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Collection of Interviews published in 'The Hindu'
Articles on Hyderabadis revealing diverse lenses via which to experience the rocky landscape of the city, written by Uma

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.
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Save The Rocks
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Anant Maringanti: Understanding our Quirky Geology
Urban geographer Anant Maringanti talks about the geographic-historic discourse of the city and its contemporary re-mappings.
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Prashant Lahoti: The Other Twin Rocks
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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.
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Krishnakriti Foundation
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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.
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Lata Marur Instagram

Dr. Oudesh Rani Bawa: An Ally and an Asset
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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
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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
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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
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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.”
