Sounds of a city, wounds of a tree
February 27, 2024, 11:45 am , by Richard Lutz
RICHARD LUTZ hears India all around him
The colour, the alarming chaos and vitality of Hyderabad are left behind for a couple of days as I spend time in an Indian hospital. One minute I’m patrolling the vast corridors of Chowmahala Palace. The next I am being lifted off the floor.
Outside my hospital room, perched on a hill, all I could take in is the noise, layer upon layer of sound from this city the size of London.
From my hospital bed, a policeman’s sharp whistle, the mad hum of traffic, the burp from the tuktuk motorcycle cabs, the whisk of the elevated Metro system.
Closer to the street, as I eventually move back to my hotel, is the absolutely non stop chatter of street business: from fabric dealers to tea stalls (30p per cup) to tetchy disputes over traffic jams to pavement SIM card hawkers (£5 per month), from the call to mosques, to heaving markets to beggars and conmen.
And one evening, the constant drumming and blaring music from a boisterous wedding. I look out of the hotel window. The groom is on a white stallion, looking a bit unsure on horseback. He’s probably a software expert, more at home behind the wheel of a Lexus or the handlebars of a Royal Enfield motorbike than atop a white horse.
But stallions and nervous bridegrooms aside, in all I don’t see Hyderabad. Just hear it until we feel confident enough to leave this loud busy city of sound. We discard, on medical advice, a scheduled 4 am start and a nine hour train journey to more remote parts.
Once back in Britain, I automatically head for shade and shadow to keep out of the dread heat. But, of course, it’s blowy and cool. Not sultry with the weight of deadening humidity. I enjoy the wet wind, the infrequent peek of a weak sun behind a Scottish winter sky. I instinctively look for my sunglasses as I walk down a breezy Glasgow street.
Eventually, I’m well enough to take in, under a February sky, The Castlehill Woods on the outskirts of Ayr. There have been big storms with casualties:
This elephantine beech lies uprooted. It’s pockmarked by whorls, whirls, knarls and boles.
Nearby a sturdy oak with a knotty trunk:
These are the signatures and wounds of age, it seems, tattooed onto these giant trees
Above the forest floor, a sleeping sycamore:
It waits for spring under a blue suburban sky. Not long before it wakes.
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DG/Birmingham
Sounds like quite a trip
Annie S
glad that you are on the mend
Jack Demme
glad you’re back safely
Shelley
Not part of the planned schedule!!
Martin McCrindle
Glad to hear you’re safely enjoying damp Scotland!
ALAN HOLLAND
Strewth….
Having spent much time in India your description of street sounds was perfect and whisked me back.
Nick Dent
it must have been very distressing
Warren Michaels
a vivid contrast
Betsy Gregg
Restorative qualities of the cold pishing Scottish rain….
Bella Houston
Yikes…
Carol Wilson
Now that you’re back in the wonderful Scottish climate I’m sure your recovery will be complete!
Bob Prosser
Indian images certainly catch the frenzied hustle and noise of those huge cities
A friend
you decided to cut short your trip and return home, where you have spent time roaming the countryside and taking some interesting photos.
Are you congenitally incapable of resting at home for a few days even after a health scare?
India fan
Stay on vegetarian food, which is fabulous in the south, and you shouldnt catch anything. We’ve done 6 trips, all with vegetarian food, and I’ve only been ill once, in a Taj!!
Will Travel
Sorry about the ordeal
Prakash Khan
You clearly absorbed the essence of Hyderabad!!
The sound bath and the chaotic tapestry of everything all at once.
Ricky Koven
I was in Hyderabad 20 years ago twice for business. What I remember (might be faulty). They put us in a Taj or similar lux hotel in the Banjara hills (Maybe Jubilee hills?). It’s a center for the pearl trade, the geography of which I never understood. Big Muslim population, I remember there was the Moslem market and a Hindu market and the change from women dressed super colorful saris to black burkas was a stark visual. Was there a bead market? Signature dish was Hyderabadi biryani with pork. This was at the beginning of the call center and tech boom, the town had a western movie set look with giant lit up billboard facades covering up small scale dilapidated dwellings. I remember sitting in an internet café with young Hyderabadi hipsters and seeing a guy go by the window using a camel as a best of burden. Quite a contrast.
Meg Browne
It was a shame that you had to cut your holiday short, but health is top priority
SE
An evocative article, but not the one you would have hoped to be writing!
Bill Wright
A salutary time when one realises that one must pace oneself and that the times of limitless energy are gone.
Leoj
Stay well
Amy Crichton
Apart from the mishap, quite a boisterous trip. Not my cup of tea, India, despite its fame in that department.
Femi
I am in Lagos and the din outside in Hyderabad is exactly what Lagos sounds like, literarily! Bewildering chaos and cacophony.
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