FRIDAY 18 AUGUST 2017

Elaborate stucco- work adorning the Chowmahalla Palace.

Sleeping with royalty Now painstakingly restored, the My own brush with royalty began with Falaknuma today is far from a musty an almost absurdly ostentatious arrival at museum-piece. Guests are free to wander the Falaknuma, rolling through gardens the staterooms, decked out with royal teeming with peacocks in an open, horse- portraits and heirlooms as they were in drawn carriage, before climbing the the Nizam’s time. During my stay, I spent palace’s marble steps beneath a shower one thoroughly relaxing evening sipping of crimson rose petals. It was a wonder- single malts and playing pool on the fully theatrical introduction to the former Nizam’s billiard table, a twin to the table palace of the enigmatic (and succinctly in London’s Buckingham Palace. Sadly, named) His Exalted Highness Nawab Sir the Nizam’s legendary dinner table, set Mir Osman Ali Khan Siddiqi, Bayafandi with bone china for 100 dignitaries, is no Asaf Jah the VIIth, last Nizam of the longer used; guests dine instead on the princely state of Deccan. terrace leading off the trinket-stuffed Laid out in the shape of a scorpion, Jade Room. with two wings embracing the Palladian If you can’t stretch to an overnight central hall like protective claws, the stay at the Falaknuma, come for high Falaknuma is an elegant sprawl of state- tea or a dinner tour and watch dusk set- rooms, courtyards and formal gardens, tle over the rooftops of Hyderabad from and a splendid clash of East-meets-West the terrace, while the Islamic call to ideas. While the Islamic star and crescent prayer rises in a multi-throated chorus rises proudly from the rooftop, the from a legion of mosques and dargahs stained glass windows depict Beefeaters, (tombs) tucked into the winding lanes kings and cavaliers. For every Indo- of the old city. Saracenic turret and Mughal arch, there’s a nude-crowned marble fountain or a A profusion of palaces neoclassical colonnade. For all its heirlooms, the Falaknuma This Europe-by-way-of-Asia interior displays just a tiny fraction of the Nizam’s design was actually the vision of Sir Viqar- vast wealth. After losing his kingdom at ul-Umra, prime minister of Hyderabad Independence, the 7th Nizam retreated Deccan and head of the noble Paigah heart-broken to Istanbul and many of his family, who raised the palace and then treasures were spirited away by courtiers, gifted the entire complex, gardens and but significant parts of the collection all, to the 6th Nizam, Mahbub Ali Khan, were saved by his daughter-in-law, who passed it to his son as a venue for Princess Esra, and displayed in the loving- lavish state functions. However, by the ly restored Chowmahalla Palace, where middle of the 20th century, the palace the Asaf Jahi dynasty entertained official was neglected and fading, used as a store guests and visiting royalty. for the Nizam’s mountain of heirlooms. ‘When I came back to Hyderabad after Over a formal dinner in the palace a gap of 20 years I found a very sorry state grounds, I spoke to the prime minister’s of affairs,’ she explained. ‘The Nizam’s great-grandson, Faiz Khan, about the properties were very badly kept - it was as palace’s decline. ‘As a child I could hardly if history were wiping them away. I felt I move in the Falaknuma,’ he said wistfully. had to do something to bring them back Market stalls surround- ‘I remember a whole room full entirely of to life to help people in Hyderabad ing the in clocks. All the display cases were packed - remember their past, and keep their his- Hyderabad’s old city. there were things everywhere.’ tory and heritage alive.’