslem and Hindu populations in the area, but my favorite conversation was about his love for his wife. Srinivas came to Hydrabad with a few rupees to his name, and learned English on his own. He explained to me how it is hard to find a woman for an arranged marriage if you do not have anything.  He met his wife, and they fell in love. Without her parents consent, they married, and her parents accepted the marriage not long after. Having a job at the hotel means a different world, and Srinivas went out of his way to make sure I was happy.  I learned a lot from this conversation about India, and some of my pictures will reflect two Hydrabads in this post. The first are the poor that have come to Hydrabad to make a better life as well the old city that shows reflections of where this city has come from. There are subtle social customs and tensions that are separating the city itself as well as the people.

The old town section of Hydrabad is dirty. Mountains of trash pile near the streets forming small, man made hills where people sorted and sifted their way through other people's discarded trinkets. In other sections broken down mopeds lay in dusty waste parked along the sides of the road forming a junk yard of brokenness mixed with goats and people selling knockoff goods.  Running water is a luxury, and it it often tanked in on trucks and stored in a home owner's water tank. On some city streets, flies scrimmaged for a drink of open water containers.

The water had a slight greenish tint to it when held to the light, and it was an easy reminder how we take for granted the simple things.

The new section of Hyderbad is approximately 15 years old with amazing offices for both pharmaceuticals and technology companies including Pfizer, Norvartis, Broadcom, Oracle and IBM. The grass at my hotel is cut by hand with a pair of sheers and a an olympic length pool with a swim up bar. The amount of water used just to water the grass is fought for in the countryside.  The new Hydrabad is amazing and comparable to many of cities in Europe.

If I stayed in my hotel and only travelled to the office, I wouldn't realize the rest of Hydrabad. The Westin provides a seclusion for westerners preventing them from see both the poverty and the beauty of India. My driver was impressed at my willingness to explore Hydrabad for two days straight. He said, there are many westerners that only travel to the hotel and office.

Old Hydrabad is a heavily Muslim area, and they are fighting the expansion of technology into the old city. Men commonly pee on the streets and goats run wild climbing the mountains of rubble and garbage scouring for food. During Muslim religious festivals, the goats are rounded up and sold for sacrifice.  Meat is sold in open air markets, hanging in the 107 degree heat.

It's easy to say just damn when looking at these things, but to the people of Hyderabad, this is their way of life, and they don't know any difference.  Men and children work hand in hand crafting goods, selling wares and other manual tasks.

Child selling cotton candy on the streets.

Man carrying food up to the top of the fort.

Labor is cheap, and people fight for jobs. Losing your job can put you in a poverty rarely experienced in the United States. Vendors sale sticks to build shanty towns that litter the landscape often mixed with trash and rubble.

Riding in the car often gave me a detached feeling from the outside as I watched the movie play in a panoramic theatre. Srinivas was an excellent driver in a city where driving laws are rarely obeyed, but amazingly, traffic flows well. During my second day, Srinivas made to interesting remarks. The first is that he would not have taken us on a tour of the old city on Friday.  Friday is usually a rioting day for the Muslims in the old city. Many Muslims are not educated and live in the poverty of the old city, but they work hard at selling their cheap knockoffs on the streets. Many times, the break from the Mosque on Fridays to riot only to return to normal by Saturday. The second thing he mentioned is that getting into a wreck could cause a driver to be beaten by a mob if there was an injury.  The old city lived by a different set of laws.

From all this, I've seen the beauty in Hyderabad. Once, the diamond capitol of India, remants of it's wealth still remain. For almost 300 years, Persian kings ruled Hydrabad in a time of prosperity rivaling other medieval cities such as Florence. I wanted to close this post with a contrasting picture of one of the royal palaces in Hyderabad to give a sense of what this once great culture accomplished.

In the few days I've been here I have come to appreciate the clash of old and new as well as the hints at both past greatness and a promising future.