Hyderabad Chronicles I - To Hyderabad and Salar Jung Museum

Hyderabad Chronicles I - To Hyderabad and Salar Jung Museum Hyderabad Chronicles II - Walking through Salar Jung Museum
Hyderabad Chronicles III - Charminar, Mecca Masjid, Chowmahalla Palace, Hussain Sagar and Birla Mandir
Hyderabad Chronicles IV - Golconda Fort, Kutb Shahi tombs, Spanish Mosque and Secundrabad

Salar Jung Museum

It was a Friday evening, after travelling through the packed roads of Bangalore city, I finally reached Shanti Nagar bus Stand. Rajahamsa was on time, and I left Bangalore at 8.45pm and reached on the out skirts of Hyderabad city by next morning. 

Along with the cool air from the vast stretch of empty land on both sides of the road, I can easily sense the smell of ploughed soil. After some time I saw a person riding his tractor. Is there a smile in his lips?

I slowly entered in to the city; one of the first main buildings was Police Academy. The motto “Be the change you want to see in the world” is written in big letters. I wonder if they could keep the motto at all times...

Nehru Zoological Park came next; after some time we crossed Musi River and reached MGBS. Now Musi is less of a river and more of a drainage channel, best example for how humans can destroy nature!!! Before auto drivers can offer me a trip I walked towards main road to catch a city bus.

My first destination was Hyderabad High Court. I got down one stop before the court and slowly walked towards it. With red coloured domes, High court stands proudly under the morning sun. After watching the building for some time, I walked towards Salar Jung Museum. It took some time to reach there. Museum will open at 10 am in morning and now it is 9.30am. So I sat in front of the museum to read her history.

Salar Jung Museum

This museum contains the personal collection of Nawab Mir Yousuf Ali Khan Salar Jung III (1889–1949), former Prime Minister of the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad. It took around thirty five years for Salar Jung to create this priceless collection. According to museum sources it displays a little more than 25% of the original collection.

There are 38 galleries in the museum spread over two floors under three sections (Indian, Western and Eastern). Now it's ten, I slowly moved in. After buying the ticket (10 INR) I slowly walked in. As cameras are not allowed inside the museum I went to the clock room and locked the camera in the locker. After a security check at the main entrance I went to the Founder's gallery.

Founder’s gallery contains the portraits and other personal belongings of Salar Jung family. There is one photo in this room which attracted my particular attention. It was Sarojini Naidu and others attending one function with Salar Jung. I moved to the next gallery.

There was a big size Nataraja performing Tandava Dance. Here you can see the scenes from Rasaleela, Bhagvad Gita, Gopis plucking flowers, legends of Hindu Gods, episodes from Ramayana, Mahabharata, Vishnupurana etc printed or drawn in the cloths. After spending some time here I slowly moved to the next one.

After some time I reached Indian miniature paintings gallery. This room contains some of the good paintings from Rajasthani (Malwa, Mevar, Kotah, Amber, Jaipur etc), Mughal, Deccani (Golkonda, Bijapur etc), Pahari (Kulu, Gharwal, Kangra etc) styles. I looked towards the paintings for some time. Indeed we habe to spend quite some time to see, understand and enjoy some of the best Indian miniature paintings.

After that I moved towards Modern painting gallery. Went straight to the middle of the gallery, there stands M.N Roy's 'After Bath'. This picture describes the back of a beautiful woman just after taking the bath - wearing a wet white cloth with red borders. M.N Roy beautifully sketched the beauty of the woman in the painting. She raised both hands one at the level of the neck and other one folded close to her ear. Both hands are touching her beautiful black her at the back side of the head. Even the folding in the wet cloth is clearly visible to the viewer.

Chugthai's 'Lady and the deer', Paintings of Nandalal Bose, Abnindranath Tagore etc forms a beautiful view to the visitor. Finally, I walked towards the works of Raja Ravi Varma.

