August 10th: Sunday Funday

We got started surprisingly early for a Sunday. Before you knew it we were packed in a van and headed to Charminar, which means “the four towers”. Charminar is a memorial that sort of resembles an Indian Arc de Triumph. It commemorates a plague that demolished the city many years ago. Charminar is located deep in the old city, which is the oldest part of Hyderabad and primarily Muslim. We walked around Charminar briefly when we arrived, but didn’t go in and look further since it was 100 rupees for foreigners, per usual. As a reference, its usually 5 rupees for Indians.

Charminar

Diviya led us to some local shops down the road, and all the meanwhile a cloud of people trying to sell us trinkets followed us. I spoke with a little boy, going into fifth grade, who, as he tried to sell me pearl necklaces, told me that his favorite subject was English (which was impressively good) and that in fact he was learning five different languages (this included Telagu, Urdu, and Hindi).

We then went to a palace around the corner. I was impressed that this huge gorgeous estate was hiding right there, a wall separating it from streets of small shops. The palace was gorgeous, with fountains and large flowering trees. We walked through exhibitions of photographs and objects owned by old royalty who had lived there.

We then drove back to a newer part of the city to have lunch. The lunch joint was sort of a 1950s diner meets street food. We had to go up to a little bar to order chaat dishes. The best part? The man who held the door open. He had this enormous dark mustache that was reminiscent of Colonel Mustard from the game Clue.

Diviya then brought us to this fancy shop with local clothing, many of the pieces all died by hand by locals. When we left we said goodbye to Lillian, who insisted that she had to get back to her job (weird), and we sadly piled back into the van. Akhila had rejoined our party and brought us to Shilparaman, a local arts and crafts market. We shopped around for an hour or two, getting constantly bombarded by “Hello mam! Come inside, just for a second!” as you tried to browse. Everyone was very successful, purchasing items from saris to wooden platters to tapestries.

On the way home from Shilparaman, our driver ended up getting in an epic show down with a security guard! We all gawked from the car as he threw down his hat and started fist fighting! We all speculated grand stories for what he security guard had said to illicit such a strong reaction.