Day 10 in Pakistan: The Rains come to Hyderabad

On this trip I have mostly been waking up before my alarm, but today only a faint light trickled in through the curtains. I had arranged to continue with my driver who drove me from Sukkur yesterday, as he had shown himself to be very dependable, and in any case my hotel in Hyderabad was not able to arrange another one. Being in the tourist industry, he also knew that he was entitled to accommodation at my hotel, so I did not need to worry about where he would sleep. My choice was vindicated very quickly. Knowing the security protocol, my driver proactively contacted the police, and although they were slow to arrive, I am sure the whole affair would have taken much longer had I tried to do this upon checkout.

The policeman assigned to us had a thick black moustache and a keen sense of professional duty. At every stop, he made the driver take a picture of us as evidence that he was fulfilling his task, and he was always courteously gesturing me to walk ahead of him to make sure I was perfectly safe. With him loaded into the car, we made our way to the north of the city. The maps of central and northern Hyderabad make it seem as though it is laid out on a neat grid, but the reality on the ground is completely different. Instead of rolling down a broad central avenue to the attractions in the north, we inched along the narrow market road, slowing down and making space every time a cart came from the opposite direction. I struggled to believe that this city was the second biggest in the whole province.

The name Hyderabad is said to honour Muhammad’s cousin Ali, who was dubbed “lion” – or “haydar” in Arabic – for his war prowess. As a tourist destination, Hyderabad is best known for its magnificent tombs that date to the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. Towards the northern end of the city lie the tombs of rulers from the Kalhoro dynasty: Mian Muhammad Ghulam Shah and Mian Ghulam Nabi. These are among the oldest buildings in Hyderabad, with Mian Muhammad Ghulam Shah founding Hyderabad in 1768. Just a few streets south of these lie the equally magnificent tombs of the Talpur Mirs, who succeeded the Kalhoros as the rulers of Sindh. The Talpur Mirs were in charge of Hyderabad from 1784 to 1843, when the British East India Company annexed Sindh into the Bombay Presidency.

It rained sporadically throughout our visit. I was the only one person in our little company to have taken an umbrella, but I could only shield one other person with it at a time. Luckily, there are not all that many places to visit in Hyderabad anyway. I discovered this at the Mukhi House Museum, which was not on the top of my list, but where my driver took me anyway when I told him I wanted to see Hyderabad’s Pakka Qila. I looked ostentatiously and inquiringly at pictures of Hyderabad taken from quaint old British books, including pictures of the fort. Catching my drift, my driver pointed to the pictures saying, “This finished!” I initially took this to mean that the walls had been entirely levelled, but that turned out not to be quite the case. Rather, the fort has had houses built around and on top of them.

With a lot of time to spare but terrible weather to spare it in, I decided we would make our last stop at the Sindh Museum. As we shuffled past over a dozen dioramas, I wondered why the museum was so highly rated, but then further disaster struck when we were spotted by a guide. The man proceeded to lead us around and comment on every single exhibit with two or three words – almost always exactly the titles of the exhibits themselves. The only time he came in handy was when the power cut out and he used his phone to illuminate the displays. Mercifully, this had the effect of speeding up our visit, and I was glad the power did not come back on for the entire remnant of our tour.

We left our policeman behind at a junction at the very edge of the city. It was still early in the afternoon, and my driver proposed we head over to Makli and Thatta, but I had a hunch the weather would not get better. This hunch turned out to be entirely correct, so it was silly of me to go against it in asking for a quick detour to the Grand Jamia Masjid just outside Karachi. As we began to make our way to the exit from the highway, a massive storm broke loose. At first, I was afraid we would ram someone from behind or be rammed in turn, because it was impossible to see just a few metres ahead. However, the real issue turned out to be the huge brown torrents that flowed down the roads of the town, filling up wide and deep puddles. At one point, the car sputtered so pitifully as we tried to wade through that I genuinely thought we would get stuck there.

The situation in Karachi was hardly any better. As soon as we entered the city, we were caught in traffic. Motorcycles waded past us, some of them riding along the pavements, as we nudged forward at snail’s pace with all the other cars. It turned out that a stretch of the road near the airport had collapsed, trapping a whole bus and a truck waist-deep.