City that grew on love- Hyderabad శనివారం, జన 24 2009

When love is lost in the city of bridges

 

G S Vasu, the Indian Express

 

Puraana Pool is not just a mediaeval physical structure of stones and plaster across river Musi. It bridged many a gulf. Between a man and a woman. A prince and a pauper. A future king of a rich dominion and a dancing girl. A Muslim and a Hindu. Capital city Golconda and a small hamlet Chichlam.

 

However, in the four centuries that followed, the Musi has seen at least seven more physical structures, in the course of time erasing most of, if not all, emotional bridges.

 

The present day Hyderabad saw its foundation stone laid, in 1591, by Muhammad Quli (1566–1612), the fifth ruler of Qutb dynasty. Though it was true that the then capital Golconda was unable to cater to the emerging modern requirements and building a new capital was much in order, the choice of place has a legend behind it.

 

Quli, as a young prince, fell in love with a dancing girl Bhagmati, who used to live in Chichlam, a small hamlet near present day Shah –Ali – Banda. (The Deccani coinage Chichlam might be a distorted form of Chenchulagudem, similar to Chanchalguda now). The young prince was so enamoured by the dancing girl that he used to cross the Musi, even when it was in full spate, to meet his beloved.

 

Quli’s father and the then king Ibrahim ordered building the first bridge on the Musi, Puraana Pool in 1578. However, Quli has not lost the charm of the place of his first love and wanted to make that place eternal by setting up his new capital in 1581. One of the finest Urdu poets in his own right Quli wrote a couplet to celebrate the new city:

 

Mera shahar logan soon mamoor kar,

Rakhya joon toon darya mein

min ya sami

(Fill up my city with people,

My God, just as you have filled the river with fish).

 

Of course, Hyderabad over the years was filled with people, as the founder wished. But the bridges started getting destroyed and the river became uninhabitable for fish. The city is now seen as a fertile ground for communal divide. Refer to any communal tension and violence in the country, the needle of suspicion, sometimes with evidence, but most of the times as a ‘manufacturing doubt’, points to this city.

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Hyderabad Heritage శుక్రవారం , నవం 21 2008

Charting digital history

 

Personality – A historian turns to digital avenues to reach the audience

 

LEGATEE HISTORY Mohammed Khalidi clicked this image of Mozzam Jahi market in the 1930s

 

A few days back, there was a buzz in the Urdu Hall in Himayatnagar as a historian took the audience down a path of Hyderabad they thought they were vaguely familiar. A building here, a monument there, a bit of biographical information later were unveiled through a power point presentation.

 

Historian and a power point presentation and not a tome? But then Omar Khalidi is not your everyday historian willing to follow the beaten path. A Hyderabadi, who now works as a librarian at the MIT, he posits the contrarian view and succeeds in being heard. Years after he wrote Hyderabad After The Fall and then the controversial Khaki and Ethnic Violence in India, he is now exploring the digital avenues of spreading a word about history. “Printing books has become very expensive, distribution is also a problem and digital publishing is the future and is the path to follow. Physical libraries are passé,” he says.

 

In June this year he posted his collection of photographs on the MIT website showing the Hyderabadi architectural heritage (which formed a part of the PPP in Hyderabad).

 

Among the photographs and the text is one showing the Mozzam Jahi market frontage with wide open spaces, credited to Mohammed Khalidi. “That was clicked by my father. Many of the photographs are inherited but a number of people helped me put together the collection including Hans Winterberg, Anuradha Reddy and M. A. Nayeem,” says Omar.

 

Perhaps leading to a book or a research paper, Omar’s historical journey is not without heartaches that Hyderabadis have when they see history disappear in front of their eyes.

 

“It kills you when you see such disregard for heritage. It is a shame and awful shame. The Badshahi Ashur Khana ought to be an international heritage site and is now occupied by auto drivers, mechanics whose lame excuse for overrunning the place is that they have been living there for a long time. They should be provided alternative housing sites. We should keep our historical record for the future,” he says.

 

S.N

 

Source: The Hindu, Metro Plus Hyderabad, Tuesday November 11, 2008

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Polavaram dam is threat to wildlife గురువారం, అక్టో 4 2007

Another Golden Gecko ‘discovered’

 

K. Venkateshwarlu

HYDERABAD: In what could be termed as gold rush of sorts, another Golden Gecko, the “severely endangered lizard” has been found in the State this time in the equally threatened Papikonda hills of the northern Eastern Ghats abutting Godavari river.

“It was discovered by a team of World Wide Fund for Nature- India during one of its nature camps at the Papikonda hills ”, said Farida Tampal, director of WWF- India, Andhra Pradesh Chapter. The primitive living lizard protected by the Schedule I Part II of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 was sighted a few months ago but not highlighted till it was published in a research journal recently.

For wildlife enthusiasts it is big news coming as it were close on the heels of its sighting in Seshachalam hill ranges by young researcher, M. Rajasekhar of Sri Venkateswara University. Its sighting in northern Eastern Ghats is significant as it was earlier thought to be endemic to Seshachalam hill ranges in the south, the WWF team said.

However, this endemic and range restricted species is now facing an imminent threat from the construction of the Indira Sagar Project (Polavaram project) which threatens to inundate the hills.

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