Good Times..

I loved the movie. Nagesh Kukunoor's masterpiece, which actually is the uncredited pioneer of a slew of commercially successful offbeat movies in India. This post is about our visit to the Charminar City.


Gandhi Jayanti was falling on a Friday and we decided to hit the N.H 7 to Hyderabad. Our main agenda was - Piling onto Major Pils and Rads and doing some pearl shopping , but as usual things took a slightly different turn.

We started at half past three in the afternoon, on Thursday. After a quick air checkup at the Bridgestone pit stop on Outer Ring Road we took the right from Hebbal into N.H 7. The weather was fantastic with low hanging clouds and cool breeze. After the Nandi hills turn, the road was absolutely fabulous, and Mariam was having the time of her life driving at 120 - 130 kmph. I was drowning my anxiety in a beer, stealing gulps while Aaron was busy inspecting the flocking birds, and cows in the fields. Mariam kept her promise of driving till sundown, and I took over from Ananthpur. The rain started with full force and was almost blinding. In my experience with long drives, a rainshower should only last 40 - 50 km's while driving. This one just kept pouring and pouring, and the road before Kurnool was still being done. On top of this, Mariams nagging " Why are you going so slow, I was going so fast" was driving me nuts. I shouted " The visibility is so poor that I cant see a damn thing. If this were the visibility in Normandy on D-Day, the Allies would have been blown out of the English Channel, lost WW II and we all would have been saying Heil Hitler now". Mariam was skeptical "Now Hitler has to blame for your poor driving skills. Cant you take accountability of anything". I knew the analogy was a bit far fetched. It was probably the strain of driving more that 150 Km's in heavy rain, and innumerable truck drivers, who are unaware that most vehicles manufactured in the post Model -T era have dim and bright options in Headlights.


Finally we chugged into Kurnool, at 11 p.m. The first sign of danger was an Ambulance and some folks on the Hadri River bridge. The view in the faint moonlight was surreal , and I couldnt lay a finger on why it was so. Then it hit me. The water level was hardly a foot or two below the bridge. I have seen Dam water being opened with a deafening roar, but the sight of this was even more spine chilling. Millions of Tons of water silently moving under the bridge. We got off the car and looked over the edge. We could almost touch the water. If the bridge broke, we wouldnt even be accounted for. I decided to move fast, and drove into the town. The main road seemed to be blocked, and the locals showed us an alternate. That route too was blocked with water, of the visibly rising Tungabhadra River. We came back and pondered over staying in a hotel in Kurnool. Luckily some other locals gave us a roundabout way through the SBI officers colony that would reach the Highway. We reached NH-7 Again and crossed over the Tungabhadra, and in a few kilometers the crossed the mighty Krishna river at Beechapally. A couple of hours after we crossed , water level rose and covered the huge bridge and 70 % of the town of Kurnool under 15 feet of water.


Unawares of the destruction we were leaving behind, we continued into the rainy night towards Hyderabad, at a much faster pace, on the splendid Kurnool highway. We crossed Shamshabad Airport at around five in the morning and after asking for directions from Pills on the phone, and some locals, reached Hussainsagar Lake, with the statue of Buddha, at daybreak. Pills picked us up and we went to the Army Quarters at Thirumulghery.

To Be Continued...