Sights on my Morning Walk - Mint Compound, Naubat Pahad, Tank Bund

a Sunnie and I decided to walk the Mint Compound Road and then climb up the Naubat Pahad and walk back. So we parked the car near Prasad's and walked along the Mint Road. It was interesting to know that there is a Mint Museum which is something I would like to visit (reminds me that I still have to visit the Public Gardens museum). Then some interesting temples and we turned and hit the main road and turned up the hill and went up the Naubat Pahad. The gates to the temple were closed and I asked the watchman dramatically why they put gates between me and god. He laughed and said that just as Kuchela came between a devotee and Krishna they put this gate and that we must wait another 10 minutes till 7. We both laughed and we said we will come another day when the lord will summon us and went way. Past the Secretariat and past the Tank Bund where we stopped at some point to watch the sunrise, towards People's Plaza and then some pics of Indira Gandhi's and PV Narasimha Rao's statues. I already got one of Ambedkar so it was three statues today. Stopped at Minerva for a bite and some coffee and that was that for the day.

An idea germinated in my mind - do a full circle walk around Tank Bund once day - 10 kms. 

Dr BR Ambedkar's Statue

Old Mint Compound Structure

Mint Museum

The glass thingy

Sunrise

Prasad's

Indira Gandhi's statue - cheery wave

PV Narasimha Rao's statue

On Naubat Pahad - A Dr BR Ambedkar Association

Conversations On Love - Natasha Lunn

 Natasha Lunn is a journalist who set out to understand how relationships work and evolve and has wonderful conversations on love, lovers, friends, family, endings and beginnings. Conversations on falling in love slowly, on vulnerability, on change, friendship, loneliness and loss, parenthood, science of sex, being alone, on unrealistic expectations and on redefining romance.

Natasha goes from her understanding of love being a needy tool where she would put up with men who would only say 'I love you' in a state of drunkenness, mistaking instability for attraction, to really understanding what love means and entails. She says when we do not understand love we quash ourselves and forget our needs and desires to second guess our partners, saying NO to friends to keep an evening free for them if by chance they might ask to see you at the last minute. People lose a sense of self in relationships.

Responsibility means that one can insists that those whom you give your love and friendship are able to respect your mind.

We do have a choice - to stay in the fantasies in our head or to climb out and live.

Alain de Botton says - I could be alone is one of the most important guarantees of one day being with somebody else in a happy way. Being alone is not a tragedy.

Love is connection.

Having a good friend is more important than having a lover - its much closer to happiness.

Our emotions are not entirely reliable, they tend to overshoot or undershoot the target. Don't get stuck to one way - there are many ways to live this life.

If being loved is your goal, then you will fail. - M Scott Peck

Ayisha Malik says that one should be able to find love everywhere  - in work, friends, family, lovers because no one person can see the whole of you. Expecting someone to fill the hole within you is your job, not your partners. Faith is about love. Give up control. 

When we stop relying on one person to make us happy we live a  more varied and interesting life.

Nobody is right for anyone. You love or like someone when you like yourself when you're  with them. To be more kind to yourself turn your 'what ifs' into 'so whats'.

Find someone where you can be 'you' without performing.

Don't ask for your needs to be met, they won't be. Find different forms of love. Don't worry about not being good enough.

How focussed are we on receiving love than on giving  it. On waiting for it instead of building it.

The four types of love according to CS Lewis - Storge (familial love), Philia (friendship), Eros (romantic) and Agape (unconditional)

Being a good friend is about demonstrating it, investing time, having an awareness of people and their history, their desires and needs.

Friendship has been relegated to a lesser form of love. Have rituals and reminders.

How to see a partner clearly, make space for them to change and grow, to encourage their dreams, to accept their flaws and mistakes, to love someone in a way that brings out their best.

Your partner  is several different people and you have different relationships with each. You can only feel love when you feel worthy of love and hat includes doing things that make you feel good.

