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title: Speaker Notes
date: 2021-04-09
tags: analysis, hydlit
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# Speaker Notes
## Hyderabad: A Biography -- Narendra Luther

## Intro
We did a background check of the author Narendra Luther, who actually passed away recently. He was born in Punjab but Hyderabad was his second home and we can see his love infiltrate the pages of the book.
The book is essentially a chronicle of Hyderabadi history which begins when the city is founded and ends with the politics occurring in the city at the time of publishing which was 2012 because we have the updated edition.

## Major claims made in the book:
One of the major claims that pervades throughout the book is the Greatness of Hyderabad especially in its monarchial days.
It takes every opportunity to praise Hyderabad's beauty, opulence and prosperity in all sections of the book. Even most exerpts inserted by the author mostly talk about the greenery, the climate of Hyderabad etc
The author seems to depict a glorious past and his desire to return to it. He is deluded by the traditional depiction of monarchic Hyderabad and its
grandeur. This is evident in this quote from the 4th part of the book taken directly from the author's narration of his own life.

Features that prominently stood out was the use of mysticism, horoscopes and prophesy regardless of which era he's talking about. From the Shahi dynasty to the Asaf jahi, he never fails to include stories of premonitional warnings or references to
- man of whimsy even while trying to be factual
- from shahi to asaf jahi
# Writing
## Comments on the writing style
- Unreliable narrator -- biased and inconsistent.
- Abul Hasan was a "distant relation of the Sultan", he was a "champion drunkard" and a "parasite". He was "expelled from the palace and told to fend for himself".(63)
- Later, once he is accepted back into the royal family, he is treated with more respect and is said to have "represented the high point of indulgence and love of fun" (69)
- overtly masculine, attitude on women, objectification.
- We considered that this was just a result of his sources coming from such a time/era but even in part 4, his own mindset seems to reflect the same.
- Originally seems like he's imitating the writing styles and perspectives of the respective periods, but later on its becomes evident that those might be his true opinions only cloaked under the style eg. He pays unnecessary amount of attention to women in a state of undress even while narrating a personal, present day account of his visit to the Berar masion: On enquiring the reason for inadequate sunlight in private chambers, the manager "explained with a mischevious smile, 'it was deliberate. The ladies here were required not to be dressed."(page 337) "That night, I wished I had been a guest here some years earlier - during the 'good old days'."