We, the valiant; at Char Minar, a day before Id

Okay, so we got a little adventurous, a little more than what our usual sense of risk-taking would allow. We cancelled a Saturday evening at the club to go rub shoulders with what constitutes, “the basic, native hyderabadi”. Being labelled ‘outsiders’ at most places and bearing the yoke of prefixed notions the town population has (or does not have) of an average fauji, most of us endeavour to mingle with the spirit of the place if not get totally mixed in it. With that emotion, two cars with three couples and five children set out on an expedition to the Char Minar at about 9.30 last night.

We had heard about the ‘raunak’ that pervades the entire place just a little before Id. And it was Id just a day later, just the time to go and see the fervour peak. We went with expectations of naked light bulbs on ropes, food joints on ‘thelas’, the smell of perspiration mingled with the aroma of mutton kebabs, haggling with vendors, all kinds of clothes and cheap toys vying for the customers’ attention – it was all of these and a little more, well perhaps a lot more.

To begin with, we kept going around in circles with the GPS on phones and the ‘guides’ on the road. One of us was wise enough to park at least a kilometre away. The friend who drove the car we were in was adamant about taking it all the way up. He felt, where there is a will, there is a way. He had the will, and there was a way, unfortunately this way was clogged with people, people on motorised contraptions, just as helplessly stuck as he was behind the wheel. We must have landed in one of the most densely populated places in the world. However, our friend was convinced in his mind that despite established, logical reason of bad traffic in the last kilometre, the law of averages will apply and we will get a parking space. Since he’s rather new at learning statistics, I dared not ask him about any law or any average. There was no place to set foot on, leave alone place to set a small car, but this intrepid warrior was convinced that there is nothing better than self-belief and so he charged on. Three adults walked, while 5 kids, my friend who was driving, and I sat in the car.

We were like ants foraging, waiting at every step – asking the paan wala, the footballers, the old maulwi, young newly-weds, how far the place was. Each one smiled and told us the same – just a little ahead.   The road was milling over with vehicles – smoke spewing giant buses, cars of all makes and sizes, bicycles, scooters, motorcycles and even mopeds which I thought had become extinct in today’s time and age. The place was as abuzz as Vegas at midnight. Teenage eyes looked at us with open curiosity from within black burqas in the auto, pedestrians moved between the microscopic space between the vehicles, ‘haleem’ joints on either side of the road worked stoically, sweat poured down the drivers’ foreheads, traffic policemen tried to manage the maddening onslaught of vehicles from each direction – it was action at its best.  One of the auto drivers kept moving alongside within kissing distance of the car. He even struck a conversation with the kids on the rear seat!! Good idea at companionship, considering we were covering about 1 metre in 5 minutes on an average.

We waited every step; and got the same ans, “Go ahead and cut to the right.” My friend and I talked, “All this was expected, this is the real experience, the real flavour of the place, the real India”, trying to pep ourselves up. Inwardly we groaned and outwardly the kids of my friend gave him hell about why they were here.  Thankfully my daughter slept through it all and my son is still young enough to be dazzled by lights and new situations.

And then life came to a standstill. At a chowk, when we were so close to our destination, all the vehicles stood still. Where roads converge there is generally a gol chakkar, this ‘standstill chowk’ had a little masjid where there were roads going three-way.  Two harried policemen tried ineffectively to clear the roadblock, using hands, conversation, eye contact, all possible gestures, using every bit of their training and common sense. Except for them, nothing else on the road moved. Nobody switched off the ignition in the hope that we might move…. ‘now’. Well that ‘now’ came more than 15 minutes later.  It was for an interminably long 15 minutes that all of us sat exposed in full vulnerability to the noxious fumes being discharged in alarming quantities. There was a palpable cheer, as accelerators purred, but the cheer didn’t last even a few seconds. There was no space on the road to the right – remember the right cut we were to take.

We inched ahead and found three rotund middle aged men sitting on a small slab protruding from the wall of the little masjid. I was amazed at their equanimity as I studied their languor, feet dangling, sitting in this gas chamber, looking on at the traffic as if enjoying the sea view from a high-rise condominium by the Mediterranean. These men advised us not to take the ‘right’ route. Well my friend and I knew no other route except the ‘right’ one. So right we took. The silver lining of my friend’s self-belief, albeit a little unfounded, shone through the dark cloud of traffic and our car moved. Whew! Victory! This little gali afforded us some mobility and magically we found a parking space some three hundred metres away from the Char Minar. Self-belief, I tell you….Incidentally our companions who’d walked, were already at Char Minar a good twenty five minutes ago.

