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Home , Falaknuma Palace, Nizam of Hyderabad, Paigah Tombs

LOCAL LANDMARK Presiding over a busy intersection in the old city, the 16th-century is ’s most iconic monument; its minarets enclose stairwells that lead to the top-floor mosque.

THE TREASURES OF HYDERABAD

Once the seat of ’s richest , Hyderabad is booming again as a high-tech hub of the country’s software industry. It’s a city whose bright future has yet to outshine its illustrious past, and where the echoes of nizams and still resound among resurrected palaces and grand monuments BY SHOBA NARAYAN PHOTOGRAPHS BY SRINIVAS CHANDALLA

APRIL/MAY 2011 — DESTINASIAN — 85 “WHAT WOULD MADAM LIKE? Burka or miniskirt?” asks a boy of about 10 as he trails me through , a kilo- meter-long stretch of shops and stalls lead- ing to Hyderabad’s Charminar mosque. On one side of the street hang patterned head- scarves, burkas, and other chaste Islamic rai- ment. On the other is what my young tout calls “bling-mania”: a riotous display of diaphanous candy-pink skirts and low-cut sequined tops in the style favored by Bollywood heroines. “This particular miniskirt is just like the one Bipasha Basu wore in Dhoom 2,” says the boy, referring to the Hindi heist caper that led the Indian box office in 2006. “College girls love it. And Madam,” he adds, assessing me with a precocious eye, “has the shape for it.”

Oh, he’s good. But I haven’t come to the PALACE INTRIGUE heart of old Hyderabad for skirts, or bangles, Clockwise from above: or any of the other myriad items—henna, Teatime at the Taj ; a kohl, pearl jewelry—for which Laad Bazaar is deserted chamber renowned. What I am looking for is romance among the ruins of ; a view —an epic romance, really. across In the late 16th century, Quli Lake. Opposite: city views from the Gol Qutb , a poet-prince of aquiline features Bungalow pavilion at the and Persian descent whose portrait now Taj Falaknuma Palace. hangs in the Smithsonian, fell in love with and married a Hindu nautch girl called Bhagmati. When, as a young , he moved his court from the fortress town of Golconda (now a pic- turesque ruin on the outskirts of Hyderabad) to the more salubrious banks of the in 1591, he named his new capital after his beloved, who was given the Hyder Mahal upon her conversion to . “Hyderabad is a city born from love,” says Jayanti Rajagopalan, owner of a bespoke tour company called Detours. “Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal, but Quli Qutb Shah built an entire city for the woman he loved!” We are sitting at Farasha, a venerable Iranian café in the shadow of the Charminar’s fluted minarets. Outside, motorbikes and auto-rickshaws whirl around the 400-year-old monument, a masterpiece of Indo-Islamic architecture that looks vaguely like a turreted Arc de Triomphe. College girls stroll by in tight jeans and T-shirts. Burka-clad women clutch children sucking on neon-green pop- sicles. Everywhere, there is the din of commerce, as people haggle over nickname “City of Pearls.” The area still serves as one of the country’s produce, trinkets, and Unani medicine that promises to give “strength” most colorful marketplaces. Along Laad Bazaar, stacks of lac-and-rhine- at night. But it’s not all business. Across the street from the Charmi- stone bangles glitter like compressed stars in mirrored display cases. nar, 10,000 of the faithful can worship togther at Makkah Masjid, among In the back are the workshops, where bare-torsoed men heat the lac the grandest and most revered mosques in India. Its central arch, Jayanti over coals, beat it flat, and shape it into delicate circles. While the lac tells me, is embedded with bricks made from soil brought back from is still warm, jewelers with nimble fingers press rhinestones into the the holy city of Mecca. bangles. Butterflies, flowers, and even the Taj Mahal are used as motifs. Modeled on the Persian city of Esfahan, Hyderabad was originally The designs remind me of Judith Leiber handbags. designed around gardens, fountains, palaces, public baths, and reser- voirs for moon gazing. At its center was the Charminar, presiding over AS BEFITS A CITY LOCATED pretty much at the crossroads of the the junction of four cardinal roads. The surrounding bazaars were rich country, Hyderabad, the state capital of , is a conflu- in gold, diamonds, and the luminous gems that earned Hyderabad the ence of Indian cultures. Its six-million-strong population is equal parts

