I have been waiting for this walk for a long time and I was glad I could make it - else I would have to wait out another year. Deccan Archives organised the walk - scheduled for 9 pm to 1130 pm. Meeting point was Subhan Bakery which was as crowded as it can get. Despite the late hour and the traffic it was a pretty decent crowd that showed up. From Deccan Archives there was Fatima who was leading the walk, with Dheeraj and Daniel helping along.
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| Subhan Bakery - 9 pm |
We waited at Subhan Bakery for a while until everyone assembled and then dived right into the first dish of the walk - haleem. We shared the haleem to save up space for the other goodies to follow. Haleem was brilliant, crowd on the road crazy but well, anything for a haleem.
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| Haleem at Subhan |
We then hopped across the road and headed to the famous Yousufain Dargah where the two Sufi saints Syed Shah Yousufuddin (from Egypt) and Syed Shah Shareefuddin (Palestine) are buried. The two Sufi saints were part of the Mughal army that was trying to break into Golconda and were not able to. One story is that in a storm all the tents are blown away save one tent - and that is the tent where the two saints are praying. Recognising that there was something special about the two, Aurangzeb requests them to somehow get access to Golconda - and well the rest is history.
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| Yosufain Dargah |
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| The painting - the two saints and Aurangzeb before them |
Their dargah is very popular (Fatima said they were not buried but the Earth swallowed them) - many people visit the dargah from all over. We went in - I saw one painting of the scene where Aurganzeb is requesting the two saints. Fatima also took us to the grave of the famous Urdu poet of the Nizam era - Dagh Dehlvi (1831-1905).
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| Cute little cafe |
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| Al Hamdulillah Hotel |
From the Yousufain dargah we took the roads less travelled by and soon came to a chowk where the crowd picked up and headed off towards Al-hamdulillah Cafe, most famous for years for its many kebabs and biryanis. We split the group and some went to the Al-hamdulillah Hotel while some of us went to the shop opposite which had some delicious shami kebabs and kheema lukmi.
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| A sample of the crowd |
Off from Al-hamdulillah and we hit the main road which was crowded to the gills with shoppers at that late hour, so much that we had to squeeze by people, bikes, autos and even cars. Ahead I could see the Gol Masjid of Mallepally and knew we were close to the next food spot. The road was full of cloth stores, perfume stores and so on. Fatima took us off the main road into the side lanes and explained how the Mallepalli area came about thanks to the City Improvement Board's master plan post the 1908 flood - each locality was built around a play ground.
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| Gol Masjid |
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| Shahi Sheermal at Shan-e- Delhi |
At the corner near Gol Masjid we stopped at a Sheermal Naan shop with a difference - some dry fruits etc were added in at Shan-e-Delhi's Shahi Sheermal shop. Some of us bought that stuff. We kept passing more and more shop serving great delicacies - kebabs, biryanis, jalebis, shawarma etc and ended up at Baabji ka Ghota with single minded purpose. There the gentlemen arranged enough chairs and a table for us on the roadside and served Patthar ka Ghost. Daniel went and got some shawarma for tasting.
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| Baabji ka Ghota |
Having thus nibbled at several things by now, we then stopped at Burhanpur jalebi which was a very interesting type of Khowa Jalebi. Last stop for the walk was at Milan Juice Centre where I tried some mosambi juice which apparently is their speciality. Crazy crowds and I do not know how they all do business like this but they are.
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| Mosambi juice at Milan |
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| Chai and paan at Mayrose Cafe |
The walk ended but there was no way we could get out of the place unless we walked back and so we legged it to Subhan Bakery, stopped at the cute Irani Restaurant Mayrose Cafe and had a chai. The last item on the walk as far as I was concerned was a paan and it was made very well which ended the walk.
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| Chai at 12 am |
Thanks Deccan Archives. Lovely experience.
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