Why I Visit Tombs: A Personal Inquiry into Silence and Samadhanam

Why are tombs so calm and silent? Why is it that when we visit one, we feel like not coming back? In the chaos of a city like Hyderabad, where every street seems to vibrate with noise, the only place I keep returning to is the Qutub Shahi Tombs. Acres of land, resting quietly at the heart of the city.

Aswin often teases me, saying, “Swetha can't sleep peacefully if she hasn't visited Qutub Shahi every month.” Even my supervisor always asks, “Why do you take everyone to the tombs to show them Hyderabad?”

But for me, the answer has always been simple. For anything and everything in life, there is Qutub Shahi.

A friends' date? Qutub Shahi.

A date date? Qutub Shahi.

A girls’ out? Qutub Shahi.

Taking my sister somewhere? Qutub Shahi.

Someone visiting Hyderabad for the first time? Qutub Shahi…

I used to think my attachment to this place was personal. Maybe it was because of the person who first took me there. Maybe I built a memory and return to protect it. Maybe it was finding a quiet space inside the noise, not just of the city, but of life.

                                    

But I have begun to realize, it is not just that. Any tomb has a silence that is not empty, but full. A peace that is not dull, but deep. A silence that does not ask anything from you. That does not demand you to perform, respond, explain, or become. There is something about walking among reminders that everything ends, and because everything ends, everything matters.

Recently, I travelled to Bidar. Bidar is one of the earliest centres of Indo-Persian history. Although there were fort, gurudwara, and a temple and all to visit, what drew me the most were the tombs of the Bahmani and Barid Shahi dynasties. The tombs there carried the same stillness. The same soothing calm, the same feeling of being gently held by time. It proved to me that this connection is not about one city, or one memory, or one person. It is about the quiet companionship of mortality. A reminder that life can be loud, but we don’t always have to be. A place where the heart can breathe without performing.

I have never been to any other place where I have felt so peaceful than in tombs. When we are among so many who have gone to sleep forever and ever, in the silence of their sleep, we are no longer touched by space or time, by heat or cold, or even by light. We simply be.

I think there is a cradle like feeling in that silence. A comfort, after all. Whatever commotion we come from, whatever chaos is moving inside our heads, there is a samadhanam that cools it, eases it, and lets it slowly fall back into place. To be honest, I don’t know how else to explain it. When I began writing, I thought it could be captured, quantified, that it could be made clear in words. But no. That kind of tranquility… you have to be in it, to understand. And if you ever find yourself tired of the noise; the noise outside, and the noise inside… go to a tomb. Sit there. Just sit. Let the silence arrange itself around you. You will understand.

So yeah...

In a world that constantly demands movement, proof, and performance, tombs stand as the rare spaces where we are allowed simply to be. Hence, I return. Months after months, year after year. Not to mourn, not to remember, not to forget. But to be quiet. To be whole.

To be.