2004-06-27T23:54:44+00:00 lifetype-1.2.12_r7211 http://blogs.fullhyderabad.com/rss.php?blogId=138&profile=atom Copyright (c) jagannath tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-27:387 2004-06-27T23:54:44+05:30

Here is a poem I wrote a year ago on the poor villagers sleeping on the footpath opposite the L.V.Prasad hospital waiting for the eye surgery : On the footpath outside the ...

jagannath General Here is a poem I wrote a year ago on the poor villagers sleeping on the footpath opposite the L.V.Prasad hospital waiting for the eye surgery : On the footpath outside the L.V.Prasad Eye Hospital ,Hyderabad ------------------------------------------------     They came in hordes from verdant fields And fresh cowdung-smelling mud-huts Through miles of mud-tracks lined with ketaki bushes And long arduous bullock-cart journeys Their upturned moustaches smelt of fresh buttermilk The contours of their vacuous eyes had traces of Viscous rheum and hot salty lugubrious tears . The big bad city harboured luminous hopes . The doctor garu' s skilled scalpel carved Strange phosphorescent worlds for the eyeless Unknown to the opaqueness of their tired old eyes. These ancient men with weather-worn faces braved The biting cold of December outside the hospital . The idlis they served on the footpath Were soft and belly-friendly The vendor women served up Hot steaming puris ,urban puris Strangely delicious ,topped with Sticky hot onion-potato curry Dusky women in cheap pochampalli sarees Waited impatiently for their men Surely green eye-patches, when finally removed, Will open up exciting new worlds .   ****************     tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-27:383 2004-06-27T23:45:55+05:30

Some time ago we stopped at the Asia's biggest and filthiest sewer in Chikadpally trying to get the shoes repaired by a roadside cobbler. The smell was overpowering and trying to move away we ...

jagannath General Some time ago we stopped at the Asia's biggest and filthiest sewer in Chikadpally trying to get the shoes repaired by a roadside cobbler. The smell was overpowering and trying to move away we walked backwards for some time .There was no consolation .A few yards away we found our own driver blissfully easing himself on the parapet wall .There was no option other than to stand near the Marathi cobbler boy who was doing our repair. tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-27:382 2004-06-27T23:39:29+05:30

  I have often wondered why such a vast body of water as the Hussain Sagar is not put to use to quench the thirsts of the Hyderabad citizens.Water shortages are endemic here.The city's ...

jagannath General   I have often wondered why such a vast body of water as the Hussain Sagar is not put to use to quench the thirsts of the Hyderabad citizens.Water shortages are endemic here.The city's population has grown to around 6 million and the drinking water available is just not adequate .It seems that a lot of private tanker owners make a quick buck by supplying bore water at exorbitant rates and depleting the subterranean water resources. tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-27:381 2004-06-27T23:36:40+05:30

Every city has its unique character. If you want to see Hyderabad's unique character you must pass through the numerous lanes and by-lanes of the old city .Deep within Hyderabad feels so much ...

jagannath General Every city has its unique character. If you want to see Hyderabad's unique character you must pass through the numerous lanes and by-lanes of the old city .Deep within Hyderabad feels so much like Ahmedabad . Leave aside the glitz of recently added commercial districts . Hyderabad reminds you of Ahmedabad. with its nagarwadis and poles which bear a close resemblance to Hyderabad's own inner residential areas. One thing that puzzles me is how the Moslems of Hyderabad have retained Urdu as their mothertongue despite being surrounded by Telugu-speaking areas .In this respect it would appear that people of this area have been maintaining their connections with the Moslems of North India .This linguistic and cultural insulation may have been achieved due to the dominance of Moslems as rulers . What explains the absence of ancient Hindu temples in Hyderabad? There are several mosques and minarets built by the Moslem rulers but there are practically very few ancient temples. A lot has been talked about the tolerance of the Hyderabad rulers and if this is indeed so where are the temples such as you find in Rayalaseema ? A similar observation can be made about Ahmedabad too.   tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-27:380 2004-06-27T23:31:19+05:30

  Unlike in Gujarat cities the houses here have a fine finish ,especially the exteriors. In Gujarat there is emphasis on functionality rather than on beauty of form .The houses tend to ...

