Guest Post by R UMAMAHESHWARI

Second part of a two part article. Part I A City Built on Love can be found here.

A wedding party travelling by night depicting Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah of Golconda (r.1580-1612) bringing home his bride, the beautiful Hindu dancing-girl Bhagmati. (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)

Compared to the more complicated record of the last Nizam of Hyderabad, the popular memory of Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah continues to be one associated with love.

It was Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah who sincerely prayed for his city, his Fakhunda Buniyad (the city with fortunate foundations) or Bhagnagar – “mera shahar logan su mamur kar, rakhyan jun tun darya mein min ya sami” (fill my city with people, as you would a river with fish). And he did not pray for only certain species or kinds of fish.

And so, we now have Greater Hyderabad, starting from that one prayer. He ruled from 1565 to 1611 over the kingdom of Golconda – for 31 years and died at the age of 46. He built the capital city of Hyderabad and many architectural wonders, the most famous among them being Charminar (1591), the Jami (Mecca) Masjid (1597), and the Darush Shifa (1595) – which housed a Unani hospital, many gardens, palaces and so forth.

Muhammad Quli also poured his heart out in other ways, such as in ghazals, Marsiya (elegy), Rekhti (“women expressing sentiments for men in a language exclusively spoken by them”), and so on. Some of these (as recorded in the book by Narendra Luther, Prince, Poet, Lover, Builder Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, The Founder of Hyderabad, Publications Division, Government of India, 1991), being relevant to the times, are reproduced below.

 Kufr reet kyaa hor islam reet

(aur)

Har ek reet mein hai ishq ka raaz

What is the heathen’s path, what the Muslim’s? Every practice is based on the secret of love.

[Narendra Luther, p. 34.]

Mere sang mil bajaati sankhara abharan

Siri raagaan jo gaati istri to muj kun bhaati hai

The one who plays the conch with me and sings shankarabharan (raga), the one who sings Sri raga – that woman I like. [Luther, p. 46]

Ke saat samundar naman sanskrut ka ilm bahe

To lavde jin vo kaari dikhaave is ke gataan

He likened [Sanskrit language] to seven oceans whoever acquires its knowledge sees its benefits. “Jama, a court poet of Muhammad Quli is said to have translated kok shastra into Persian.” [Luther, p. 45]

 Main na jaaqnun Kaaba-o-but khan-o main-khaan kun

Dekhtaa hun kahaan dista hai tujh much kaa safaa

I don’t know the holy Kaaba or the idol’s temple or the tavern; I look everywhere but can’t see a face as clear as yours. [Luther, p. 35]

Jahaan tu waah un pyare minje kya kaam hai kis sun

Na butkhaane ka minj parva na masjid ka khabar minj kun

I am where you are, my dear. I have nothing to do with anyone else. I am bothered neither about the temple nor about the mosque. [Luther, p. 35]

The story of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah’s love for a peasant woman named Bhagmati is most remembered in popular memory and books written on Hyderabad. Luther writes, “The story goes that as a young prince in his early teens, he fell in love with a young Hindu peasant girl by name Bhagmati. She was a beauty and an accomplished dancer. She lived in a village called Chichlam which was across the river Musi and close to where the Char Minar monument stands today…” [p. 79]

The Purana Pul over Musi river was apparently constructed by his father for his meeting with Bhagmati to take place without much hassles. Faizi, who was emperor Akbar’s resident at Ahmadnagar during 1591-94 reported to his master that Muhammad Quli had “built a city called Bhagnagar, named after Bhagmati, the old hag who has been his mistress for a long time”. [Luther, p. 80]

How lovely to have an entire city conceived and constructed from an act of love (even if this be a legend, what a beautiful one!); or the prayer to populate the city? What a beautiful foundation, was it not?

But the Hindutva brigade rarely ever understood love transcending faith and social boundaries. What if Bhagmati accepted Islam (for love) and the name Hyder Mahal? The city still is named after a woman, isn’t it? In her memory?

The Hyderabadi poet, Makhdoom Mohiuddin (who was part of the Progressive Writers Association and became well-known outside Hyderabad for some of his timeless compositions for Hindi films – Ek chambeli ke mandve tale; aap ki yaad aati rahi  raat bhar; phir chidi raat baat phoolon ki….) wrote of Bhagmati thus:

 Pyaar se aankh bhar aati hai

Kanwal khilte hain

Jab kabhi lab par tera

Name wafa aata hai….

 

Sahahar baaki hai, muhabbat kaa nishaan baaki hai

Dilbari baaki hai, dildaari-e-jaan baaki hai

Sare fehariste nigaaraane jahaan baaki hai

Tu nahin, teri chashme nigraan baaki hai       [Poem, Bhagmati, in the Anthology, Bisat-e-Raks]

The eyes well up with love and lotuses blossom

Whenever the story of your love comes on my lips…

The city remains, so does the insignia of love

Love remains, as do souls that love

You are no more, yet on top of the list is this world of lovers

That remains under your care

[Translated with help from Jameela Nishat]

Unless one had a heart of a poet, or a lover, these memories of Hyderabad wouldn’t matter.

