Step out of the bubble...(2)

Across town in the bubble, Saturday night, on the edge of darkness – total bloody chaos!

Over-laden scooters, rusting tut-tuts, smelly trucks, crowded buses, people dodging, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk. I look up at the people in the ramshackle, dented, yellow bus next to us. A man hangs his head out of the window clutching a rag to his mouth – toothache? Another man a little further down reaches over the passenger sitting next to him, leans out of the open window, and allows fluid that looks like blood to dribble from his mouth and onto the road. I look away and decide that I won’t write about that. Toot, toot, a scooter carrying three teenage boys, squeezes between us and the bus, they only just make the gap and dart in front of us, toot, toot.

We are surrounded. The road is six wide and thousands deep with bikes, cars, buses, too many tut-tuts to count, and the occasional cart. It slows, stops, slows and then stops again. We remain stopped – there’s an intersection ahead, four streams of traffic from four different directions converge as one, some wanting to go left, some right, some straight ahead, and others who seem to want to go in all of those directions and a few more if the can find them…and nobody has right of way!

We crawl our way to the front, our driver skilfully manoeuvring our vehicle between lanes and around other obstructing vehicles with a precision that a Swiss watchmaker would envy. To our left there’s a crunch. We look out of the portholes - a scooter carrying two young men has gone into the back of a tut-tut. In an instant everyone is out – driver, passengers, riders, passers-by – they all stand around waving their arms and pointing at…each other, the vehicles, the road, the stars – yes that’s it, blame it on the stars, it’s all their fault, they should have foreseen this and stopped it happening. Surprisingly this is the first collision we've seen whilst we have been here – perhaps the Indians are great drivers, not merely good ones.

We reach the head of the intersection. Traffic pours towards us from all directions and I begin to understand what it feels like to be approaching the top of a waterfall in a barrel. Our driver spots a gap. He takes it. Toot. We go over the edge and struggle not to flow with the water, toot, toot, the current takes us to the left, but we want a right, our driver pulls on the tiller and we begin to move over, toot, toot, toot, in front of us we barely miss a tut-tut caught up in a strong current and being pulled directly across our bows, tooooooot, I think she’s going to hit - but she swirls away in a flurry of spray. Our driver negotiates the rapids between a lorry and a car…look out! – toot, toooot, another tut-tut is coming our way, “Thar she blows!”, our driver hits the brakes, tooooooooooot, the tut-tut flashes past, another gap in the waves, and our driver gives it full steam, toot, toot, toot, toot, we fly out across the torrent , tooot, barely missing still another tut-tut, toot, toot, and reach the relative calm of the tributary we were trying to reach. Phew!

It’s calmer here. Still busy, but calmer. We know there will be other rapids to negotiate and more waterfalls to deal with – at one point we have to manage a roundabout where some vehicles decide to go to the right, and others to the left, like a large directionless whirlpool – but we are making progress, slow progress, but progress nevertheless – our destination, the Old City of Hyderabad and the legendary Charminar.







It is getting darker and the traffic is getting heavier, time to get off of the main roads and onto the back-roads.

Our driver swings a right and suddenly we are travelling back it time. The roads become narrower, the potholes bigger, the buildings crumblier, the electricity dimmer, the air thicker, and most importantly the traffic thinner. Out of the window I can see that we are passing buildings that must be hundreds of years old, shops mainly, no glass, no doors, open, brightly lit, walk right in places selling fruit, fish, meat, pots, pans, cloth, dreams, life, love – and who knows what else. I look out at a shop where live chickens and ducks hang from the eaves in wicker cages, to one side goats are tethered to a rail, and in a large glass tank big black catfish swim – I hope that its a pet shop but somehow I doubt it. Above this shop, behind a rickety wooden balcony, perches another shop “J. Krishna – skin disorders and V.D. specialist” the sign reads – I wonder what Mr Krishna’s speciality is – treatment?

We turn left onto a dust surfaced road. On both sides I can see even more open fronted single story shops, each joined to the other, and each selling the SAME thing - motor scooters - hundreds of new and used motor scooters – shop after shop of them. Another left and we are in a road where every shop sells tyres, a right - granite and marble tables, a left – saris, another right – lamps, another right – vegetables, and so it goes on – how can this work? How can you ever decide which shop to buy from? They are all selling the same thing – so what is it? Price? Reputation? Recommendation? Credit terms? No, not credit terms, I doubt that these guys do credit.

