DAILY PHOTO: Golconda Fort Ruins, Hyderabad

DAILY PHOTO: The Green Grass of Golconda Fort

DAILY PHOTO: Tree & Mausoleum of Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah

Taken in August of 2022 in Hyderabad

DAILY PHOTO: Scenes from Golconda Fort

Taken in August of 2022 at Golconda Fort

DAILY PHOTO: Pinnacle of Golconda Fort

Taken at Golconda in August of 2022

Elephantine Baobab [Free Verse]

It's called 
Hatiyan-ka-Jhad
because it looks like 
a huddled herd of elephants --
not only in its corpulence
but also with its rough, gray skin.

So rotund at its base
that it's hard to figure
how its slowly slimming upward taper 
can come to twiggy ends,
and not be a mile tall.

The branches are overly muscular, 
like a bodybuilder who got carried away,
moving from strong and vigorous 
into the domain of science fiction mishap.

It has its own mythology -- 
multiple creation tales about 
how its seed got from Madagascar
to the middle of India half a millennium ago:
tales of fakirs and royal envoys.

It's even been said that the Forty Thieves,
the ones who tormented Ali Baba,
used its hollow as their cache cave.

But it refuses to respond to "Open Sesame" --
so I guess we'll never know.

DAILY PHOTO: Tomb of Hayat Bakshi Begum, Hyderabad

Taken on August 7, 2022 at the Qutb Shahi Tombs [Golconda]

DAILY PHOTO: Golconda Fort

Taken on August 7, 2022 in Hyderabad