A city of stories
"There are so many layers to this city that I never have to look elsewhere for inspiration," says Vanaja Banagiri.
Hyderabad, unlike any other city in south India is a unique melange of cultures, cuisines and languages and the distinctness of being Hyderabadi reflects everywhere, especially with language. Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi, Marwari or even Urdu for that matter, is not spoken here the way it is in the city of their origin, since a generous sprinkling of Dakhni makes every language our own. This flavour of Hyderabadi has rubbed off on lifestyles and mindsets of many who've made the city their home over the decades, mingling smoothly with their own identities rather than replacing them. I have always been fascinated by this essence of Hyderabad and captured it in all my books.
Besides the humour of the dialect and the relish of our biryani, it is the Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb (a euphemism for participatory coexistence of Hindus and Muslims), that makes Hyderabad stand apart. Nawabs were known to celebrate Holi, while Hindu quawwals still sing on Moharram. My debut novel, Butterflies and Barbed Wires captures this beautiful bonhomie through the friendship between my characters-the Khans and the Karans. I grew up during a time when communal riots were an annual affair and yet, our friendships had nothing to do with these differences.
Food is another obsession for Hyderabadis and my stories are enriched with the flavours and aromas of Deccani cuisine, often earning me comments that my words make readers hungry. My forthcoming novel, The Placebo Effect has a generous helping of Telugu cuisine and our love for our pickles and podis, rice flour crisps and paper thin desserts. I'm even more enthused when readers from outside the city find these fascinating. Like my second book, Hyderabad Hazir Hai-an anthology of writings that feature various aspects of being Hyderabadi - garnered higher sales outside of Hyderabad. There are so many varied layers to this city that I will never have to look elsewhere for inspiration.
The twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad are distinctly different in their cultures. With the addition of the third city, Cyberabad, the tricities are now a cosmopolitan hub and as I see, Cyberabad's contemporary culture could be a hotbed of inspiration for new age writers. The influences are already apparent in Telugu cinema.
In the past, Hyderabad had received royal patronage for arts and literature from Qutb Shahi rulers and the Nizams, attracting artists and poets from different parts of the world. Mushairas and Deccani Urdu literature grew, giving birth to works such as the Deccani Masnavi and Diwan poetry, which are among the earliest available manuscripts in Urdu. Interestingly, Lazzat-Un-Nisa, a book compiled in the 15th century at Qutb Shahi courts is a collection of erotic pictures and literature on secret medicines and aphrodisiacs.
In 1824, Gulzar-e-Mahlaqa was authored by Mah Laqa Bai, the first female Urdu poet to bring out a diwan or collection of poetry. Since then, many contemporary authors like Maqdoom Mohiuddin, Jeelani Bano and more recently Jameela Bano have flourished in Urdu literature. Telugu writers too including Yaddanapudi Sulochana Rani, Yandamuri Veerendranath and Mrinalini have added their own flavour to the city's literary scene. Writers of English in Hyderabad are fewer in comparison though, with Aminuddin Khan, Narendra Luther, Jyotirmaya Sharma and the poet Hoshang Merchant making up the repetoire of established voices in the city, hopefully inspiring a new generation of writers from Hyderabad.
Hyderabad launched its own literary festival in 2011, with a zeal to promote literature and encourage new writers.
While the festival is vibrant in spirit, it seems like a long time before it is recognised and regarded on par with other more prestigious literary festivals in India. The challenge, as I can see, is the non-involvement of local authors, barely any book launches and a mish-mash of non-literary activities, making it more of a cultural event than an essentially literary one. Ideally, the panel should include a greater number authors, poets and publishers with more literary elements added in.
We are still a long way from being there but it is a start, with many more such efforts to follow over the years. Like the city saw an IT revolution in the last decade and a half, hopefully, there will be a literary revolution too, soon enough.