[Fordmanchau]

This is a very short story of a short weekend that we spent at Taramati Baradari, a cute little resort run by Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation(APTDC) in the heart of Hyderabad, and I promise I will finish it real quick .

We(wife & me) had been looking for a weekend option around hyderabad with a little drive thrown in. We have been to Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar before and we were open to go to same place again if we can't find another good option. We have not been to Basara(around 220kms) from hyderabad.
Basara is famous for it's Saraswathi temple, which is the only other temple of Goddess Saraswathi in India . The other one being in Kashmir. APTDC also has a resort in Basara, so stay was not going to be an issue plus there's a good amount of distance to be covered on NH7(nagpur highway) which is smooth tarmac where I can have a little adrenaline rush.
But that was not to be. The issue was that we have to go book the APTDC resort in Basara by going to their Tank Bund office personally and both me and wife were not finding time for that. Ah!! the convenience of online booking is such a luxury!!!

But then we called them up and enquired for room availability, we were told that they are fully booked for the weekend of 5th and 6th March 2011.Sad, but then we looked for other options, Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar: here also we were told the same thing. Disappointed but then we wanted to go out that weekend anyhow.
Anyhow!! why ?? because 9th march is our anniversary and that being a weekday we would not find time to go out, so this weekend before our anniversary was a pre-celebration

So what did we finally do ?

Ok, I was checking the "hyderbad meet thread" on the forum, were one of the members "spadix" posted about a Jagjit Singh concert to be held on 5th March 2011 at Taramati Baradari, Hyderabad.
Thanks Spadix(Prashanth??)
Now we have heard of Taramati Baradari but never really tried finding about it. So did a little google search for it. and here is what I found.
Taramati Baradari - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Got a little intrigued by the history, looked a little more deeper, found a review for it
Taramati Baradari Reviews - Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh Attractions - TripAdvisor

So, well it is a resort run by APTDC, has rooms, swimming pool, restaurant and good enough place to spend a quite weekend. We thought , what if we manage to get a pass for the Jagjit Singh Concert and also book a stay there and spend our weekend outside our home. A Jagjit Singh concert with a stay thrown in sounded good. Only thing missing was a good drive. It was hardly 12kms from my place. Never mind, next time.

Here's a little teaser pic.


So, we quickly rush to do the booking for the room on Thursday, 3rd March. Lo and behold!! APTDC has online booking available, we quickly look for the rooms available and see that a suite room is available for Rs. 2250/-(Rs. 2363 including Tax). We immediately book it and pay for it online.
The online booking is available at the link below.
APTDC - ANDHRA PRADESH TOURISM DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION OFFICIAL WEBSITE: Destinations, Hyderabad, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Puttaparthi, Rajahmundry, Vijayawada, Warangal, Themes, Heritage, Nature, Wildlife, Religion, Beaches, Adventure, Fairs & Festi

[Fordmanchau]

So happy that we have atleast manage to decide what we are going to do on the weekend and where,the next thing to get worried about is how am I going to manage the pass for the concert. Found out on the net that it's being distributed FOC at Kala Niketan,Ravindra Bharathi in Hyderabad. So, the agenda for next day was set.

Mission Pass
While in office, waited eagerly for the clock to strike 1. It's 1 O clock, lunch time. Locked and Switched off the System monitor, picked up my helmet and vroom to Ravindra Bharathi. 10 mins and I am there, bikes are so handy and fast in such situations.
A person there guided me where the passes are being distributed, went there but the door were closed. Oh!! thank god, its 1:20 p.m and lunch there starts at 1:30 p.m , knocked on the door and they opened it. Asked for the passes and they said it's all over.
Requested him again and again. The guy is still not budging. It's time for action, hehe!! made a sorry, sad face, told him "bhaiya, udhar raat rukne ke liye room bhi book kar diya, aur aap bol rahe ki pass nahi hai, ab kya karenge".
Said this and waited, and kept looking at them, he finally relented," thik hai ye lo". Happy went and entered my detail on the register and took the pass, but then 1 se mera kya hoga, I asked him for one more pass ,"bhai ek aur milega, biwi ke liye". He replied,"is pass par do log ka entry hai". I turned the pass and it was mentioned "Admit Two".
But then we were three , but no amount of further coaxing worked. So came back to office with the pass.
Looked like that Government officials were cornering all the passes. Had to skip the lunch that day. So I passed on the good news to wife.
(So much to make wife happy, ah!!!)

Another teaser


Then , wifey passes on this news to our friends, who also were willing to join to listen to Jagjit Singh. So in the evening that day , booked another room for them. So now it was five of us for our so called "Anniversary pre-celebration".

That's ok, the more the merrier.

[Fordmanchau]

5th March 2011.

So finished half-day at the office. Went home, had lunch, friends had come over already and then started after a while. 15 minutes and we were at the place. The place is just on the road to the left side , a little ahead of the turning for Golconda Fort.
Went inside, parked the car and the first look of the place impressed us.
We went to the reception and asked for rooms. They said it's not available and all rooms are booked . We said, we are not asking for availability, we have a booking already. Showed them the online booking printout and it seems that they were still not aware that online booking has been made available through the APTDC website . There was total lack of sync between the offline and online mode.
They were surprised to see that we have a booking. We had booked 1 suite and 1 standard room but they said the Suite is not available as they have blocked it for the AP Governor, who was gracing the occasion. Infact, they blocked 2 Suite rooms for the governor.
They were a nice bunch of staff,and they said against the suite, we can give you 2 standard rooms for the time being and then we can move to the suite after the governor leaves. We were ok with that. So we got 3 rooms and we did not make further fuss over it.
Settled in the room, and ordered tea and snacks.
It was too hot and sun was still shining bright at around 5 p.m. So waited till 6 p.m and then we got out to explore the place.

The only piece of history at Taramati Baradari.

The view from the top.

The open air auditorium where the concert will happen.

A far away view

Is it the Lanco Hills?

View of Golconda fort?

Trying to catch the sunset



A close look


The road behind

Another view of sunset

Us

Fabulous road, this is the road which connects to the new ORR.

[Fordmanchau]

So while we were roaming around the campus, preparation for the concert was on full swing . There was a huge screen setup kept outside the auditorium. So we guessed, that even if we all can't enter the concert with just one pass, we can atleast listen to it sitting outside of it. So we were kind of okay even if we all don't get to enter inside. But then, how could you resist not being allowed inside the auditorium. But that will come later.
So while waiting outside for the concert to start. I kept clicking the screen with my camera, meanwhile the socialites and other guests were slowly trickling in for the concert.





The concert was being held in the remembrance and as part of centenary celebration of famous Pakistani Poet and writer Late Faiz Mohammed Faiz.

And alongwith Jagjit Singh , a ghazal singer from Pakistan,Tina Sani was also performing.


So while sitting there suddenly all the media got into frenzy and we wondered what all this is about, when suddenly we saw Blue Kurta clad person. My friend shouted, "Abe ye to Jagjit Singh lagta hai". I said,"chal chal dekhte hai".
We ran towards the coward and Jagjit Singh he was. Clicked few of him, but this is the best I got. All this happened while the ladies had gone to the room to dress up