One of the things I enjoy about Windows Vista is the slideshow gadget that comes with the OS. I have pointed the slideshow at my external hdd folders where most of my photos live. Hence this keeps playing back randomly selected thumbnails from my rather large photography set. This brings back rather nice memories at times.

Bloomington is rather cold today (its reached -14 degrees Celsius as of now) and I was thinking about warmer places I have lived in. As chance would have it, the slideshow brought up a picture of the Charminar in Hyderabad. I remember squinting to take this picture in the bright afternoon sun.

The Charminar, Renovations - March, 2005.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charminar

The monument was built by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah in 1591 to commemorate the eradication of plague, shortly after he had shifted his capital from Golkonda to what now is known as Hyderabad[1]. Legends has it that the emperor Quli Qutb Shah prayed for the end of plague and took the vow to build a masjid on that very place. He ordered the construction of the masjid which became popular as Charminar because of its four characteristic minarets (possibly depicting the first four khalifs of Islam). The top floor of the four-storeyed structure has a masjid which has 45 covered prayer spaces and some open space to accommodate more people in Friday prayers. Madame Blavatsky reports that each of the floors was meant for a separate branch of learning - before the structure was transformed by the imperial British administration into a warehouse for opium and liqueurs.[2]

True to the legend, the city blossomed into a synthesis of two cultures. In 1591 while laying the foundation of Charminar, Quli prayed: Oh God, bestow unto this city peace and prosperity. Let millions of men of all castes, creeds and religions make it their abode. Like fishes in the water.