JAUNT TO HYDERABAD

HYDERABAD CEBUTUNDI(tells)

A Travelogue of Golden Jubilee Trip of Newmanites

    

The driver was behind the wheel, the engine started roaring, and our group was in great silence, with load noises from the heavily beating hearts. The pulses pounded as we saw our principal Dr. T. M. Joseph, the vice Principal Dr. K. J. John, and the bursar Rev. Fr. Francis Kannadan strolling towards us. For showering wishes and bidding goodbye they got into the bus. We welcomed them warmly with a loud applause and great joy.  Our bursar, prayed to the God almighty, and blessed us and our trip. They stepped down the bus, we waved goodbye, and our long journey started by a single rolling of the wheel. Atlast! “It comes true”, my cherished wish to visit Hyderabad, the city of lakes and pearls. My dreams soared higher and higher as the wheel rolled and rolled.

We were twenty, teaching, and non-teaching staffs of Chemistry department, their spouses and children. We arrived at Nedumbassery airport by 8 o’clock in Embees mini bus. Amidst our supper a text message arrived to Prof. Jose Mathew, which reads “Due to some technical problems, flight (SG 1052) COK to HYD, departure time rescheduled to 11:45 pm”. So we could not but simply lounge in the airport lounge. Every single minute felt like days for me. I wandered here and there resembling a civet cat till the announcement: “Passengers of Cochin-Hyderabad flight should board immediately”. Yes! We boarded the flight for Hyderabad, as clock chimed midnight.

After 90 minutes of eagerness, we landed at Novatel Hyderabad Airport. Then we hiked to Rajiv Gandhi International Airport terminal. We hired three prepaid cabs to Don Bosco Nagar, our place of lodging. It was an eight lane express highway with a speed limit of 120 Km/h, where our cars dashed. Once or twice or more our cab touched 150 km/h mark. Even at this speed some premier segment cars overtook us to my amazement!!! Even then it took nearly an hour to reach Don Bosco Nagar,

BIRDY

Don Bosco Nagar Post

Bandlaguda Jagir

Himayat sagar Road

Hyderabad – 500086

Telangana

Mail ID: birdyinstitute@gmail.com

BIRDY is a training-cum-research center, which reaches out to the youth, youth workers and youth policy makers for the holistic development of youth in Telangana especially the marginalized youth. The acronym stands for ‘Bosco Institute of Research and Development for Youth’. BIRDY is a serene campus with an excellent ambience for lodging. Fr. C. T. Jose from Manimala, Kerala, is the Director of the House. He entrusted Mr Rajan, a teacher of a school nearby, as our trip guide. So, Rajan sir and his son Roshan led us all through the excursion.

Hyderabad was the capital city of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and now is the capital of Telangana. Hyderabad is the fourth most populous city and sixth most populous urban agglomeration in India. The cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad are known as the “Twin Cities”. The newer twin city of Secunderabad is situated north of Hyderabad on the shores of Hussain Sagar Lake. Hyderabad is also growing as a famous information technology center and is also referred to as “Cyberabad” nowadays.

DAY ONE

In the pleasant morning of the first day of our trip, some of us attended English Holy Mass in the church. We had a splendid breakfast of poori with boiled eggs. BIRDY turned out as our first photo point in our dream journey. The photo session was little long and lasted till our senior members started scolding us.

We departed to Ramoji Film City, our first destination. It is certified, the World’s Largest Film Studio Complex by the Guinness World Records. It is amazingly vast, a campus of 1666 acres! The film city is 32 km from Hyderabad center, via Vijayawada route. It was a drive of thirty minutes.

In Ramoji Film City, many theatres or mini auditoriums arranged in series for the demonstration of film shooting techniques. Here in these theatres about 200–250 people can comfortably sit and watch different programmes. In front of the theatre series there is a roofed open space. There the people are informed about the plays and shows and about the arrangements inside. Here mob was overcrowding eagerly waiting to know what is happening. When the entrance door was unbolted after this announcement, there was a huge rush to the first theatre.

The theatres are semicircular with rising gallery to sit and watch. The programmes are conducted on the podium made at the center of the floor in front. In the first theatre, we were welcomed with ‘Vande Madaram’ dance show followed by circus show. In the second theatre real fighting scenes were enacted. The trickery behind fighting in films can be understood if we once see this realistic stunt show.

