The aptdc picture of the Hyderabadi community

In the second week of our course we embarked on a one day bus tour of the famous landmarks of Hyderabad.  Our mission: try to glean something about communities surrounding these tourist traps.  Perhaps because we had to start at 6:30 from the SRH and we were traveling without any breakfast, it ended up being a pretty grueling day.  First we visited the old palaces of the Nizams of Hyderabad and their associates.  The first had been turned into a museum, the Salar Jung Museum.  I had visited this museum nine years ago and was slightly disappointed that this museum was the best the A.P. had to offer (having been to ones in New York and D.C.).  The museum at that time was merely a collection of poorly preserved, not truly rare items of Indian origin.  A few items belonging to royal persons of Indian history were the only truly magnificent objects in the museum.  Nine years later, the museum had greatly expanded.  Now it had added new wings to house items from other regions such as Europe and the Far East.  With these being the newer wings, the tour guide’s focus was at these areas.  However, maybe because the security and art preservation at this museum were so lax, the vast majority of the items at the museum only dated to the Qing dynasty and the European art and objects mostly dated to the Victorian era.

The other palaces of the Nizams were more dedicated to documenting the lives of the Nizams.  While their splendor was mildly interesting, what fascinated me more was the Muslim neighborhoods surrounding them.  To learn more about Indian society and culture and its influences on health care access, we focused almost entirely on Hinduism with the exception of a small chapter in The Indians.  In previous trips to India I’d been passingly exposed to Muslims in India in places like the Mughal monuments in Agra.  Only in the most recent visit to India (incidentally for the first time after 9/11) when I flew directly into Hyderabad for the first time did I get a real glimpse of Muslim culture.   Just before the trip in a history class I learned that Hyderabad had been part of a Muslim kingdom, annexed by the Republic of India soon after independence and the Partition.  Despite this, I was surprised upon arriving at the airport in the middle of the night to find that a large number of the women wearing burkas (something you never see in the US).  When I returned to Hyderabad to fly back to the US, I went to Charminar the central landmark of the Old City (which we merely drove by on our tour).  Just by Charminar was Mecca Masjid, 400 years old and the third largest mosque in India.  Here was the heart of Muslim Hyderabad.  I was able to spend a few hours here observing the local people as my sister and aunt shopped for bangles (this place is known for its bangles shops).  Only some of the men wore plain shaliwars and a white caps.  Much more outstanding and thus fascinating was the seemingly large percent of women wearing black burqas, most wearing veils.  At the edges of these black coverings, you could glimpse that underneath they wore regular clothing.  Many of the burqas themselves seemed to have elaborate silver designs on the sleeves or other places.  It was pretty interesting to see a burqa store (on this trip).  My initial reaction was: WOW!  what a fascinating culture to be wearing such unique clothing to be surrounded by a very different culture, aesthetically at least.  But some questions arose too from watching them, mainly about the women.  Why did they wear them?  Was it out of religious conviction?  If not, were the strongly encouraged or pressured to by their religious leaders?  Was it the family?  Would they still wear them when it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit  outside and humid as Hyderabad’s known to be?  How well would this practice continue in next generation and the generation after that?

With these questions in mind I observed the Muslim population.  At the Salaar Jung museum, I noticed a woman in burqa and a man in his very early twenties holding hands as they toured the museum.  It was then that the idea occurred to me that the burqa could also act as a cover from judgmental eye of the community, although whether this actually happens in reality I have no idea.  As we toured on the bus, I was able see into a passing Muslim school.  Interestingly, the teachers were women and wore saris.  I saw several women wearing burqas driving their own motorcycles.  Many walked independently and freely on the streets.  And so, I am baffled about the burqa and the people even more than ever.  Just outside one of the Nizam’s palaces was a hospital that seemed to serve an entirely Muslim population.  A tour of the place and interaction with its clientèle would have enriched and complemented our learning about health-care in India I believe.  Finally, after a lunch that I suspect made me sick the next day and the weekend after, we went to Golconda fort.  Here we saw a hindu puja being performed in a most visceral form with a man invoking the goddess Kali in a trance form.  This was definitely the most fun stop of the day.  We returned home well after dark, exhausted.