First one I saw was a painting named 'Kerala Beauty' - a middle aged woman, wearing a white cloth and jewellaries. Next one was the painting of a couple - probably lovers - named as 'Stolen Interview'. In this painting, a woman wearing green sari is standing on one side of the pillar. She is holding a flower in one hand. Looking towards the flower she slowly moves her other hand over it. She is looking beautiful in her necklace and red coloured bangles. A young man is standing on the other side of the wall, looking to her face. He is holding the pillar using one hand and supporting his head with the other one. It’s indeed a Stolen Interview'.

I walked towards the door and went to other galleries. One contains the collection of Indian textiles - a selected collection of saris etc another one contains Toys and dolls.

You can see Egyptian and Syrian furniture’s on another one. These items are basically replicas of original ones. Another room contains various models of carpets. Arabian and Persian manuscripts are displayed on another room. Quartrain of Omar Khayyam written by Sultan Hussain of Persia and autographed by princess Jehanara Begum - daughter of Shah Jehan, an illuminated Holy Quran, Shah-nama by Firadausi written by Mohd-b-Abdul Rahman Sammarqandi ( 1424 A.D. ) etc are visible here.

Another gallery contains Ivory objects. I slowly moved in front of various Ivory objects appreciating artisan's skills. In Arms sections we can see various guns - Match lock, flint lock, pistols, revolvers etc. In one place there were armours of various soldiers, their swords, various plates used to cover body parts etc.

Sajeev.

Timbuktu - A loss for humanity

Many of us may not hear about this West African site. Unfortunately, Timbuktu came to global attention when it fights its last battle for survival. Now under the control of fundamentalists, the city may soon attain the fate of Bamiyan Buddha, if international community is not ready to do anything more than lip service.

Timuktu, also known as the 'City of 333 saints', was a centre of Islamic learning from 13th to 17th centuries. This city also has a huge collection of old manuscripts, books, letters etc in her private and public libraries. Timuktu's three mosques and 16 cemeteries are also in UNESCO's world heritage list.

But, all this qualifications didn’t stop 'Ansar Dine' from its programme of destroying this cultural heritage. Timuktu's (which follows Sufi tradition of Islam) fault was, it doesn’t follow Ansar Dine's interpretation of salafist ideology. According to the reports the group already destroyed may of 16 listed mausoleums and pledged to destroy rest of them. They also bring down the sacred door of 15th century ‘Sidi Yahia Mosque’.

It is easy to destroy these things, centuries old buildings may not offer much resistance to fundamentalists’ new weapons. But, with this we are losing some of the most valued cultural signature of the old world. Do we really have the right to bring down these icons which were left to us by our ancestors?

Government and international community may or may not be able to control ‘Ansar Dine’ tomorrow, but if we are not able to do something today then we are losing some of the most valued possessions. It will be better for ‘Ansar Dine’ to remember that they are destroying the very identity of their own ancestors.

Sajeev.

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

Nepal - Never ending process of forming a constitution

The dissolution of Nepali Constituent Assembly (CA) is indeed a setback for the progress of democracy in the country.

The 601 member legislature, which was supposed to write a constitution for the nascent democratic republic missed the deadlines four times since 2008. As Supreme Court refused to accept another extension Nepal Premier dissolved the assembly.

Hurdles in forming the Constitution

One of the major hurdles was the criteria to create new states. Maoists (239 seats) and Madhesies (together 74 seats) want to create states based on singular ethnicity while Nepali Congress (119 seats) and CPN-UML (109 seats) prefers multi ethnic states. Even in the last moment both parties were not able to reach a deal to solve problem. It looks like finally there was some agreement on the total number of states.



Seat of Nepalese Government



Ethnic problems are nothing new. When people of different ethnicities are staying in a country, issues may arise. But the problems will aggravate when people are forming parties based on ethnicity and engaged in never ending bargains. Problems need to be resolved through creative discussions, adapting the highest standards of accommodation for the benefit of entire nation. If the representatives can't resolve the base for the formation of states in four years, when they are going to do that?



Elections will come again, and these parties may get votes more or less in the old ratios. Then, what the new assembly will do with these questions?



Representatives may be patient enough to have long discussions running over years, but the same may not be applicable for common people. They may not be patient enough to see the never ending discussions on constitution.