We placed ourselves right at the base of the Char Minar, the kids excited about the policeman on top of the Minar. Announcements blared on megaphones – lost and found people, warning to beware of pickpockets, advice to keep children close. There were police cars, fruit vendors, and not to forget a sea of people. These people were moving about, asking us for space to pass. The place we are at is not even a road or a passage. But what the heck, it’s Id and I guess people around us believe in making their own road. Then began the mad dance of finding who was where. Phones rang but no one picked up. When connection was finally made, neither our companions nor we understood our respective geographical locations.  Advertisement hoardings high up were exchanged as points of reference when suddenly, movie-like, I spotted them moving towards us from within a maze of people.

The Jab We Met moment over, we jumped into the vortex of the buzz. Each adult held on tight to a kid’s hand as we automatically got sucked into the human mass that moved as one unified whole. Our lives were not in our hands now. We were part of a greater plan. As the poor children’s view got reduced to various pairs of legs draped in different colours, we craned our necks to look ahead and back, to ensure our team stayed together. On a narrow road, there was a whole line of carts and vendors running through the middle like an aorta. And it wasn’t as if they’d become a divider for people to move only from the left. In the width meant for four people to walk at one time there were at least 12 jostling for space and they came from both directions. At one time I felt that the earth is spitting up humans from within its bowels. I thought I had stopped breathing. There were people everywhere, an aerial view would have shown heads inches apart, maybe like a cross-section of a bee’s hive. As I smelt the oil from the head ahead of me and a lady’s salwar got stuck into my kid’s feet we sought refuge in one of the by-lanes – our eyes popping out at the assortment of bangles here. The array of size, colour, variety, material, craftsmanship – the bangle-world was a kaleidoscope. Getting our breath back as we foraged the bangle shops, we once again charged into the lane. We like the adrenalin rush you see.

The carts in the middle of the road were the lifeblood of the market. Their wares and lights made the market a large Christmas Tree.  The permanent shops could do nothing to match their prices and bling.  There was jewellery of varied colours and varieties, the vendors using their vocal chords to optimum for on the spot advertising. There was mehndi and skull caps; bags – clutches, potlis, jholas, et al; bangles; laces selling for as cheap as a roll of thread; plastic lamps and toys; we were overwhelmed, to say the least.

The kids finally compelled us to go on a road less travelled (read less crowded), our team now split into three familial units. The daughter bought trinkets, clips and jewellery – only the ones that had all gold on it, the son bought tops that let out light when they spun and then we sat at a shop full of semi-precious stones, waiting for our friends to turn up. The husband went on a rescue mission to get everyone together. The son went off to sleep on the counter. The daughter stayed bright and chirpy as she scrutinised the colour of each stone. I saw each possible colour and variety of stone, asked its name and origin, and the wait proved pretty expensive as I ended up buying some stuff, of which I had no clue in terms of its value or price.

Thankfully two families converged at one place. The third one walked down to the place of parking (the one a kilometre away). We ought to have headed towards our car. But you see, for us women, our gender gets the better of us and even at 2 in the morning, with sleepy kids in our arms, we snoop around a bit, pick up some more fruits, click a few pictures (much to the chagrin of the males) and ask the lady selling mutton chops, how she’s cooked them!!! Curiosity killed the cat, our snoopiness asphyxiated our partners.

Finally crammed in a small car – 4 adults and 4 children, we made it to the parking spot where our wiser friend had parked. In a floodlit open area, there is a football match in progress. The men have ‘haleem’ and do not dare to analyse the just-ended arduous expedition. Enervated and a little staggered with our discovery of the place, we are relieved to head back. We’ve been there, done that. We have been declared (by our own self-established committee) as brave people, who dared to become a mere speck on the huge human map who walked these roads just a day before Id. We have etched our place in vestibules of time – the only people who dared to venture into a place at a time when no one from Dhruva Enclave could. But before I end, I must tell you all, ‘Valour is the better part of discretion’. Please use discretion before you become valiant enough to enter a place you might not be able to get out of.