APRIL/MAY 2011 — DESTINASIAN — 87 KINGLY CANVAS A portrait of the sixth , Mehboob Ali Pasha, hangs above the Taj Falaknuma Palace’s grand marble staircase. Opposite: A richly decorated mausoleum at the complex. has emerged as a high-tech boomtown, life here has an unhurried quality. Hyderabadis take time to anoint themselves with attar perfume, and think nothing of waiting in line to enjoy the famed biryani at Paradise Restaurant. “Despite being the sixth-largest and wealthiest city in India, Hyderabad is a pretty laid-back place,” says Gulzar Natarajan, a young bureaucrat from the tony suburb of . “And Hyderabadis are extraor- dinarily helpful. If your car is going to break down at night somewhere in India, this is where you’d want to be. People will take you in and take care of you.” And where else, I wonder, can one so eas- ily rub shoulders with royalty? I meet Saleha Sultan for lunch at JEWELS IN THE CROWN the beautifully restored , Clockwise from left: former seat of the nizams of the Asaf Jahi Bargaining over lac bangles in Laad Bazaar; dynasty, who ruled Hyderabad—then a prin- Hyderabadi dum (slow- cipality about the size of Italy—from 1724 cooked) biryani at the Park hotel’s elegant until its annexation by India in 1948. Dressed Aish restaurant; a suite in Indian silk with Bulgari earrings and Ver- bedroom at the same hotel. Opposite: The sace glasses, the 70-year-old princess cuts a pool terrace at the Park. dignified figure. Her husband is Bashir Yar Jung of Hyderabad’s Paigah family, a noble clan once almost as powerful as the nizams. She is also a close friend of the Turkish princess Esra Jah, former first wife of the current nizam— “more like a sidekick really”—who a decade ago took charge of rehabilitating both the Chowmahalla and Falaknuma palaces. After finishing our chilled watermelon juice, flatbreads, and a kaleidoscope of curries, Princess Saleha introduces me to a young Aus- trian cabinetmaker named Zeigfried (“just call me Ziggy”), who has been helping to refurbish the Chowmahalla’s woodwork for seven years. He takes me on a tour of the complex, which now serves as a public museum. Dating from 1751, the Chowmahalla was modeled on the shah’s palace in Tehran; its four wings border a central courtyard with a rectangular pond and fountains. Meticu- lously restored court costumes, each bejew- eled with sequins on silk, are laid out in one wing. Opposite them is the library, where a team of and Persian scholars works at cataloging and organizing the estate’s huge Hindu and Muslim. People here tend to be more flamboyant than their collection of Islamic manuscripts. The palace’s crowning glory is the reserved southern neighbors, and have an easier relationship with Hall, a vast, marble-floored reception room with arched pil- wealth than, say, frugal Karnatakans. Women bejewel themselves with lars, ornate stuccowork, and glittering chandeliers. It was designed uncut diamonds and sequined saris, while men dress in smart sherwanis, to impress the most regal of guests, and, after years of neglect, it’s doing which Jawaharlal Nehru adapted and popularized as the Nehru so again today. jacket. As for Hyderabadi weddings, they can be every bit as over-the- Last year, Princess Esra’s restoration of the Chowmahalla received top as Punjabi ones. a UNESCO award for cultural heritage preservation. Yet for all its On the other hand, the city is more conservative than those of the grandeur, the palace today only hints at its former magnificence, when north, with a tradition of courtly manners and elaborate courtesies that it was staffed by 7,000 retainers (several of whom were employed solely can be either stultifying or refreshing, depending on your perspective. to crack the royal walnuts) and considered one of the finest royal res- Nor do Hyderabadis share Mumbaikars’ reputation as freewheeling idences in the country. But the good times were not to last. traders, impatient to close a deal or transaction. For all that their city When British rule ended in India 64 years CONTINUED ONPG. 104

