Collection of Interviews published in 'The Hindu'
Over the course of their research for the film “Other Kohinoors, The Rocks of Hyderabad” Uma Magal and Mahnoor Yar Khan met and interviewed a host of people and experts from all walks of life who had some connection with the rocks. Uma Magal followed this up by writing a series of articles for The Hindu on some of the people who were interviewed.
Frauke Quader: A Rock Solid Love
Frauke Quader one of the founding members of “Save The Rocks” shares her deep love for the rocks of Hyderabad and her struggle to save them.
Save The Rocks
Anant Maringanti: Understanding our Quirky Geology
Urban geographer Anant Maringanti talks about the geographic-historic discourse of the city and its contemporary re-mappings.
Prashant Lahoti: The Other Twin Rocks
Businessman, art collector and gallery owner Prashant Lahoti has a collection of photographs and maps that transport us to the lost landscape of the twin cities. “Lashkar” a book on the history and growth of Secunderabad by Narindar Luther has been published by him.
Krishnakriti Foundation
Pritam and Venkatesh Chakravarthy: Rock-forms and Gestalt
Pritham and Venkatesh Chakravarthy are well known artist-scholars from Chennai working in theatre and film. “There used to be beautiful spaces where you could sit on rocks and look at the lakes. When you stand on top of any rock you feel a little taller and higher and can even aspire to enlightenment!” says Pritham.
Lata Marur: Who Balanced the Rocks?
The balance of the rocks has always fascinated Lata Marur who’s specialises in ‘rock art.
Lata Marur Instagram
Dr. Oudesh Rani Bawa: An Ally and an Asset
Dr Oudesh Rani Bawa’s is passionately informed about myriad aspects of Hyderabad’s geography, its rock rich-lake filled landscape, its history, its celebrated tehzeeb, the growth of its cosmopolitan communities, its secular traditions, and, most of all, its unique Dakkhani language.
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Bawa Hyderabad
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Dr Ziauddin Shakeb: Poetry on Rocks
Having grown up Hyderabadi and being an Urdu-Persian scholar, historian and an archaeologist, his deep attachment to the city and culture of Hyderabad comes as no surprise. “I just love stone,” he states with simple eloquence. He recites poetry composed around stone, by some of the most talented poets: Shakeel Badaiiyun, Ashraf ul Iman, Josh, Ghalib, Sikandar Ali, Wajd.
Ziauddin Shakeb Poems
Uma Magal: The Gems in our Rocks!
India was the source of the earliest and most valuable diamonds and Golconda diamonds from the basin of the river Krishna were world famous... for example the Kohinoor (now in the British crown collection). While the rocks that are left around us in Hyderabad are not diamonds per se, they are treasures in more ways than one. As the old Dakhani lines say: Voh Kohinoor, voh heere ab na ho toh kya gham, Jawaharate adab se bhara hua hai dakhan.
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Centuries of Opulence
Diyanath Ali: Life on the Rocks
Diyanat Ali was born at a time when the rocks were an integral part of one’s playground. He founded the “Greater Hyderabad Adventure Club,” so he could share his passion of the rocks with the millenniums.
Great Hyderabad Adventure Club
Hoshang Merchant: An Immigrant Remembers
A poet and a professor Hoshang Merchant quotes the old Hyderabadi saying “ Gandipet ka paani piye toh iddharich marna!” (Once you’ve drunk of the waters of Gandipet Lake you have to die here!). The rocks en-route to the University where he taught inspired him to write the poem “Golkonda Rocks.”
Aparajita Sinha: City’s Unique Natural Heritage
Aparajita Roy Sinha laments the changing environs of Hyderabad since the time she moved here. “I was entranced. On stormy days one could see the storm clouds coming in over the rocks. Coming home from school, my children would get rid of their bags and shoes and run onto the rocks. They learned to live with snakes, wild rabbits etc. It was a magical childhood.”
About Aparajita Sinha
Lenny Emanuel: Living with Rocks in Hyderabad
Lenny Emanuel pays a pictorial ode to rocks by capturing some of the beautiful stone buildings in the city. His enthusiasm for the city came across not in words, but, in the photographs that he has shot over the years.
Ted Talk: Saving Hyderabad's heritage
Lakshmi Devi Raj: A Hyderabadi Marker for Home
There is a lovely little rock park in front of Lakshmi Devi Raj’s home. Beautiful rocks in the park form a miniature showcase for the landscape of our region. In the 1990’s, when Mrs. Raj came to live here, the park was a dump yard. She initiated a neighbourhood program to recover the park.
Coming soon
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Dr Anand Raj Varma: What is in a Name!
Dr Varma has written the book ‘Hyderabad: Mohalle, Galli aur Koonche’, introduced us to some interesting rock spaces… up from the old Jahanuma Palace, is Biryani-Shah Tekri, which legend has it, lived up to its name by the fact that anyone could always avail of hot biryani there. In fact the story goes that there is a huge indentation on the rock from the vessel that the biryani got made in.
Hyderabadi Sitare: with
Dr Anand
Chaya Katti: Rock Art
In referencing the rocky landscape in Hyderabadi art, poetry, textiles, jewellery, Professor Katti’s paintings, are a rare find. Mrs. Katti describes the top floor of their old family home, in Tilak Nagar, having a hexagon shaped room made of stones, as the space that Mr Katti painted in. Mrs. Katti says, “We Hyderabadis who live among the rocks have a love for them. We never thought that people would play with nature for their own selfish reasons. Rocks and Hyderabad go together.”
Coming soon
Narendra Luther: If Rocks Could Talk
Historian Narendra Luther’s valuable initiatives to save rocks motivated many a rock lover to stay committed to the cause.
Narendra Luther Archives
Anne Chapuis and Luc de Golbery: Still and Steady
Anne Chapuis and Luc de Golbery anthropologists/geographers made Hyderabad their home as they studied the normadic tribes of the region.
Jagdish and Kamala Mittal: Rocks & Exhilaration
The Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art in Hyderabad has an invaluable art collection. The museum is a lifetime work of love and knowledge on the part of Mittal sahab (a PadmaShri awardee himself for this) and his late wife Kamla.
Jagdish and Kamla Mittal
Museum
Samar Ramachandra: Retain the Rocks
Samar Ramachandra an architect talks about the difficult in designing among and around the rocks.
Samar Ramachandra Associates
Burgula Narsing Rao: The Many Uses of Stone
From pelting stones at the cops to hiding under Nayapul bridge, rocks were an integral part of Hyderabad’s political history, says Burgula Narsing Rao.
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Coming soon
Ismat Mehdi: The Treasure in the Rocks!
We learn of the care with which Mrs. Mehdi’s new home is being constructed, to ensure that no rocks are broken. Pillars have been set in between rocks, an apparently difficult process because of the uneven ground. But her determination to keep the rocks, childhood companions and markers of home in Hyderabad, outweighs the challenges.
Debjani Mukherjee: Great Natural Hosts!
Mukherjee found that moving to Hyderabad whose beautiful rocky terrain is a natural host to diverse wildlife. Rock treks with kids and friends were common, as were peacock sightings. Snakes like the rock python, cobras, vine and rat snakes were common among the rocks.
Friends of Snakes
