The feeling of calm and peace that spending a couple of hours alone watching the sunrise over the lake at the Necklace Road is something not many people in Hydeerabad get to do often. It is enough to make me get up earlier than usual and that too on a Sunday morning once a month to take a twenty-minute ride to Necklace Road to experience some badly needed solitude. So last Sunday was one such day when it was time for me to cleanse the mind of all tension, needless worries and such mental clutter.
When I reached Necklace Road it was already daylight but the sun had not yet come up. I settled on my usual spot and waited for the sun to rise, enveloped in the silence of the morning. A breeze, gentle but strong enough to ripple the surface of the lake, blew continuously adding to the pleasant experience. When the sun finally appeared it wasn’t the usual crimson disc but as a pale white orb that soon turned orange. I got up to take a couple pictures of the sun rise standing near the edge of the path and returned to my bench only to find it occupied. My old friend, the one who exercises while listening to the morning news on radio had taken possession of the bench. He was one of those middle aged gentlemen who have disapproving expressions on their faces even on such pleasant mornings like they are unhappy with something. I had no choice but to move on since the look he gave me conveyed the impression that he felt I was wasting my time sitting idly instead of performing energetic calisthenics like him. I moved away to another bench before I received an unwanted lecture on the benefits of physical exercise, which I was sure he had on his mind to do when he first saw me sitting immobile.
I found another empty bench and sat trying to think of at least one thing that was going right in my life at the moment. I had begun yet another round of revision of the manuscript of the novel I’ve been working on since ages. It might be a long time before it sees the light of the day if the progress of the revision is any indication. I planned a tentative deadline to have it ready and into the hands of a publisher sometime in November which is normally a lucky month for me. In November good things happen in my life though I cannot recollect any at the moment. Anyway, November is too far away and in any case I will be posting here about further progress on the book.
When it became too warm to sit in the open I decided to leave Necklace road and go to Adarsh for the next pleasant part of my monthly Necklace Road routine. I bought two newspapers and settled down at a table in Adarsh with the idea of spending at least an hour reading the Sunday papers from end to end. The hotel was filled with the usual early morning crowd of groups of friends chatting excitedly and lonely men sipping their teas in silence. I couldn’t my friend, the smoker anywhere which was a good thing or I would have to contend with cigarette smoke. The tea that the waiter put before me was very good, light and tasty which further enhanced my pleasant moods.
Though in Irani hotels the taste of the tea doesn’t change the same cannot be said of the waiters. They keep changing and one always finds new faces on each visit. The one who brought my tea asked to read the paper which was a bit of a surprise because finding waiters who read English papers in Hyderabad is something of a rarity. So while I was engrossed in the main papers he went through the Sunday supplements. In between he put aside the papers to serve tea but returned to my table and resumed his perusal of the papers.
Afterwards, feeling good about the morning’s experiences I got back home to get ready for my next Sunday routine- the visit to Abids. Call it coincidence or what I had an unusual spell of luck finding two rather good books. The next post (on Friday) will be one on the Sunday’s Super Haul.
Next post on Friday; Another Super Haul
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