90 — DESTINASIAN — APRIL/MAY 2011 HYDERABAD CONTINUED FROM PG. 90 great halls were falling apart. Reopened as the successive Paigah nawabs and their wives, each Taj Falaknuma Palace hotel late last year, it surrounded by intricate jali lattices, floral is one of India’s great conservation success and fruit motifs, and Rajput flourishes. stories. The whole effect was serene yet powerful Built by Sir Vicar ul-Umra, a Paigah emir —a far cry from the ostentatious Falaknuma. then serving as Hyderabad’s prime minister, Then again, the palace was Sir Vicar’s display the Falaknuma (“Mirror of the Sky”) is a to the world, while the tombs offered succor baroque amalgam of European architectural to his soul. styles—Italianate in parts, Victorian in others, with Tudor and French Renaissance touches IF THE TAJ FALAKNUMA Palace epito- thrown in for good measure. It took Sir Vicar mizes old Hyderabad, then another new hotel ago, the seventh nizam of Hyderabad, Sir seven years—and most of his fortune—to con- conveniently symbolizes all that is modern. Osman Ali , refused to join the new struct. He would keep it for little more than Overlooking Hussain Sagar Lake and its tow- Indian union. Mohammed Ali Jinnah came a decade. ering Buddha statue, the Park Hyderabad down from Pakistan to try to persuade Hyder- Over dinner at the hotel. Faiz Khan, the rises from its downtown plot like an angular abad to accede to Pakistan instead. “But Jin- emir’s great grandson, tells me that in the spaceship, with 270 sleekly outfitted rooms, a nah lit a cigarette in front of the nizam and that spring of 1897, the palace received word that restaurant crafted by Mumbai fashion designer put an end to all discussions,” recounts Bashir the sixth nizam, Mahboob Ali Pasha, was Tarun Tahiliani, and a nightclub one accesses Yar Jung. coming to visit his sister, Sir Vicar’s wife. via a translucent tube that passes through the An eccentric whose personal fortune was “Sir Vicar thought that the nizam would swimming pool. Its computer-modeled facade estimated by Time magazine at US$2 billion come for tea and leave the same evening. But is meant to recall the delicate metalwork of in 1937, making him among the richest men he stayed for close to a month,” Khan says. “So nizami jewelry. But everything else about in the world, Sir Osman was unable to hang Sir Vicar ended up giving up the palace as nasr the place speaks to a younger, shinier, more on to the semi-independence he had enjoyed [offering] to the nizam. Three generations of upwardly mobile Hyderabad, with its world- during the Raj. The invaded in his family moved out the same evening. You class Indian School of Business, its prolific 1948, in a campaign dubbed Operation Polo know, parting with something so beautiful, so Telugu-language film industry, and its sprawl- because of the state’s extravagant number of substantial, it must have been very painful.” ing IT corridor, nicknamed Cyberabad, whose polo grounds—17 in all. After five days of Today, the Taj group has retained the tenants include Google, Microsoft, Dell, and fighting, Sir Osman capitulated. The nizam’s palace’s essence with some of its own luxuri- Motorola. title was officially abolished, and Hyderabad ous additions. Its staff glide quietly through Hyderabad today is at a crossroads, at was eventually carved up between Maha- the pristine white corridors; rashtra, , and the newly formed state the suites in the former zenana of Andhra Pradesh. (women’s quarters) are acces- When Sir Osman died in 1967, his 33-year- sorized with distinctive sta- old grandson and successor, , tionary, fragrant toiletries, inherited an estate saddled with debts and and ridiculously soft bed litigation. Six years later, with many of his linens. Lawn sprinklers throw assets frozen in Indian courts and his marriage off a million rainbows in the to Esra ending, he fled to Western Australia morning in a bid to counter to take up sheep farming. When creditors came Hyderabad’s arid January knocking on the door, he was obliged to relo- weather. The Jiva spa offers cate again, this time retiring in Turkey. soothing aroma massages In Jah’s absence, his neglected palaces fell using organic ingredients. to ruin. The Chowmahalla was plundered Guests are welcomed by a and parceled off; of the estate’s original 18 horse-drawn carriage (com- hectares, less than six remain today. Then, after plete with liveried coachman) a 30-year absence, Princess Esra unexpectedly that carries them to the main appeared on the scene. She had, according to lobby, where, atop a stunning family accounts, reconciled with her ex-hus- cantilevered wooden stair- band at their son’s wedding in London. Jah case, hang portraits of Paigah gave her carte blanche to salvage whatever nobles. Among them is Sir remained of their children’s inheritance. Esra Vicar, a bearded man with hired a lawyer, negotiated the release and soulful eyes. sale of contested assets, paid off debts and set- Sir Vicar’s remains rest in tled legal disputes, and used what was left to the stunning Paigah Tombs, rescue the Chowmahalla. tucked away in the quiet Esra also oversaw the restoration of the neighborhood of Saidabad. Falaknuma Palace, which is set on a hilltop Few tourists come here. I A horse-drawn carriage at south of town. Ten years ago, it was bolted up. spend a quiet hour wandering The Taj Falaknuma Palace. Giant cobwebs hung from the ceiling and its among the mausoleums of