Moreover, if things are going on this way people may start wondering what they got after transforming the country from a monarchy to a republic. Already the power cuts are cutting around eight to ten hours per day.

Conclusion

It’s high time for Nepali politicians to wake up from the never ending deadlocks and engage in constructive discussions to form a constitution and lead the country in the path of development. Already Nepal achieved some developments in political front like the integration of Maoist cadres to Nepali Army and society.

Writing a constitution without wasting further time is essential to gain further momentum for development. Hope that the new CA will be able to resolve the problems soon.

Sajeev.

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

Rising rental rates - dream of affordable housing is sinking further deep

Home is one of the basic requirements for any human being. At the end of the day what we need is some space to spend the night. It looks like this basic thing is also moving further away from us. For staying, people are using either their own home or rented one, for those who are working/ studying far away from home, the second one is a better choice. But in these days, rising cost in real estate, cost/rent for a home/flat/apartment is making it unaffordable.

According to recent Business Standard report, India witnessed 12% hike in housing price for January - March quarter of 2012; third highest in the world!!!

It's my fourth year in Bangalore, we don't have to see the graphs and studies to realise the cost of Real estate. During these years city witnessed a huge growth on rental rates. In the main areas now it is difficult to get a 2BHK (2 Bedroom, 1 Hall, 1 kitchen) house under 10K/month, even in the city limits rate is touching 10K. This comes with the added baggage of heavy deposits. Now, it is difficult to find even a 1 BHK flat for anything less than 5000-6000/month. Around four years back we got 1 BHK flat for 3500/month even though it was located far from the main road!!!

There is no doubt that, this will become worse. I can see the hurry of construction activities in some of the empty areas - where people didn’t even dared to walk around three years back. Now the same place is virtually transformed in to a crowded residential area. Still people are struggling to get a flat on rent. It looks like the building activity is much more intense than any other normal business activities; still the sector is unable to cater the needs of people - especially in the segment of affordable homes. After food, rent may be the biggest expenditure for a normal person.

Some solutions

1. Low cost but big housing projects are required in the cities - especially in the city limits.
2. Another one is to have an authority - like TRAI in Telecom - to regulate and streamline the real estate sector. This will help to save the customer from arbitrary increase in rent, deposits etc.
3. Plan the cities in such way, so that it can accommodate future expansions.
4. Methods like compulsory rain water harvesting and other innovative solutions should be used to save the resources.

Our lease will expire by the end of this year only. But now itself we have to start thinking about the possible increase in rent!!!

Sajeev.

India sees 3rd highest rise in housing prices in jan-march - Business Standard
Photo Courtesy - Wikipedia

Some lights are blinking here and there – Daimler and IKEA in India

After a series of bad news there are some good ones in the horizon. 

One is Daimler's $889mn investment in Chennai for truck production. This plant - in Oragadam - will sell 25 metric tonne trucks under BharatBenz brand. This plant has an initial capacity to produce 36000 vehicles annually, employing 1400 people.

Second one is, Scandinavian furniture major IKEA's proposal to invest 1.5bn euro in India.

Both offers a ray of hope in this dry atmosphere, where we are experiencing declining capital inflows and stagnated manufacturing output. IKEA's big investment proposal was indeed a surprise, even though we cleared 100% FDI some time back in single brand retail.

IKEA's investment is not without strings. The big hurdle to resolve in this case is the policy of 30% mandatory sourcing from India. According to the IKEA's announcement, company is looking for 30% mandatory sourcing from India after a cumulative period of 10 years from the date of approval. This is against one of the major policy related to FDI in single brand retail. Will government dilute the policy for this big ticket investment or will it stick with the existing policy is yet to see.

Daimler's plant is indeed ray of hope. The good thing is it will add to India's manufacturing capacity and may be able to provide a solution for large scale commercial transportation in India.

What we need to do is creating a more investment friendly atmosphere and transparent policy guidelines. Hope that, this good news will give the necessary momentum for going forward.

Sajeev.

Photo Courtesy: Daimler India