Hyderabad January 2-4

My train arrived at the Secunderabad station at 9:15 pm on Monday January 1 and after walking around a bit, I took an autorickshaw to Abids in the center of Hyderabad. I checked into the Hotel Anmol International at 10:30. The hotel is just a block away from where I used to live, across from the Public Gardens. My hotel room was disappointingly poor. For some bizarre reason, the builders had left a gap in the floor along one wall directly above the lobby one floor down. As a result all the noise of the lobby came into my room loud and clear.

The next morning, Tuesday January 2, I walked around the Public Gardens and Abids area. I ended up at the Big Bazaar shopping mall, where I bought a suitcase. In one sign of Hyderabad’s economic development, McDonald’s has now arrived in the city. KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) has been around for a few years.

The McDonalds outlet in Abids

At 11:00 I checked out of the hotel and went to Timothy Marthand’s place in Banjara Hills. Timothy Marthand is the world-class concert pianist, with whom I have stayed during my past few trips to Hyderabad. His parents, with whom he lives, run a music school. Also staying in the house was Shanely Niemi, who has been in Hyderabad for a couple of years and is training as a singer. As we chatted, Timothy told me his latest news that the German arts TV channel is making a documentary about him. They had just finished filming for a first brief promo. The three of us went out for lunch and I did some more shopping. That evening they had some dinner guests and Shanely sang some lieder from Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe cycle to Timothy’s piano accompaniment.

Timothy and Shanely performing

The next day, Wednesday January 3, the three of us went to Barristas, Timothy’s favorite coffee place, where we met a family for conversation. We then went to a newly opened fancy Japanese restaurant, where we were joined by Shanely’s voice instructor from Poland. We returned to Timothy’s place and I sat in on Shanely’s voice lesson for a bit. Later I had a chat with her voice instructor and also listened to Timothy play for a while and chatted with some friends who had stopped by.

The next day, Thursday January 4, I got up early and went to Christy Femila’s near-by apartment to go to the Henry Martyn Institute campus. Christy is one of my former students who received her Masters degree from Luther Seminary. We also picked up Shobha Gosa who had recently finished her Masters program at Oxford University and is now working for HMI again. We arrived at HMI in time for devotions at 9:45, after which I chatted with people, in particular Qadeer Khawaja, the Islamic studies professor at the institute. HMI now has a wireless internet connection throughout the building, so I spent some time browsing the internet. I had lunch in the hostel cafeteria. Diane D’Souza was also around at HMI that day and in the afternoon she gave a presentation about her doctoral thesis.

Diane D’Souza giving her presentation

Shobha at her new desk

At 4:00 I went with Vijay Shastry to his nearby apartment to talk over what to do with the remaining stack of my personal papers that are there. At 5:30 I returned with Christy and Shobha to the city and packed back at Timothy’s house. That evening I took an overnight bus to Mumbai.