Then we were taken to the next theatre to show the film making magic. In this movie magic, they demonstrated how the scene of Hema Malini riding a tonga in ‘SHOLAY’ had been shot by calling one fair lady from the audience. The lady was given a whip in one hand and ends of two ropes in the other hand. The lady was asked to sit on a tonga and told to whip at times on an imaginary horse. And also told her to pull the rope ends often just like the outer ends of reins to control horse. One boy attendant shook the tonga by using a lever under the whole setting. Camera videographed the whole event of whipping and pulling reins while shaking the tonga. Then computer mixed this video with pre-shot road scenes. Then this movie was displayed in a big screen. What we saw then was that the lady was riding the tonga along a muddy road just like Hema Malini rode the tonga in Sholay!!

Then they demonstrated how sound was given to the above film. In front of a microphone a bunch of key was shaken which gave the sound effect of a moving tonga. We all were enthralled by the exciting story of film making. They also showed how dripping of water from a cup makes the required sound effect of bathing heroine.

Then we had a wonderful lunch viz. fried rice, poori, Curd rice, Baji and Gulav with an Ice cream from the Ramoji food house. After that, we started our trip into the depth of beauty of Ramoji Film City. An open windowed red bus no: 27 took us into the movie world.

A smart young fellow, our guide who accompanied us the entire film city, described everything with at most passion. He made us laugh many a time by saying, “Here you can reach Buckingham Palace from Taj Mahal in two minute walk”, “Outside the wall, there is central jail, but inside it is a beauty parlour”, “This is a famous hospital but life is not guaranteed”, “Here, left side is a metro railway station, but right side is a suburban station” and so on….

There we saw, Karishma garden, Limelight garden, Kerala boundary, Majestic garden, Japanese garden, Gate Way of India, Helipad, Women jail, South Indian town, Police station, Bus station, Railway station, Village, Mud village with mud road, ATV China building, Enadu Press building, Central Jail Mumbai, Court of Emperors, Mummy fort, Princess Street of Scotland, Houses of European culture, Classic coffee shop, Hospital, Hyderabad International Airport, Temple, Island of Churches, Lake garden, Arizona garden famous for sad scenes, Butterfly museum, Bird sanctuary, Kripalu caves, Sun foundation and Bonsai garden models and elevations of famous buildings.

There where, colour mixing building, multi-purpose building which can be made into college or school, straight roads which can be shown as national highway or state highway or any other road which is going to any other place by placing various milestones and so on. They mentioned about hundreds of films shot there, such as, Chennai Express, Jilla, Singam Returns, Malayalam movies like CID Moosa, Left Right Left, Rajadhi Raja, Udayananu Tharam, Kalyanaraman etc.

About 5 o’clock, we returned from Ramoji Film City. On the way, Roshan, our guiding teacher’s son, who was studying in eighth standard, explained many things to us. Chomala palace, Salar Jung museum, NTR gardens, Jalavihar amusement park, City central shopping complex, Hussain Sagar dam are few among them. On the way back we came across RTC bus stand. Some road-side vendors, selling sheep where another surprising sight for us. Muslims bought these sheep for their festival. They cut their sheep into three portions. First part for God, second for poor and the rest for themselves. Roshan also described about Haleem, the special food in the Ramsan season.

We had our supper in Dwaraka, a multi-cuisine restaurant. We had, veg fried rice, butter naan, butter chicken, ice cream and gulab jamun for dinner. After dinnertimes, we got a notice having a beautiful picture named “Bathukamma”. We didn’t have an idea about it. Roshan explained, “Bathukamma is Telangana’s floral festival celebrated by Hindu women,for nine days during Durga Navarathri. During the festival beautiful flowers are arranged in seven concentric layers in the shape of temple gopuram”. We returned to our lodge, conducted a rosary, wished goodnight each other and went bed.

DAY TWO

The next day, we woke up early and had our breakfast upma, vada with Dal. That day we were eager to visit Charminar.

We visited the architecture of Quli Qutab Shah built in 1591. This square edifice in the heart of the city was constructed with lime and stone. It is a monument of fine decoration and professional craft works. Eye-catching aesthetic beauty of Hyderabad is visible to all after climbing the celebrated 149 steps of Charminar. The renowned 149 steps where so narrow that a fatty will find it difficult to slip through.

Our next destination was snow world. Amidst our drive to the snow world we came across PVNR Flyover (P. V. Narasimha Rao Elevated Expressway), which connects Mehdipatnam and Hyderabad airport. It is 11.6 km long and is one of the longest flyovers in the Asia. Metro rails construction sites where also visible in the way.

The city was filthy, polluted and dirty. The soil type is a mixture of black and red soil. We also passed legislative assembly building, situated in the renowned place ‘Public gardens’. Our bus also passed Namballi railway station, Telugu University, Industrial exhibition ground and finally we reached an amusement park, ‘snow world’.