Back onto the main road, and in the distance I see a huge arched square structure with a minaret at each corner. Its glowing with light. We have arrived at the Charminar.

Legend has it that the building honours a promise that its builder, Mahammad Quli Qutb Shah, made to Allah. He supposedly prayed for the end of a plague and vowed to build a masjid on the site that he was praying. The plague must have ended and Mahammad built the Charminar. I don’t know if it’s a masjid or not because I don’t know what a masjid is, but whatever the Charmina is its very beautiful and is at least a hundred and seventy feet tall – so Mahammad kept his promise in my view.

Our driver pulls up right by it and we get out to take a look - and immediately I am surrounded by India.

Our trip to Golconda had only been a taster - I was out of the bubble, and I'm not prepared for the force that hits me as I stand in the market at Charminar. I'm not just in India – I am ENGULFED by it - at this moment, for an instant, I feel part of it - and all around me are the most incredible buildings – minarets, arched widows, ornate carvings – all hundreds of years old, all crumbling into decay. In front of me in the distance I can see what I guess is a huge Mosque, the minarets tall and spindly are bathed in light. I look around the crowded streets – I can’t see any other Europeans no matter how far I look, no Japanese, Americans, Australians, or blonds come to that – what did they tell jokes about, I wonder?

The crowd around me is a sea of buying, selling, looking, bartering, tasting, touching. I get the feeling that everything that could happen - and some things that couldn’t - are happening somewhere very close to me. I can tell that I am in a Muslim area – the dark brown eyes of Muslim women are everywhere - their bodies totally enclosed by black Burkhas. The glimpse of eyes add to the exotic feel of the place, the eyes are beautiful – I think I’d better stop looking before someone notices me. We wander around, the place is so cinematic that I won't even blink if Peter Lorre wanders past me wearing a white suit and smoking a Camel cigarette. We’ve been told to walk purposefully and not hesitate when the traffic comes towards us – with my heart in my mouth I boldly step in front of a stream of tut-tuts, scooters, and cars and purposefully cross the road. They all miss me, only some have to swerve, and at one point a car brushes my hand - I make it to the other side of the road and enter a narrow street.

I am in a magical place. The street shines with colour, it sparkles and glows from the reflected light of a thousand glass gemstones, every shop for as far as my eye can see sell bangles – thousands upon thousands of bangles. The shopkeepers beckon me – I want to go to them, barter with them, buy some coloured bangles from them. But I don't - instead I throw myself back into the road and purposefully stride to another street selling slippers and shoes. There are shoes of every colour, sandals made from every type of leather and plastic known to man, maybe even some unknown to man. I longingly gaze at the fantastic sequined slippers, all curly toes like ones worn in Panto by Aladdin. I want some, I need some - But I'm too wary of bartering to stop and buy some.

Back, purposefully, into the traffic, across the road to the fruit vendors. There are all kinds of fruits here. I recognise some, but not others. The smell is heady with pungent fruity aromas, water glistens on dampened fruit, piles of dates lay on magic carpets just waiting to rise and take flight, the noise of the crowd is deafening. Something tugs my shirt. I look down - a small dwarf girl looks back, imploring me with her eyes to give her money. I shake my head. She tugs again. A boy carrying bangles comes up to me and asks me if I'm American. I shake my head. German? The dwarf girl tugs my shirt. English? A woman with a baby in her arms rushes across to me and puts her hand on my arm. Two of her fingers are missing. I shudder. Is she a leper? The boy is repeating English, English, English? The dwarf girl tugs hard at my shirt. The leper woman holds out her baby and implores me to give her money.

I am in India up to my neck.

I break free of the spell and purposefully walk away.

Later, safely back in the bubble I wonder what would have happened if I’d bought some bangles from the boy, or given some money to the dwarf girl or the leper woman. Would that have been the cue for dozens of others to have rushed me selling or asking me for money – what other wonders might I have seen? Now that the feeling of “unsettlement” has disappeared, I almost feel a sense of loss for not having embraced them.

India had approached me – and I’d turned my back.

To get a feel for the Charminar and the surrounding market go here: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1807659/charminar_hyderabad/