Ours is a city in transition, with the ongoing Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) project rapidly changing the face of the city. Forget the inevitable traffic snarls and water logging the city is facing as a result of the construction work. A few years down the line, many of us will have to jog our memory to recall how our city looked before the HMR. A number of shutterbugs, both amateur and professional, are capturing snapshots of the city through their lenses, to chronicle the transition. We spoke to a few of them to find out what the city looks like through their lenses.
Artham Vamshi, a wedding photographer, lives in Malakpet and is coming to terms with the changes in the area. “I love the Malakpet main road leading up to the TV tower. The metro construction work, as we are given to understand, will lead to a number of trees being cut. The landscape will never be the same,” he says. Vamshi rues the prospect of the absence of green cover, under which a number of commuters take shelter and enjoy a cup of tea from the nearby tea stalls. He tried to capture different images of the area with his professional DSLR but was stopped by the HMR workers. “They are wary about photographs being shot. So I had to take photographs with my mobile phone,” says Vamshi.
Wedding photographer Ravindra Machiraju is a resident of Nagole for the last 10 years and proud of the development in the area in recent years. “At one point, this area looked like a village. Today it’s as good as any locality in the heart of the city,” he says. A member of Hyderabad Photography Club, he shot images of nooks and corners of the area where the HMR work is on.
Online photo sharing forums are abuzz with images of streets, buildings and roads that will no longer be the same. The images vary from those of the HMR staff, the huge pillars erected for the construction and even evacuated buildings that will soon be razed to the ground.
Treasuring memories
Akhil Tandulwadikar, a researcher with an IT firm, visited a friend residing near Secunderabad Railway Station and learnt about a few row houses that will soon be demolished. He visited a few houses with his camera in tow. “The houses were marked for demolition by the authorities. From the looks of these row houses, it was evident they were inhabited not too long ago. We found an air cooler and other items in one of the houses,” he says. Apart from the railway quarters in Secunderabad, Akhil also has images of Putlibowli area. “I believe the metro rail will be the biggest change in the city’s landscape,” he says.
Every now and then, when a photography enthusiast lugs around a camera and a few lenses, it’s more than a hobby/passion that’s at work. In some cases, the images become an exercise in chronicling the history of a city. “Don’t we all get excited to see images of Hyderabad in 1800? I like to preserve memories, which is the prime reason I became a photographer. Images of the city taken today can be shown to the next generation so that they know how these areas looked before the metro rail,” sums up Vamshi.
