The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : City through a German's eyes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 30, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

City through a German's eyes

Staff Reporter

Helminger finds traffic moving forward like ` a herd of bulls'

CAPTIVATED: German writer Guy Helminger sitting on a cannon at Gun Park in the city. Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

Hyderabad : Like to get a new perspective on Hyderabad? Wonder how a German sees the old city. Well, he finds the traffic here pressing forward like a `herd of bulls'. Vehicles push and squeeze through the bottleneck. The traffic expands, contracts, disintegrates and starts again a few metres further. And there is this message crawled on the back of an auto "How am I driving? For feedback please phone .."

These are the impressions of a German writer, Guy Helminger, after a visit to Charminar. Mr. Helminger is here as part of the Indo-German `writers in residence' programme.

Social divide

He finds the auto-rickshaw exhaust as `brown black clouds over the asphalt'. The women around Charminar are in saris that look expensive and elegant while beggars present old and wrinkled faces. Some children are with matted hair in dirty sack-like material while some in perfect school uniforms with ties and braids for the girls. "The visible social divide is obvious at every step", Mr. Helminger writes in his diary.

From atop Charminar, Mr. Helminger finds the city well spread with roads that shoot out in all directions like laser beams. But the horizon is fuzzy as though it is still under construction. What about Lad Bazaar? It is home to bangle manufacturers and sellers. There are open furnaces to heat and shape bangles. As he watches women at work, he is struck by the thought that the label of `chaos' always attached to India only conceals the hidden order of improvisation. "Nothing is really out of place here although this is exactly what it seems one street further", writes Mr. Helminger.

British pub

How about the 10 Downing Street? "I don't know what Downing Street in London looks like, but this pub is very British", he says.

What about the Hyderabadis? Well the Hindus and Muslims get on well, accept the other's peculiarities and look the other way when required. But a few years ago, there were `excesses on both sides' in India. Societies are highly fragile. It does not take much to foment the most trivial resentments bringing everything to boil. "I would be happy if Hyderabad were to prove me wrong", Mr. Helminger says.

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