Advertisement
Published: February 26th 2014
Edit Blog Post
Hyderabad was the capital of the largest princely state in India under the Raj, ruled by the Nizams of Hyderabad, the last two Nizams being the wealthiest men in the world in the mid 20
th century.
The old town is dominated by the Char Minar, a four towered structure built in 1591. There are also numerous mausoleums around town, together with palaces and museums showing the wealth of the Nizams who ruled Hyderabad from 1724 until 1948 when the princely state was absorbed into the newly formed Republic of India.
Next to the Char Minar is the mosque. Hindu women were allowed in wearing saris with bare heads, arms and midriffs, but Sara was pulled to one side and had her headscarf (already wrapped round her head) rewrapped on the grounds she was not decently covered. One rule for Indians, another for foreigners....
Golconda, just outside town, is a magnificent medieval fort on top of a rocky outcrop, that was the former capital of the state of Hyderabad. We climbed the 350 steps to the top of the fort, stopping about half a dozen times so the admiring locals could politely stop us and excitedly take their photos
with the important visitors from England. The photographer included a bunch of twelve or so young men, and a family group of hijab clad ladies, the ringleader of which stopped us, and introduced Sara to each of her female family members in turn, in particular to the matriarch of the group. David was not part of this conversation group, indulging instead in some manly chatter with a group of what looked like Talibs, the male members of the family. Allah Akbar......
Today we went to visit the crumbling remains of the British Residency. It was built in the late 18
th century by James Kirkpatrick the then resident, who caused a scandal by falling in love with and marrying the young daughter of the Nizam’s chief minister. When new, it must have been a stunning Palladian mansion somewhat in the style of Osterley, and indeed the same basic plan was used for the construction of The White House. But with no money to maintain it, it’s gradually crumbling away. It probably would have been demolished if it had not been taken over by the women’s university. It now sits in decaying grandeur amid a host of new ugly
yellow painted modern buildings. Because Kirkpatrick’s wife was a Muslim, she was never allowed out of the female quarters, so he built a scale model of the mansion in the gardens so she could see what the whole place looked like. The guide led us down an overgrown path to view what’s left of the model, which is in even worse state than the building itself. Even more tragic was the British cemetery, now overgrown and draped in a curtain of tendrils trailing from the trees. We picked our way carefully through, making out inscriptions on tombstones including a 7 year old child and the 25 year old wife of a soldier. The guide said very few people ever visit the place – only British people who, like us, had read the book The White Moghuls by William Dalrymple, which tells the love story of Kirkpatrick and his wife.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.122s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 10; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0612s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb