The only Christian graveyard I know of in Hyderabad is next to the new highway on the way to the new airport. The road was built right next to it - so, literally, there are graves right next to the road. Those graves are no more than 15 feet off of the shoulder of the road.
If anyone reading thus is conversant in Indian graveyards and knows a bit about what I was seeing, please e.mail me. There are some confusing points about the graveyard, including the length of the graves. They seemed too short.
Here are the snaps.
^ As I walked into the graveyard, a woman was walking out with a massive pile of sticks on her head.
^ One of the graves I saw. Notice the "Om" symbol at the top of the headstone. Not a Muslim grave.
^ As I got deeper, I noticed that I was being watched. There were wild dogs on every third headstone in the graveyard. Watching me intently..... One of them bounded off and barked. It could have quickly gone bad. But here I am, fully intact.
^ This guy lived until 92 years of age. An uncommon thing in India. Note that the time of his death (I think) is mentioned on the headstone. Time of birth and death are important in Hindu cosmology, as well as the exact time for a marriage (down to the minute).
^ A few random shots.
^ Green is the color of Islam. These are Muslim graves.... perhaps two members of the same family - husband and wife?
^ This grave had some curious markings on the top. Check out the closer view. Notice that these headstones are simply shards of the boulders that make up Hyderabad. It actually takes a tremendous amount of talent to get them into this shape.
^ A dog extracting something out of the pile of buffalo manure. Now I know what they do with the dung. Yeesh. This dog is, I believe, part of an interesting phenomenon - breed dogs that become feral. I think this is a yellow lab, or one of its parents was.
^ Grave with webbing of some sort in the dead tree behind it. By this point, I was glad the sun was up.
^ A Hindu grave - "Om" again.
^ A Hindu grave. The representation of male and female reproductive anatomy is what you see on the grave itself. This is seen often in Hindu temples. Represents..... rebirth, of course.
^ Yet another Hindu grave. I think there are cows in the carving, but the dogs prevented me from getting closer.
^ I discovered that the edge of the graveyard is where the local people get water, out of a hand-pumped well. Didn't even know it was there, I drive past it daily. This one deserves a click to see the larger version.
^ An advertisement for a Hindu event, related to a couple of swamis visiting the city.
^ By this point, the flowers in the neighborhood were amazing to me. I had not even noticed them on the way out. After the visit to the graveyard - complete with wild-dogs and buffalo dung - I decided to take some snaps of the beautiful flowers to soothe the mind. Nice....
