Weeks Ending 21 and 28 April

Easter Week

Nizam's Jewels

Hyderabad - PA Training

Week ending 21 April:

Udayan Girls Home - one of our favorites, Rahda, at our  regular Tuesday visit.  Would like to bring some of these children home with us!

New Delhi West Zone Conference, Dwarka (2019-04-18) 

L-R: F-Jeanette, Grant, President-Sister Hansen, Sisters Watt, Muthu; 

B-Saker, Cooley, Ravi, Golla, Venkataraman, Andrews, Cleverley, Nielsen, Barber, Govindaraj, Bedont, Karthigeyan, Kneeland 

Good Friday Easter procession in front of our apartment, from St. Dominic's Catholic Church down the street.

 Teaching opportunity with Elders Andrews and Venkataraman in Pitampura. Ritu Sood and Sister Sood (mother) at end-Branch President Sood's daughter and wife.  Man and woman on the left by Jeanette are brother and sister, both being taught, as are the two sisters to Jeanette's left.


Pitampura baptisms - two boys, grandsons of the two women.  Elder Golla on right in the back.

 Tamanna Bhati and her son, Ethan - dinner on Saturday evening.

 Easter Sunday group photo at Pitampura Branch, held in the Park Residency Hotel, as we are still looking for a permanent meeting place.

Week ending April 28:

 Our weekly visit to the Udayan Girls Home - again a couple of our favorite little girls.

 From exhibition at National Museum - The Nizam's Jewels.

The Nizams were the Independent Muslim rulers (originally from Turkey) who ruled central India from 1724 until 1948.  Their fabulous wealth was based on the earliest (pre-African) diamond mines and control of the Asian pearl trade (pearls coming from the middle-east).  This necklace is made with diamond beads and pearls.

HYDERABAD

Friday afternoon we enjoyed biryani at Paradise, a famous restaurant that supposedly serves the best biriyani in the city which claims to be the biryani capital of the world.  It was indeed good.

British Residency and Hyderabad Sites 

Saturday morning we met our guide, Jonty, at 6:45 for a “White Mughal” tour of Hyderabad.  Our first stop was the British Residence, the dilapidated but still beautiful home of the last resident agent of the British East India Company.  It was built ca. 1800 by James Achilles Kirkpatrick, an East India agent who went native, converted to Islam and married the great niece of the Nizam of Hyderabad.  Their love story ended tragically with their early deaths after they had sent their two children off to England to live with relatives.  It’s a great story, well researched and well written by the Delhi based English writer William Dalrymple.  Above is the front entrance facing the city.  This was originally the back as the building faced the river.

The building was purchased from the British in the 1940s by a women's college and is now being renovated.  Photography was not allowed so we borrowed these images from https://siaphotography.in/blog/tours-from-hyderabad-koti-womens-college-british-residency-hyderabad/ This is the large reception hall.

Behind the reception room is this beautiful staircase at the original front entrance of the house.

Another view

Upstairs hall.  The decorated door on the right leads to the gallery above and surrounding the reception hall.  All women would have been relegated to this gallery according to Islamic custom.  To the left are shuttered windows looking out toward the original front of the house and the river.  Kirkpatrick did not live in this formal part of the house but rather in an attached wing.

This is the original front of the Residency.  Two flights of steps, one on either side of the porch, led up to the building.  A shuttered veranda is on the left.

Below the veranda is access to storage and service areas.

Above is the beautiful emperor gate facing the river, and the main access to the Residency.  

Besides the magnificent house, we traipsed through the overgrown gardens to the gate of the zenana where the women lived in seclusion.  The zenana itself was torn down in Victorian times.

Kirkpatrick had his doll house sized replica of the Residency built in the the zenana's garden.  

A Christian cemetery near the garden. 

 From the Residency we went to the Paigah Tombs, resting place of the nobility of the Paigah family, fierce loyalists of the Nizam.  The caretaker was so proud of his fragrant garden which included oleander, rose, jasmine, gardenias and a mango tree laden with fruit. 

 Street scene leaving Paigah Tombs

Our last stop of the morning was the Nizam’s Chowmahalla Palace.  We made our way back to the hotel via the Charminar, stopping for delicious street food, idle and dosa, on the way.  

Hyderabad's iconic Charminar

The Nizam's Palace - the richest man in the world around the turn of the century (19th to 20th!)

The Durbar or audience hall.

Once a gate to the palace grounds, now part of the Charminar bazaar.

 Fishing shop - all kinds of fishing articals!

Hyderabad bangles - Young Muslim Shopkeeper

 Best dosas in Hyderabad!

Sharing Govind's famous and delicious dosas with our guide, Jonty

The reason for the visit - 

 Public Affairs training for the Hyderabad Stake

 With Arvind Gosika, Hyderabad Stake High Council member

and Public Affairs Director. Arvind is a good friend of Colby Davis, married to Jeanette's niece, Maria Mortensen (Liz/Robert's daughter).

And, back in Chicago - 

 The boys met in Chicago on Saturday and Sunday, where Philip was presenting a paper at a medical conference.  Briana/Charlie and Brynne joined Sage for a wedding shower for Gena in Dallas with many of our long-time friends.