Hyderabad

Hyderabad is two cities living in one skin, and the gap between them is the whole appeal. Walk the lanes around the Charminar in the morning — a 400-year-old ceremonial arch rising over a scrum of bangle sellers, perfume traders and tea stalls — and you are in the world of the Qutb Shahi sultans and the Nizams who followed them. Drive twenty kilometres northwest that afternoon and you are among the glass towers of HITEC City, one of India's largest technology hubs, where a good share of the world's software is written. Few Indian cities hold their history and their present in such close, unbothered proximity.

The capital of Telangana sits on the Deccan plateau in south-central India, straddling the artificial lake of Hussain Sagar that historically separated Hyderabad proper from its twin, Secunderabad. The city was founded in 1591 by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, the fifth ruler of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, when he extended his capital beyond the crowded hill-fort of Golconda onto the plain below. For centuries afterward this was one of the richest cities in the world — the sole trading centre for the legendary Golconda diamonds, the Koh-i-Noor and Hope stones among them, and later the seat of the Asaf Jahi Nizams, whose dynasty ruled a vast princely state and produced men once counted among the wealthiest on earth. That accumulated wealth is nicknamed into the city's identity: Hyderabad is still called the City of Pearls, after the pearl-trading industry the Nizams' era made famous.

What that history left behind is a remarkably dense set of monuments, and unusually for a big Indian metropolis they are concentrated enough to see in a couple of days. The Charminar and the vast Mecca Masjid anchor the Old City; the ruined majesty of Golconda Fort and the serene necropolis of the Qutb Shahi Tombs sit on the western edge; the Chowmahalla Palace and the encyclopaedic Salar Jung Museum preserve the Nizams' taste for the exquisite. Threading through all of it is a culture of graciousness the locals call Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb — a syncretic Hindu-Muslim courtesy expressed in the language (Dakhni, a soft southern Urdu), the manners, and above all the food.

And the food alone is worth the trip. Hyderabadi biryani is one of India's genuinely great dishes, argued over and ranked by every visitor; the Ramadan speciality haleem draws crowds from across the country; and the daily ritual of Irani chai with a crumbly Osmania biscuit is as much a part of the city as any monument. Add the pearl and bangle bazaars, the giant lakeside Buddha, and the world's largest film studio on the outskirts, and Hyderabad rewards the traveller who comes for the heritage and stays for everything around it. Two to three days is the sweet spot: enough to do the Old City justice, cross the lake to the Nizams' world, and still leave a day for a fort or a film city on the fringe.