Don't approach love with a fixed position - its fluid.

The fundamental requirement of any satisfying relationship is a reciprocal ability to see the world as others see it, to be able to put ourselves in someone else's shows. - Gordon Livingstone

Pain comes from a failure to see things are they really are.

Notice those subtle opportunities for love which are woven throughout our daily love.

The search for every kind of love is a continual process of looking in and out.

Love often goes wrong because of a lack of self-reflection and understanding.

Love is ease, not like climbing Mount Everest. Working at relationships doe snot feel like working.

I used to worry about presenting myself in a certain light.There is a subconscious language of sex - what our bodies can tell us, our minds cannot.

Like emotional intimacy, good sex requires great vulnerability.

There are two types of sex and both are great - spontaneous and responsive.

Extraordinary sex requires the following in priority - Kleinplatz

1)  Being fully present
2) connection, alignment and being in sync
3) deep sexual and erotic intimacy
4) extraordinary communication and deep empathy
5) being genuine, authentic and transparent
6) vulnerability and surrender
7) exploration, risk taking in the partnership and fun
8) transcendence and transformation

Pleasure is about creating a context that alters your brain to interpret a sensation as pleasaure.

Emotional distance can lead to good sex. 

Couples get enmeshed - they get so close that they strat treating each other badly because it feels lik betrayal when they don't feel the same.

The healthiest couples are those who can argue without feeling threatened, come back together quickly after an argument and see the conversation in context.

If you lose your sense as an individual it can damage the relationship. 

Love is responsibility.

We have lost connection with people who we share significant pieces of our life with. Create rituals and start connections - a weekend away, notes, time together.

Love is a verb. It implies action, demonstration, ritual, practice, communication, experience. Its the ability to take responsibility of one's own behavior. Responsibility is freedom.

Separated attachments are what we should be aiming for in friendships. When friends are separate but connected they can feel whole in themselves.

The format of friendship changes over a lifetime and that's normal.

Most important thing to give children is love.

Don't confuse love with anxiety or the risk of danger with the thrill of romance. The harmony and calm that comes with a true love is extremely precious.

Work at love. Don't make assumptions. Don't run away from the bad stuff.

All you can control is what you do with love and whether or not you choose to prioritise it.

Loss is coming for all of us.

I learnt about love's enemies (self-pity, neglect, ego, laziness, always wanting more) and its companions (responsibility, discipline, listening, humour, forgiveness, gratitude and hope)

..

All the above quotes by different people. Lovely book. Need to read it again.

         

Sights on my Morning Walk - Charminar

 I pinged Sunnie quite by chance considering he had been so quiet the last few days at 530 am and surprise, he pinged me back instantly. I called him and asked if he wanted to catch up for a walk or chai and he was game for both. I told him i'd pick him up and did. We decided that we should do our Nimrah walk today so we headed off to Charminar. Some sights.

One of the many gates

Shiva temple

All spruced up

I love Charminar

Nizamia - crooked pic

Tree growing out of the building

Nizamia Hospital

Charminar looming in the background

Chai at Nimrah

Last Day of the Season at Uppal Stadium

 I always enjoyed watching matches at the Uppal stadium. Many lovely memories which i will recall later but for now I felt I should go and enjoy that feeling of sitting in the CM's Box and watching the match, chatting with friends and journalists etc. Some pics from the day.

This is our view from inside the box

This from outside

How the box looks

A co-traveller in this journey - VVSubramanyam from The Hindu 

I Used to Know that Literature - G Allan Joyce and Sarah Janssen

 Allan and Sarah have compiled a bunch of inside stories of famous authors, characters and stuff like that which seems to be a Readers Digest presentation and serves those who are interested in literature well, English. Like Mark Twain hating Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' to an extreme. Or Stephen King being all set to burn his manuscript of 'Carrie' which was rescued by his wife and later became a huge hit.  And a journalist named Dorothy Parker who left her entire estate to Martin Luther King.