104 — DESTINASIAN — APRIL/MAY 2011 HYDERABAD once racing toward a gilded future while try- Pradesh. Last March, a rally led by thousands ing to retain its storied past. “Hyderabad has of pro-Telengana agitators shut down central —WHERE TO STAY Park Hyderabad a rich cultural legacy, but it’s being forgotten,” Hyderabad for a day. Delhi 22 Raj Bahwan Rd., says jewelry designer Suhani Pittie, who lives Akbar Ali , a miniaturist who lives in Somajiguda; 91-40/ INDIA in a 200-year-old mansion in the heart of the the old part of town, talks desultorily about 2345-6789; thepark Hyderabad hotels.com; doubles old city. “Today’s youngsters care more about how the city has changed over the years. from US$369 bars and brands than they do our architecture “Telengana or Andhra? Hindu or Muslim? Taj Falaknuma and arts. They’ve lost touch with their past.” When I was young, we didn’t care,” he says, PalaceEngine Bowli; THE DETAILS 91-40/ 2438-8888; Certainly, the party scene at the Park gesturing absently out the window of his HYDERABAD tajhotels .com; Hyderabad seems firmly focused on the pres- studio to where bright green parakeets sing —GETTING THERE doubles from US$765 ent. On Saturday night, the hotel’s prism-like in a mango tree. “Hyderabad was modeled on Silk Air(silkair.com) —WHERE TO EAT Carbon Bar is hopping with twentysome- Jannat [heaven]. It is a city made for romance flies daily from Fusion 9 A stylish Singapore to Hyder- multi-cuisine things—young studs in tight jeans and preen- and royalty.” abad’s Rajiv Gandhi restaurant in Banjara ing girls in little black dresses, all downing Baig specializes in painting Hindu gods and International Airport; Hills. 6-3-249/A, martinis and nibbling on tandoori prawns. I goddesses; miniature canvases are stacked from Bangkok, Thai 1st Ave., Rd. No 1; Airways.com (thaiair 91-40/6557-7722. strike up a conversation with some budding against the walls. With pride, he tells me ) operates four Paradise Restaurant entrepreneurs. They talk about Hyderabad as that one of the nizam’s sons bought one of his flights a week. The Paradise Circle, M.G. city is also well Rd., Secunderbad; if it were in the throes of a gold rush. “There works. And he talks of hours spent at the vast connected to Delhi, 91-40/2784-3115. is so much cash in this city,” says one. “It’s just , studying the techniques a two-hour flight Aish22 Raj Bahwan like during the time of the nizams. People are of past masters. away, and other Rd., Somajiguda; spending money like water.” The Salar Jung claims to be home to the major cities in India. 91-40/2345-6789. —WHEN TO GO —WHAT TO SEE Not always their own money, mind you. In world’s largest one-man art collection, with Situated 520 meters Chowmahalla the last couple of years, Hyderabad has been an eclectic assemblage that ranges from above sea level on Palace Khilwat, rocked by business scandals, notably that of antique European clocks to rare Koranic the , 20-4-236, Motigalli; Hyderabad has a 91-40/2452-2032; Satyam Computer Services, which cooked its manuscripts. However, the richness of Hyder- relatively plea--sant chowmahalla.com. books on such a scale that it was labeled the abadi arts and crafts lies not in the museums, climate for a major Golcanda Fort Enron of India. There has been political ten- but in its small textile workshops. Indian city. The Located11kilometers weather is generally west of Hyderabad. sion too, in the form of a long-standing move- Suraiya Hasan Bose is the most energetic at its best from mid- Paigah Tombs ment to separate the Telengana region, where 81-year-old I’ve ever met. She teaches widows November to March, Santoshnagar Rd. Hyderabad is located, from to weave saris and shawls from delicate fabrics when skies are Salar Jung Museum typically clear and Afzalguni; 91-40/ that were introduced to India temperatures 2457-6443; salar from Persia. It is painstaking remain below 30ºC. jungmuseum.in. work. The intricate paisley and floral designs can take weeks to finish. Next door, children race around the free ton, another local specialty. “I’m just trying to school that Bose runs for keep it alive.” underprivileged children. So are Hyderabadi fashion designers like Bose is credited for her Anand Kabra, who fuses traditional weaves almost single-handed revivals and embellishments into his collections. I of himroo (Persian for “bro- discover his work at the spare Elahe boutique cade”), paithani (whose pat- in Banjara Hills, where a youngish clientele tern is identical on both sides) confidently mixes and matches Indian skirts and mushroo (satin weave). All and halter-necked tops. Down the road, in the three techniques came to glitzy Mangatrai pearl showroom, dowagers Hyderabad in the 17th century, clad in crisp saris pick through pearls the size thanks to the Persian artisans of giant peas. who worked in the court of Done with window-shopping, I retreat Mughal emperor . to the Park hotel’s Aish restaurant, where chef Later, the nizams patronized Mandaar Sukhtankar serves delicious Hyder- textile weavers, but with the abadi food in a fine-dining environment. I sit decline of the dynasty’s for- down with a group of locals to gorge on aro- tunes, these fabrics all but dis- matic biryanis, flavorful haleems (a rich stew of appeared. ground meat, wheat, lentils, and spices), moist “Andhra Pradesh has a tandoori kebabs, and curried vegetables. At the very rich textile heritage,” end of the meal, someone hands me a betel-nut Bose says as she potters digestif called paan. I pop it into my mouth, and The Taramati Mosque around her cluttered store, its sweet juices spurt out—one of life’s small at Golconda Fort. counting bolts of cloth and pleasures in a city that knows how to savor hand-painted kalamkari cot- them.

106 — DESTINASIAN — APRIL/MAY 2011