Abstract:

Other Kohinoors, The Rocks of Hyderabad is a love letter to Hyderabad that speaks with all cities today. Hyderabad is a city of the primordial Deccan plateau region in India, with a distinct history, language, culture, cuisine, and physical features. We speak so often of the one Kohinoor that is lost from our area, but not so much about these other kohinoors: our priceless rocks, that we have been losing on a massive scale over the past few decades.

Based on extensive research and filmed over several years, it is a document of a city in transition. The film was begun in grief at the loss of the rocks and solastalgia at the changing face of the city. However it gathers strength from the number of people who have joined the journey of making the film, as well as the robust ways in which the film research found that the city's culture values and celebrates the rocks. As such, the film documents the myriad affectionate and respectful ways that the area's cultural imagination (in its humour, art, stories, folklore, songs, myths, poetry, memory, music, nomenclature, architecture....) embraces its rocky landscape. It does this in a non-traditional way (with a rap song Sutradhar/Narrator, poetry, art, animations of local lore in local craft traditions like Bidri, Kalamkari, Shadow Puppetry/Tholabommlata, Cheriyal painting, Dakhani Miniature painting etc. etc.) that is garnering an inspiring response from viewers.