Some other interesting snippets I picked up apart from the three on the back cover are - Doris Lessing wrote a lot of science fiction, Ian Fleming the creator of James Bond was a WWII Intelligence Officer, Mark Twain made a ton of bad investments and missed out on the one big one - the telephone,  many authors were keen to get rid of their best works by burning or getting rid of them somehow, Sartre loved his amphetamines, Balzac had 50 cups of coffee every day, Stephen King had addictions to drugs, William Burroughs shot his wife with an arrow trying to reenact 'William Tell' and the sorrow made him a writer, Anthony Burgess feared he had only one year to live and wrote furiously to provide for his wife (wrote five that year including 'Clockwork Orange') but never died and ended writing 30 books, Proust, Twain and Capote wrote sleeping in bed, Hemingway wrote standing up, Dickens loved visiting the morgue.

Interesting bunch if nothing else. Nice and easy read.     

The HLF 2025

I saw the program and knew that Anita Nair was coming. But then I realised that Nimmi was coming as well as part of the Adishakti program and even better, George alias Appupen was coming too. Now George and I hit it off quite well so I told him I would catch him at the end of Day one. He was quite happy to meet.

Happy Together - George, Anita and Me

We did something like this in Bangalore Lit Fest some ten years ago

We met rather late on Day one after his dinner and we drove around - Mehdipatnam, Tank Bund, chai at Sarvi and dropped him off at 1230. Next morning I said I would meet and went home. As always, large hearted, George gifted me one of his silent graphic novels. Not many writers are generous - he certainly is an exception.

Bizz, Shrini and me

Next morning I hoped to meet Nimmi, Anita and George and found Nimmi incommunicado. Anita was very happy to see us and we took selfies which we seem to do when we three meet. We then headed off to the HLF where Anita had a session. George met some pals. I met Jayesh, Vinod (in the loo), Shankar Melkote, Bijju, Shrini and a few others.

Post her session we went to AMB Mall where George had to meet a friend - popped a beer and some food - and then dropped Anita off.

Great catching up with both G and A. We promised to meet soon which is something we always end up doing. The promising, not the catching up.  

Sights on my Morning Walks - Safe Colony to Necklace Road

 Aruna was here for a few days and we thought we would catch up. Since she was having her jetlag and was walking it off morning and evening I asked if I could join her morning walk which she agreed to. So I joined her at their house in Kundanbagh and I let her lead the way. I had never gone all the way down the road and wanted to see if there was any road that connects to Necklace Road.

Temple - Nice

Mosque - Nice

Aruna knew the route and said there was a wall that prevented people from crossing the railway track behind. There was a crack earlier but now, no more. We walked till the end, passing by an old uncle who had the suprabhatam blaring on his phone. 

Ayyappa temple

We headed back and she said she would take me to the Safe Colony (didn't know it was called that) where all judges and IAS, IPS officers lived. We walked in past the Chinmayananda School (they had a loud program early in the morning too), past the nice park where a lot of people were walking, past the last row of houses near a goshala.

An interesting jeep - the rest of that roadside
they kept some old bathtubs to prevent others from parking

We hit upon a nice temple to the left and walked further towards a narrower, slum like area and hit upon a masjid. That road ended in a dead end and we asked a boy if there was a way to go to Necklace Road and he was kind enough to come and show us a narrow four feet alley that slipped into Thyagaraya Nagar. We found an Ayyappa temple which apparently is quiet popular, another mosque and then wide, empty roads next to the Necklace Road. Interestingly she said that she believed India is the most secular place she had been to. 

We came to the Necklace Road station and decided to head back. Pretty decent - maybe a 5 kms walk. That's about what I aw of Aruna this trip. 

Sights on my Morning Walks - SR Nagar's Boys and Girl's Hostels

 I normally head straight down the SR Nagar road until I touch Balkampet and take a nice, empty stretch. Then i thought, I should also head towards the part where I never go, where SR Nagar touches Ameerpet. I know its about small gullies but i was not prepared for what I saw.

