I don’t know about you but the strangest of things catch my fancy. And this has been characteristic of me ever since my childhood.

Just the other day I happened to venture out of the safe cocoon of Banjara and Jubilee Hills and drive towards Secunderabad when I saw that between the Hyderabad Public School and Aladdin Building the Metro activity had converted the once serene stretch into a hugely dug up, congested traffic jam that was mostly fogged out of sight by the dust of the traffic and the construction activities there. And suddenly my eyes spotted, just away from the road widened nudity, a familiar old landmark…..Dundoo Villa.

Hyderabad in the sixties and seventies was a well spread city. The roads were narrower but the traffic was much less. Speeds were slower, even lazier. But the scene was languorous and laid back. And for a cyclist (in the days before ‘geared’ became par for the course) Hyderabad was a roller coaster. Up Up Huff Puff and Down Down Tired and Drained.

The stretch opposite present day Stopper’s Shop had the Begumpet Police Station, a quaint red colored building and somewhere quite close, a modest bungalow called Dundoo Villa.

Now why that particular building caught my fancy I did not know. But today after so many years I guess I can rationalize. I think I loved the way they had a black slab outside their building and on it were a few silver half balls stuck onto the slab in a random fashion. And the silver circles seemed at peace with the double O’s of Dundoo…apparently the family that owned the property, and had named Dundoo Villa.

Every time I cycled past Dundoo Villa, I used to slow down, perhaps even stop just outside the building…stare at the fascinating arrangement of silver and then with a wistful smile I’d cycle on. I didn’t know who lived there. I never saw them. And many years later, when I was introduced to the owner of Park Lane Hotel who was a Dundoo I didn’t tell him about my childish fantasy.

That depending on the mood I was in, or the book I was reading, the building changed dimensions ever so often. If one day it was a castle with a beautiful princess, it was a smugglers’ den just the very next. And when I imagined briefly for myself a career in photography I thought of shooting a high fashion model standing in front of the silver balls of Dundoo Villa.

Alas I never acted on my urges and the building sank deeper and deeper into anonymity. The city that grew around my memories was full of palatial structures and later apartment blocks. Many more buildings caught my attention. But none has or had the simplicity of the Dundoo Villa. May its inhabitants retain the forgotten landmark.