Almost the first thing they tell you on arrival at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay is that it was built back to front. The architect sent plans from London but when he visited and discovered that the hotel had been built with its back to the sea, he threw himself from the top of the great central stairwell. This is not true but no matter how many times architectural historians refute the story, it still gets repeated, often with colourful embellishments. A waiter in the dining room told me that he had seen the man’s ghost at three in the morning when delivering room service. “He was sitting outside the lift on the top floor. I offered to fetch him coffee and suddenly he was not there. There was a strong smell of mothballs…”
It is easy to see how the Taj accumulates stories. Built a century ago in the
style of Manchester’s fairy tale gothic Town Hall, with its finicky turrets
and archways, but twice the size, this imposing hotel dominates Bombay’s
waterfront and social life. Once the dreamchild of a Parsi industrialist who
had been turned away from other hotels in the city which at that time catered
exclusively for Europeans, today the Taj has become Bombay’s premier meeting
place. I sat in the cavernous marble foyer as a couple beside me met for the
first time over tea and cakes. They had evidently answered a newspaper advert
and their conversation consisted mainly of comparing the shortcomings of other
matrimonial prospects they had each encountered. “It was his suggestion
to meet here so I was hopeful,” I heard the girl say but was too polite
to linger and learn more.
If the Taj Mahal Hotel is a Bombay institution, so too are many of the shops
that pack the arcade on its ground floor. As I was in the city en route for
Golconda, where all the world’s most famous diamonds (like the Koh-i-nor
in the Queen Mother’s crown) were mined, I went to Gazdar’s the
celebrated jewellers to look at their gems. The dazzling jewellery was way out
of my league but I enjoyed inspecting their interesting stock of cheap curios.
An engraved silver medallion that once adorned some elephant trappings particularly
caught my eye but it was too big and heavy to wear.
Next morning I flew to Hyderabad and drove the seven miles out of the city,
to the ancient fort of Golconda. Once the very name “Golconda” would
have conjured up images far more resplendent even than anything on offer even
in Gazdar’s. Wall Street was at one time known as “the New Golconda”
but long before that, Marco Polo in his Book of Marvels spoke wonderingly of
the Land of Golconda, identifying it as the mythical Valley of Diamonds in which
Sinbad the Sailor had centuries earlier been cast by a giant bird in 1001 Arabian
Nights. You need only reach down into the soil and your hand would be filled
with diamonds the size of eagle’s eggs. The golden days of Golconda were
from the 12th to the 16th Century, when it was the centre of some of the greatest
Urdu poetry ever written and an exquisite school of miniature painting.
Today the riches of Golconda are visual. The fortress itself is a ruin that
sprawls over a steep hill with the citadel on top, commanding extensive views
of a wide sweep of flat scrubby sunscorched countryside. The mines in the region
have long since gone and all the great diamonds they produced are scattered
throughout the world. There was a time when whoever owned this fort controlled
the mines so hardly surprisingly its ownership was hotly contested. It changed
hands many times over the centuries before finally being abandoned after the
Mughal conquest of 1687 when an act of great treachery broke a year long siege
and the centre of local power moved to Hyderabad. The only things that sparkle
as I climb the 365 steps to the top are the bright blue dragonflies darting
among the mango and tamarind trees and the scattered bushes of purple bourgainvillea.
There are eight outer gates in varying states of disrepair guarding the seven
kilometre perimeter at the base of the hill. On the way up I pass through two
further layers of fortifications which incorporate an hundred and sixty-two
watch towers. These are all connected by the most extraordinary internal communication
system. Sound travels with precision. If you clap your hands at the entrance
you can be distinctly heard a kilometre away up at the citadel. Many of the
walls of the inner buildings literally have ears. Whisper in one corner of the
Judgement Hall, with its great bare stone walls and empty windows, and you can
be heard distinctly in another. This once enabled people to petition the king
in private without risk to his security but nowadays affords great amusement
to groups of visitors on daytrips from Hyderabad.
No wonder the place is popular. According to legend, whoever visits Golconda
is certain to become very rich. As if to make certain of this I returned in
the evening for the Sound and Light show. I usually avoid such things but so
many people told me I should on no account miss this that if I had a rupee for
every time anyone said so, I would indeed have made a fortune there and then.
As the moon rose and the clever lighting and haunting music turned the whole
craggy hillside into a spectacular theatrical backdrop, actors and puppets brought
the story of Golconda magically alive. “If these stones could tell stories,”
the narration began, “what stories they could tell…”
I had spent the afternoon in the busy Charminar Bazaar in the old part of Hyderabad.
While the rest of the city is busy reinventing itself as Cyberabad, part of
the hi-tech triangle (with Bangalore and Chennai), the old town continues to
live as it has done for centuries. Its main trade is pearls. The diamonds of
Golconda may be a thing of the past but here whole streets are packed with stalls
selling nothing but pearls of every size and colour. This proved fascinating.
At one end of the street I knew nothing at all about pearls and rather associated
them with Bertie Wooster’s aunts. By the time I reached the other end,
I had been given so many lessons in how to detect a good pearl from an indifferent
one that when I returned to Bombay next day and revisited Gazdar’s my
newly attuned eyes immediately sought out their most expensive necklace. I admired
the lustre, size, shape and colour. The proprietor was so impressed at my newfound
skill he very kindly let me try it on. I do not yet know if the legendary wealth
of Golconda will rub off on me but I have certainly acquired expensive tastes.
I left the pearls but bought the enormous silver elephant medallion. All I need
now is the elephant to hang it on.
Fact file:
Charlotte Cory travelled to Golconda with Greaves
Travel
The Sound and Light Show at Golconda Fort is in English every evening 6.30 to
7.30pm November to February, and 7.00 to 8.00 pm March to October. This is immediately
followed by a second show in Hindi or Telugu.