the mecca masjid is a mosque in hyderabad's old city, one of the largest and oldest in india. as a woman, i have never been allowed to enter it, but in front there are several becnches made of black stone slabs and it is said that s/he who sits on them will return to hyderabad. when i lived here half a year ago, i made sure to sit on them on several occasions, and the myth has proven itself true!
this time around, i am free of obligations. i am traveling with my good friend ashley- a fellow ciee-er who continued to live here in her own flat three months after i left, so she's been away for an even shorter period than i. purely by chance we booked the same second leg of the flight to india, so ashley and i met in zurich and flew to mumbai together, where we took a hotel room from midnight to 4am and then were off again on another flight to hyderabad. we arrived in the early morning and i don't even know how to begin to describe how the first rickshaw ride made me feel, so i won't even begin to try, except to say that initially contentment manifested itself physically in every inch of my body, specifically my gut and my eyeballs, and then i began to feel as if i had never left at all. we booked a cheapcheap hotel in nampully which everyone later scolded us for, and went for coffee and hookah at our old spot. within hours we had seen many of our old friends and one thing led to another, so we have been here now five days- instead of heading to goa for the new year we decided to stay in hyderabad and celebrate with our favorite people in all of india. more on this and our other adventures later.
anyway, i am writing from a computer in SIP guesthouse on the HCU campus where we used to live, we are waiting for our bus tickets to bangalore to be delivered, but on hyderabadi time 10:30 means noon, and they are still not here. we are visiting with our old friend mr das, the guesthouse manager, and i also had some chai with my gay indian poetry professor hoshang, who wants to go to goa with us. we have to run off to the airport now to buy tickets from bangalore to cochin, but hopefully i will have time and computer access to keep up this blog.
this time around, i am free of obligations. i am traveling with my good friend ashley- a fellow ciee-er who continued to live here in her own flat three months after i left, so she's been away for an even shorter period than i. purely by chance we booked the same second leg of the flight to india, so ashley and i met in zurich and flew to mumbai together, where we took a hotel room from midnight to 4am and then were off again on another flight to hyderabad. we arrived in the early morning and i don't even know how to begin to describe how the first rickshaw ride made me feel, so i won't even begin to try, except to say that initially contentment manifested itself physically in every inch of my body, specifically my gut and my eyeballs, and then i began to feel as if i had never left at all. we booked a cheapcheap hotel in nampully which everyone later scolded us for, and went for coffee and hookah at our old spot. within hours we had seen many of our old friends and one thing led to another, so we have been here now five days- instead of heading to goa for the new year we decided to stay in hyderabad and celebrate with our favorite people in all of india. more on this and our other adventures later.
anyway, i am writing from a computer in SIP guesthouse on the HCU campus where we used to live, we are waiting for our bus tickets to bangalore to be delivered, but on hyderabadi time 10:30 means noon, and they are still not here. we are visiting with our old friend mr das, the guesthouse manager, and i also had some chai with my gay indian poetry professor hoshang, who wants to go to goa with us. we have to run off to the airport now to buy tickets from bangalore to cochin, but hopefully i will have time and computer access to keep up this blog.
posted by beeke at 8:37 PM
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