A tale of twin cities

From far it looked like a shrine. Lit up by focus lights, it could be I thought the kind of tiny shrines that stand outside churches and schools with an image of Mary or Jesus inside a grotto.

But that was unlikely, as there was no reason for such a shrine to be created inside the  precincts of a railway station!
I had just got off the train at Begumpet station, in Secunderabad. It was still early in the morning and my eyes were clouded by the sleep I had hastily abandoned to be able to disembark before the Mumbai Bhuwaneshwar Konark Express carried me off triumphantly beyond my destination.

Little wonder the shrine that stood just beyond the platform had me confused.

On closer inspection it proved to be a fenced in arrangement of rocks. They stood one atop the other, large rock on smaller one, and others grouped around, and the light that was focused on them gave them a strange presence.

It was I knew, no sculptor’s creation, but possibly what nature had created, eons ago, when the great ice had had deposited these rocks in their seemingly gravity defying arrangements. They had however defied gravity for centuries beyond any counting.
What time could not do, man had done. Swiftly and effectively. 

Since the years when I lived in the twin cities, the place had changed considerably. In fact sometimes beyond recognition. Some would say for the better. The grubby streets are clean, no heaps of rubbish lie about, the roads are clean, colonies cleaner, and flyovers and malls make it vie with any city anywhere in the world.

But the city I knew is gone.  Topographically, the cities were known for their smattering of rocks, that lived in peaceful coexistence with homes, cattle and their owners. Cars made roundabouts to respect the rock’s right of space, even the house I have lived in had two levels, to accommodate the fact that one balcony rested on a large rock!

None of that remains. It was only on my way out, as I took the now long drive to the new, swanky airport, that I caught sight of the old terrain I knew. Rocks stood in clusters, or lay by the roadside, a gentle coat of monsoon green covering the undulating land. Dig the turf and I knew that I would encounter a stubborn layer of rock just beneath.

The Deccan is one of India’s most amazing testimonials to the evolution of the earth and the existence of the ice age.
And the twin cities were known as much for their rock dotted landscapes as for the Charminar and the lake named Hussain Sagar  that connects them.

But development had paid little heed to the stories the rocks could tell to add texture and history to the lives of those whom they built homes for.

Today, those stories have been replaced by others, that shout from outsize billboards, and sell everything from cars to films to phone networks to … more new homes! And the tragedy to me is the fact that no one misses the lost drama of nature engrossed as they are in the theatre of the new material world!

Little wonder then, that a shrine was needed, where by some chance, the formation had been left untouched by hammer or bulldozer.

One that future generations, should they realize their folly, could bring their children to, to show them, the wonder that the city once could boast of as part of its uniqueness!