Snow world is a different world in the hot Hyderabad. It is a large auditorium sized airtight chamber, where the temperature is maintained below 0⁰C. It was freezing, our body started to shiver.  In no time we were provided with warm clothes, gloves and water proof shoes to protect us from this extreme climate. It was an awesome experience that we felt like standing in Manali. We threw ice balls over each other. We played basketball and volleyball, used snow-slides to make fun and danced with the music. Not only the youngsters but also the HOD, M. T. John sir also rode from the top of a snow hill. He too tried hill climbing. We didn’t ruined the chance to click photos with man-made polar bears and penguins.

After the snow world, we left to hotel Paradise. Sree Budha statue in Hussain Sagar Lake, was situated on the way. The 16 m tall, 350 ton monolithic colossus rise high from the placid waters of the lake. It is placed in the middle of the lake and we can reach this statue by boat from Lumbini Park. We had a splendid lunch with dum biryani and coca cola in the hotel Paradise.

Birla Mandir another tourist spot of Hyderabad, where we visited next. The all marble Birla Mandir was constructed by B. M. Birla.  None is permitted to use foot wears inside and outside the temple including the pavements to the Mandir. The belief says that if we use foot wares then, the sanctity of the temple is lost. So we could not fully enjoy the beauty of the temple because, under the scorching sun, pavement stones were so hot that we could not stand barefoot on it more than a fraction of a second!! Not a wonder that, everybody reached the foot of the hill temple, within minutes without calling or texting!!

In front of the Birla Mandir, we saw Birla Science Museum and Planetarium, but we could not visit them due to the paucity of time. After that we spend an hour in shopping in Shilparamam which is an arts and crafts mini village located in the IT hub areas of Hi-Tech city, Hyderabad.

On the way to visit Golconda fort we visited Qutub Shahi tombs. The tombs of seven Qutub Shahi rulers are located close to Golconda fort. The ambience of this area is good and so it is a good place to visit.

Then we moved to Golconda fort. The fort was built a 1000 years back. It was built on a granite hill. The region where the fort is situated is famous for mines that produced coveted gems, including Hope diamond and Nassak diamond. We climbed the hill and then returned and assembled in the patio to enjoy the light and sound show. The show was mind blowing. They explained the wars fought by the kings and romantic affairs of the princess.

 Especially certain dialogues thrilled us, the youngsters. A small portion is..... “Oh! My Lord, in this stormy weather… How do you come in this dark night without a lantern…” uttered by the love to her lover, the prince. And he replied, “Oh! ... No need darling... My heart is burning like a lantern with love…” Just hearing that, it gave me goose bumps!

You will be amazed to hear that when somebody claps from particular points of a fort you can hear it from top of the fort. When somebody whispers near a wall and that is heard on another wall. That was really cool, an amble example for the engineering and skills of our ancestors.

Then we returned to the bus and went to a bakery for buying sweets, and chocolates. There, we, the five fingers, Anju, Annuja, Alen, Bibin and I ate Pani poori, Fruit punch bar, Sugar gel peda, Onion baji and Mixed nut halwa balls. We drank Sprite, Limca, Thumps up, Fanta and Mineral water. Then we returned to our lodge.

But one beloved old student of Chemistry department, Mrs. Ancy Sebastian (B.Sc. Chemistry, 1981-1984) and her husband Mr. Mathew Kurushummoottil were waiting with sweets for our arrival. They are running a school in Telangana. Teachers in our group talked with Mrs. Ancy for a long time and expressed their gratitude towards her for arranging everything in Hyderabad for our trip. And also, we were actually surprised to hear that she came to visit her teachers by driving 70 km! Then we left to sleep, to leave BIRDY next day.

Yes, we left BIRDY exactly at 7:00 am and reached Rajiv Gandhi International Airport by 7:15 am. After checking in, we got enough time to see the shops. Some of us purchased pearls for which Hyderabad is famous for. Anyway, we left Hyderabad at exactly 9:00 am on fourth October on flight no: SG.236. In the flight, we bought some snacks and juice. After one and a half hours, we landed Cochin International Airport.

We were taken by Empees travellers to Newman College courtyard. In between we had oue splendid lunch from Aryas hotel at Muvatupuzha. While coming from Muvatupuzha to Thodupuzha, we evaluated our tour programme. All of us unanimously opined that the tour was successful. Also, some of us got chance to sing songs. Then we thanked God Almighty for all His blessings.

Dear HYDERABAD, you gave us a visual feast!

END

Penned By:

Greshma Clement

D/o Asso. Prof. Clement T. G, Dept. of Chemistry

Student, B.A. English

Newman College Thodupuzha

Kerala, India