One for the family

The slices of history you stumble upon in the narrowest lanes of Hyderabad, I tell you!


Yeah! I just had to upload the pictures asap on facebook and comment with that line on the precious piece of history my uncle, mom and me had accidentally come across on one of our characteristic days out in the city (lol, more like trying to get errands done, driving through insane traffic and in this case, oppressive heat! gawd!) But the gem in question that made everything so worthwhile was spotting Sir Nizamat Jung's library...like a vista which opened up at the end of this cute, tiny and absolutely charming lane.


You know how it is - you feel for something that means a lot to you. We were like an excited bunch of kids. And that's because my granddad, who was quite a scholar, gave an almost biblical credence to Sir Nizamat Jung's interpretation of the Quran and he passed on that quality of intellectual insightfulness to his children who in turn taught it to the present generation - my cousins, my siblings and me (oh, and I love family legacies!). Seeing and discovering stuff about someone and something we'd literally grown up on was quite a treat.


My uncle wanted me to write about Sir Nizamat Jung, his life and work here (that's so sweet) but I think he'll be able to a better job of it. I think I'll write about the rest of our day. It's one of those days - simple, humble, very 'everyday' -  that leaves a lingering delicious flavour even when it comes to an end and which you know will make for great nostalgia down the years. 


So, there we were, back home after our day's jaunts,  sipping gratefully on Roohafzah and complaining about the hottest summer our city had seen in 9, 20 and 100 years according to different newspaper reports! Weather is, really, the greatest conversation starter ever! And then leap frogging to Sir Nizamat Jung, granddad, reliving old memories, a unanimous call for tea (yeah, tea time!), back to heat, a reading by mom from a newspaper article on the 'shoals of language' - the use of the formal and pristine 'aap' and 'hum' (that we completely identify and agree with, and use) compared to the rather 'uncouth tu and tum' and another sprinkling of memories.


The heavy dose of memories is almost always injected by grandmom into the flowing conversation with such exuberance and a loud tone to match that we have to stop midway and listen (sometimes reluctantly!) to days gone by. Here, she recalled to memory some ancient incident where she and her merry band of relatives were left high and dry on a sojourn during one of their adventurous travels across the country.  The accommodation they'd arranged (a relative's relative's home, that's how it works!) was unavailable at the last moment leaving them with nowhere to go in the middle of the night! "Nikalna khund se aadam ka sunte aaye the leykin, bohot beaabaroo ho kar tere kuuche se hum nikle", she spontaneously remarked with that Ghalib's sher! Room or no room, the group of travellers broke into 'wah, wahs' and enjoyed the comedy of their situation, she remembers.  


And that sher set the tone for the rest of the evening...it's just one of those days...one with the family.