jagannath General   Unlike in Gujarat cities the houses here have a fine finish ,especially the exteriors. In Gujarat there is emphasis on functionality rather than on beauty of form .The houses tend to look drab especially on the outside .Even within the houses the furnishing is very sparse with hardly much storing space except possibly on the lofts. The standard two-bedroom affair is so drab and uninspiring .Of course the Gujaratis spend less on achieving a good finish tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-27:379 2004-06-27T23:27:54+05:30

The day starts for us at 5a.m. with birds of several hues chirping on the trees in the neighbourhood.A gentle breeze blows in our direction over the Banjara rockscape. As the day wore on the sky ...

jagannath General The day starts for us at 5a.m. with birds of several hues chirping on the trees in the neighbourhood.A gentle breeze blows in our direction over the Banjara rockscape. As the day wore on the sky became sharper and more luminiscent against tiny specks of eagles in flight. The neem tree has already shed its floral fragrance and assumed the heaviness of tiny succulent sweet-bitter fruits. The deep green of the tamarind in the neighbourhood comforted the computer-weary eyes tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-27:378 2004-06-27T23:15:05+05:30

The Hyderabad houses , some of them, have a character of their own.The house on the screensaver on the current desktop of my computer reminds me of the some of the banjara hills houses.I must ...

jagannath General The Hyderabad houses , some of them, have a character of their own.The house on the screensaver on the current desktop of my computer reminds me of the some of the banjara hills houses.I must ask Radhika to paint for me a house , a typical old house of Hyderabad. The beauty of the house lies in the way it merges into the surroundings, more particularly in the way the shadows of the house merge imperceptibly into the garden around the house and the gravelled pathways .It is as though the house has always been there , an inseparable fixture on the surroundings.     tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-11:309 2004-06-11T07:08:41+05:30

In some of the government undertakings I have noticed separate toilets for gents , ladies , and officers. Apparently officers are sexless.In India the nomenclature for a loo is 'toilet' which is ...

jagannath General In some of the government undertakings I have noticed separate toilets for gents , ladies , and officers. Apparently officers are sexless.In India the nomenclature for a loo is 'toilet' which is a more direct way of referring to the pissplace.The American 'washroom' is much more prudish .In India we dont shy away from calling a toilet a toilet. A toilet is a very public place in many government offices where choicest gossip is exchanged between two pissing gentlemen .In one of the nationalized banks the entire male staff have gone on a wildcat strike to protest against newly built toilets with pisspots built so high that it was quite a feat to reach ones pissstream to the pot without dirtying oneself.Apparently the toilets have not been designed taking into account the average height of an Indian male! tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-11:307 2004-06-11T06:21:55+05:30

When a high-street banker speaks of a beauty queen he does not mean the 34-24-36 variety who dazzles international crowds by her oomph and gets her sponsors millons of dollars worth of ...

jagannath General When a high-street banker speaks of a beauty queen he does not mean the 34-24-36 variety who dazzles international crowds by her oomph and gets her sponsors millons of dollars worth of business.In the world of high finance a beauty queen would simply mean : A good buy in bonds or other investments which combines within itself an excellent investment rating and an attractive coupon. In other words an ideal pick available in the market for the investor.In real life such investments do not exist just as beauty queens are rare in the workaday world tag:blogs.fullhyderabad.com,2004-06-11:306 2004-06-11T06:18:39+05:30

  A Chinese gentleman once asked me why so many Beauty Queens come from India these days. We had a series of them - a Miss.World , a Miss.Universe and so many other sundry titles.I told him ...

jagannath General   A Chinese gentleman once asked me why so many Beauty Queens come from India these days. We had a series of them - a Miss.World , a Miss.Universe and so many other sundry titles.I told him that the westerners would have become fed up of white-skinned Miss.Worlds and would have decided to go in for a brown-skinned one for a change. In that case why not a yellow-skinned one , a Chinese Miss.World ? I really dont know .Why not is my instant response. In the same vein one could ask why not a black-skinned beauty ? .The fact is that most of these organizers have their own notions about what constitutes female beauty .Their contests therefore tend to be coloured by Western cultural biases. The real reason why the West seems to be turning to India for beauty queens is not because their notions of female beauty have undergone a dramatic change ,but merely because commercially it makes a lot of sense to have an indian Miss.World endorse a product to the vast marketplace of India the potential of which has only recently been realized by the global corporates.