Teneti Vindu - serving sandwiches, milk shakes etc

A little temple

As I headed deeper into the part of SR Nagar connecting to Ameerpet near Satyam theatre, the roads got narrower and narrower. On the left and right there were thousands of hostels for boys and girls, men and ladies, deluxe and ordinary, executive and non- executive.

A bridge or a door to heaven

PGs galore

 I could only imagine how many girls and boys were here working, studying IT courses and dreaming of going to the US or UK.

Gurdwara area

Bhagat Singh statue 

I walked through - found a little gurdwara, an old temple, Bhagat Singh's statue which I never paid attention to on normal days though I must have passed it a million times.  

Visit to Shilparamam

 Part of Miskil's and Suhita's visit was to head out to Shilparamam and we did, with Anjali for company one evening. I found that there was considerable parking space at an exorbitant rate of 60 bucks which is the highest I have paid save for the airports. Anyway we headed back up and into Shilparamam. Evening time, so it was pleasant. the general idea was not to buy anything but stroll around.

 

Soon as we entered the place we came upon the amphitheatre where some kids were performing a dance program. Since both Suhita and Miskil are trained dancers they wanted to watch and we sat down there for a bit. Then we moved onto a place which advertised blue pottery or something and that caught Miskil's attention and she ended up buying some stuff.

We walked around a bit, bought some sugar candy, Anjali ate some dahi papdi, Miskil tried to buy some expensive paintings and then we all slowly headed back and went homeward.    

Thought for the Day - Looking at People As a Bundle of Feelings to Be More Empathetic

Sometimes when people are upset they say or do things which is not in line with their normal behavior. We can get hurt with those words and deeds and react to them. Later on one feels that perhaps one could have been more empathetic to their situation, that one could have been gentler and kinder. And then i hit upon this way to be more empathetic. 

I find it easier to empathise with people when I look at them as a bundle of feelings (and not as a physical body). Especially when they are behaving a little out of the normal (harsh, closed, on the edge,  ready to blame or explode) in situations of stress, discomfort etc I tried to switch to look at them as feelings. I can then see sadness, fear, confusion, wanting to be treated and held gently because they are so raw from what they are going through.

Its a conscious effort for me to switch to this state because I am ready to react as well. But then I held myself back a couple of times and switched to viewing them as a body of feelings. That's when I realise how vulnerable and in need of love they are. It was easier for me to put myself aside and be more present to their needs.

I am trying to be more like this. It might make me more empathetic, kind and present to others. It will help drive better communication and connection.     

Sights on My Morning Walk - Lake Front Park

It was an early start to the day and I thought I could walk at Tank Bund. It was a rather foggy day with little chances of seeing the sunrise, so I parked near Eat Street, and walked along the road towards Sanjeevaiah Park detouring into the side parks every now and then.

Foggy day

An intimidating entrance

Passed Jala Vihar and then I came upon this weird structure with a board - Lake Front Park which had an entry of some 50 bucks I think. There were two severe looking lady guards who looked like they would not let a fly in without the requisite paperwork. Anyway curiosity got the better of me and I went in. The first thing that catches your eye is the the metal bridges that are painted red which are flying all over the park - taking off from here and landing there with no real purpose at all. 

Bridge to nowhere

The monstrosity

One step on to the metal bridge which is full of dew and you realise that there is a great chance of slipping and falling because the metal has no grip. Falling on the bridge can be a painful experience so I walked gingerly until i got off the bridge. I walked on terra firma the rest of my visit there and just walked to all corners - nothing much. The bushes there are some wild variety and unless you fancy a walk around desert type of environments there's nothing much.

Cute canteen

Some creative landscaping

A cute canteen though which was shut. A few couple, a few boys who were discussing films, a couple of old gentlemen, and that is it. I'd give it a miss.