Random Gas - 4

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http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/01590/19hytls09-Idol-_HY_1590781g.jpg

I was talking about my first trip to Hyderabad, in 1975.

For three full days I had to reluctantly walk the streets of Hyderabad by force of circumstances...just to beguile my time. I was never a tourism buff, having always been a cot potato. 

But, on the first day, as I was walking on the road, I heard a private bus conductor pimp for his custom:

"Begumpet! Begumpet!"

That transported me to my school days at Muthukur once again. For we had to mug up the short list of our Airports:

1. Bombay...Santa Cruz (no idea what Santa meant nor what Cruz was...none of us asked and none told...now I know!)

2. Calcutta...Dum Dum (this was worse as far as its meaning went...even now I don't know what Dum Dum, why Dum Dum...unless it was a place for dhakias...ok ok!...Wiki tells me that the name came from Dumdoma, the sound of bullets of the British Royal Artillery Armory of 1890s)

3. Delhi...Paalam (ditto)

4. Madras...Meenambakam (meenam part was clear but not the bakam)

5. Hyderabad...Begumpet (this we knew...Muthukur was full of Begums...one of our classmates was named Akhtar Begum)

One of my uncles was in the RAF which turned into IAF like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. He once visited us at Muthukur and quizzed me to name the airport of Hyderabad (where he was then posted). And I said triumphantly: "Begumpet". And he smiled and said:

"That is for civilians (with a smirk)...the real airport of Hyderabad is in Hakimpet"

That was news to me and I won several bets on it with my friends.

Anyway, when I heard 'Begumpet' again after 20 years I felt very nostalgic.

Talking of nostalgia, I read the other day that it is good for the mental health of old fools...it buoys up their spirits.

In 1975 Hyderabad was not in my consciousness at all. The first I heard of this place was in my boyhood when we used to collect empties of cigarette packets...they were our currency. And there was this Charminar packet with a picture of the thing in yellow, red, and black. I asked Father about it...he was a non-smoker and never visited Hyderabad...but he apparently knew all about it...good teacher!

Ours seem to be a generation in flux. First we heard so many stories of World War II (most of them British mythology). And the only city we at Nellore ever visited was Madras...Father studied there. And it was the Capital of our Madras Presidency.

Then we dumb Andhras fought the wily Tamilians and won our freedom from them after one of our Nellore Chettiyars died for our cause after starving for 50 odd days. He was our hero and we had to mug up his name (Potti Sreeramulu).

Then we had to mug up the name of the capital of our nascent Andhra State...it was called Kurnool...never heard of it.

Then we had to revise our mugging and learn that the capital of our new Unified State called Andhra Pradesh is Hyderabad, after the so-called Telangana was merged with it willy-nilly.

We are now again on the brink of a de-unification (bifurcation is not accurate). And we have to relearn the names of the two (or three) new capitals.

Sigh!

Coming back to my aimless wandering on the streets of Hyderabad, I walked into what the railway station there proclaimed "Khairatabad" (we lived there for 3 years recently). And as I continued my walk I suddenly saw a huge water body and my heart leaped like Wordsworth's on seeing his daffodils.

I had no clue to what it was called. On discreet inquiries I was told it was the famous Hussain Sagar Lake...everything in Hyderabad is FAMOUS for its residents. I tried to walk around the thing but gave it up...it would have taken me an entire day. Mythology tells me that, once upon a time, 500 years ago, when it was dug up by Hussain Saheb, it was 10 times or 100 times (choice is yours) its size in 1975. 

Now the lake has shrunk by a factor of 1000 and also got polluted.

Wiki tells me that the water of Hussain Sagar was potable, even in 1975, and I was drinking it in my Ladies' Dorm at midnight.    

Now of course it is all very different, to say the least:

HYDERABAD: The city's most important water body, the Musi River, has turned in to a sewage line. Almost 80% of Hyderabad's untreated sewage gets dumped into the city's lakes so much so that the city's drinking water (Manjeera) now demonstrates an alarmingly high presence of excreta...Most of the 934 tanks (lakes) in and around Hyderabad (as per 1973 records) have disappeared...

 http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-07-26/hyderabad/32868128_1_water-bodies-cse-report-nitya-jacob

In addition to mere human excreta, the lake is also polluted by divine droppings (see the picture above).

Not only that...the depth of the lake has decreased by a factor of 10 or 100 (choice is yours again) due to perennial dumping in the lake bed....it was never dredged properly. 

And encroachment has been rampant.

So, every monsoon, we read of stories that the Hussain Sagar Lake overflowed after a tiny spell of rain, and water entered the ground floors and basements of the surrounding apartments, and the tenants had to bring out their mugs and buckets.

This reminds me of Rory's gag in Ring for Jeeves:

"The river is at the bottom of the garden in summer months and the garden is at the bottom of the river in the winter months"

Ring for Jeeves also has Rory's 3 famous Bigger conundrums:

1. "Who is bigger: Mr Bigger or Mrs Bigger?"

"Mrs Bigger....for, she became Bigger"  

2. "Who is bigger: Mr Bigger or Master Bigger?"

 "Master Bigger...for, he is a little Bigger"


3.  "Who is bigger: Mr Bigger or his spinster sister?"

"His spinster sister...for, she is always Bigger"

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