Pearl of the south

As I proffer the small fee demanded of visitors climbing to the top of Charminar, Hyderabad’s iconic four-towered mosque, the woman at the counter shakes her head.

“We don’t allow single women to go up alone,” she says. Why? “Because they jump from there and commit suicide.”

To set the record straight, single women don’t do this, as a rule, at Charminar: it happened once, but the paranoia still lingers. Eventually, I am allowed to climb the 400-year-old landmark, once I have convinced the woman’s superior officer of my non-suicidal intentions.

From the top, the heart of old Hyderabad, with its crowds and chaos, spreads out before you. In one direction, Laad Bazaar (also known as Choodi Bazaar, reflecting the dozens of bangle shops that line the narrow street); in another, stores selling the pearls for which Hyderabad is famed.

Stepping out of the tower, you enter a maelstrom – there is hardly any space in which to walk, so packed are the streets with autorickshaws, passengers hanging from their sides; groups of black-clad Muslim shoppers; cyclists and bikers merrily honking their bells and horns; and vendors of everything from pink candyfloss to sparkly clothing. A man offers to draw my portrait, displaying one of actor Shahrukh Khan as proof of his abilities. Another tries to sell strands of suspiciously shiny pearl-like beads: “Just try it on, madam.”

I ignore them and make my way through the twinkling displays of Laad Bazaar and reflect on what Lonely Planet has to say about the city, one of its top 10 recommendations for 2013: “Elegant and blossoming, but also weathered and undiscovered, Hyderabad’s Old City is ripe for exploration.”