Hyderabad blog

The new penfriend Jackie Mason turned out to be a woman.Going by her male-sounding name I addressed her as Mr.Mason.She wrote that she was looking forward to a kite festival she was going to participate in .Here was a simple person who loves the ordinary pleasures of life and enjoys her work as an administrative officer in a wild life reserve in Northern England. She hails from Scotland but has spent a major part of her life in England.
About our own kite festivals I wrote to her :

"I am happy to know that you are participating in a kite festival. Here in India we have our kite festivals during January when the sky is translucent blue and a gentle breeze is blowing to keep the kites afloat. The kites are flown in a spirit of healthy rivalry with people from one terrace trying to cut threads of the people flying kites from other terraces . The threads are treated with glue mixed with pieces of glass and if the kite comes in contact with a neighbour’s kite it may snap the thread in the mid-air and the kite falls to the ground accompanied by victory cries from the entire neighbourhood. This festival usually falls on the 14 th January when there is a sudden transition from winter to summer and the rice sown in July-August is harvested .Monsoon in India means a lot because 75% of the people depend for their livelihood on agriculture which is entirely dependent upon the fickle monsoon. Sometimes the monsoon does not come for months on end disappointing the people . A whole lot of literature is naturally devoted to the monsoon. Most of the fine arts like classical music and dance and poetry have the rains as the most dominant theme."

Yesterday we heard Dr.Pattabhiram ,the famous hypno-therapist speak .It was a scintillating speech.We had this Kuchipudi dance , a very memorable performance by a few young artists.Kuchipudi is a very intricate dance involving extremely supple movements of the body almost like a trapeze artist's movements.Unless one starts at a very young age it is difficult to get into this dance-form.

The weather , which used to be very nasty hardly a fortnight ago, has now changed to a fine weather with the temperature having coming down dramatically.The gul mohur opposite is blazing like live coals while the good old tamarind has started budding for the next season.Birds of several hues can be seen these days in the vicinity.The trees are expectantly awaiting the arrival of the monsoon .

The Penguins were supposed to give some special bargains for their books till yesterday starting from some 10 days ago.I didnt find much to pick up as the bargain did not seem to be very inviting.From the bookstore in Chikadpally we headed for Ravindrabharati where we saw some exquisite drawings by the famous cartoon artiste Bapu.The Ramayana drawings on plain glossy paper were very pretty.Bapu's drawings are known for their simple elegance , especially the figures of young women with their exaggerated lissomness.

Yesterday we ate at the Malgudi restaurant .The ambience of the joint is remarkable.As somebody has said the place is crawling with ethnically dressed waiters .There seemed to be no short supply of them.The service was not bad.As for the taste of the food there was nothing special about the stuff .

Hyderabad is presently drawing thousands of people from across the country for the fish medicine this man Gaud is administering ,(in the mrigasir karti )to asthma sufferers.An estimated two and a half lakhs of people have descended on the city from all over the country.When I was returning from Srikakulam last week I could not get a railway berth in the emergency quota and consequently I had to get down in Vizag and catch the Godavari express the next day.
What we read in the newspapers is that the medicine seems to be working .Otherwise why would anybody come for the second time or the third time ?Still a lot of questions seem to remain unanswered.

The last three days I was in the Araku Valley to attend an inhouse meeting organised there. As part of the entertainment the delegates (of course our own colleagues ) were shown the performance of the dimsa dance , a tribal dance popular among the tribals of the Araku Valley.I am not sure if this dance has ever been performed in the Shilparamam .It is an extremely energetic form of dance involving the highest synchronisation skills possible.The group of sixteen female tribals performed the snake-like movements gracefully to the accompaniment of the shehnai-like instrument(baka) and the famous dappu (a percussion instrument).