“Muhammad Quli built a garden city and till this day the names of soe of the localities have the suffix or prefix of bagh (garden) attached to them though there may be no blade of grass in them. The tradition however continues verbally… Not only was the city surrounded by gardens, but within it, each locality had a park and each mansion in the locality had its own private garden…Rafiud Din Shirazi observed in his Tazkuratul Muluk written in 1608 that “a large city with magnificent mansions was founded every one of which had a garden attached to it. Some of the trees of these gardens were so tall that they seemed to touch the very sky. Both bazars and houses are so full of trees that the whole city looks like one garden and there is such a variety of fruits from Khurasan and Protugal that they have lost all their worth.” [Luther, p. 93]

In an afterword (written by her in original Urdu) to a book (Rani Sarma, The Deodies of Hyderabad, 2008,2019), Lakshmi Devi Raj, a prominent figure in Hyderabad, had written, “Where is my beloved Hyderabad? Where is that beautiful city, which was so full of gardens, lakes and open spaces?… The city where there was g race and grandeur, where there was courtesy and concern? Where have those times that we all lived and loved gone? We called ours a ganga-jumni culture. We were bound together by bonds stronger than faith. Affection, warmth and tenderness were the qualities that nurtured us…Dussera, Diwali or Sankranti, were all meant to be enjoyed whether one was Hindu or not. We were all Hyderabadis and faiths were personal. Were we less devout ten or were we more human? Why is the ‘Hyderabadiyat’ which is the blend of cultures and people being diluted? What went wrong? And when?” [Rani Sarma, p. 153)

Of course, she was writing about the sweeping changes that were affected in the city over decades. But the essence of her lament can be for the present, as well.

Poet Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, brother of Sarojini Naidu (who had their home in Golden Threshold in Nampally (where initially the Hyderabad University’s School of Media Studies used to function from) in a rare Doordarshan interview (with Zul Vellani) said, “I was born in Hyderabad at a time when Hyderabad was like a city in the Arabian Nights…with all kinds of riches of the past!… My father was the DSc of India, he founded the Nizam College…”

Then there is another person to be remembered: a barefooted man walking along the Lad Bazar by Charminar, and then towards the Chowmohalla palace premises, speaking of his childhood’s Husaini Alam, making his film on his love of Three Cities, sometimes walking into the old Garden Café at Secunderabad, for an Irani chai. I was fortunate to tag along, as a reporter then, in year 2003. M.F. Husain’s first exhibition in Bombay in 1947 happened with the help of a Hyderabadi, Hazrat Mohammad Ishaaq Ziaeee, who sold textiles from Siddi Amber Bazar. Husain wrote: Once Gypsies were called Banjaras Now Banjaras are Hills, distempered housing colonies, and a hotel constantly under renovation…

Where have all the flowers gone?

Where?

With the Gypsies

To another place, another time, another garden.

Banjara Hills of today was once (in 1940s) teeming with Banjaras, whom Husain had drawn. [M.F. Husain, Where Art Thou, written with Khalid Muhammad, M.F. Husain Foundation, Pundole Art Gallery, 2002.]

But then what to say of the painter exiled mercilessly, paying for his expression in art of the goddess form. Lest we forget, it was the same Sangh Parivar which forced the exile on him. Significantly, he chose Hyderabad to build his modernist home, Cinema Ghar, envisaged to be a space for creative expression and endeavour in a city he grew up in and loved.

Artist Laxma Goud once equated Husain with Hyderabadi tradition, where even sharing a cup of tea, was heavenly – ‘they asked for no more than that!” Spaces like Orient Café were once addas for cups of Irani chai, Osmania biscuits and shared poetry and political discourses, according to many of that generation.

Ending with the Personal

Then this was a love story of a commoner, my father, who loved Hyderabad so much at first sight that he moved us all, whole family (in the 1980s, including our plants and two dogs) from our happy existence in Delhi, to a new language (Dakhni, which we initially made fun of – hallu, aatun, jaatun, kya to bi karte, kaikoo…), notion of time (a Hyderabad standard) and pace. Today, on hindsight, I make new meaning of that move to a city I completed half of my schooling and college in, and shamefully never ended up learning to read and write in Urdu (in spite of father enrolling me, even as a school girl, in a distance learning programme for the same). Within less than ten years, we had lived in different localities of Hyderabad and in each (as I see now), there were a sizeable number of Muslim settlements, dargahs, maqbaras, as well as smaller local Hindu shrines. We stayed close to Erragadda – Sanathnagar, Venkatapuram (near Alwal, which was in the Secunderabad cantonment), and finally moved (one last time in 1990, before I went to JNU for my higher studies, by which time my father moved with my brother to other cities, never to  return to Hyderabad again), to the only ‘developed’ locality we lived in, West Marredpally, again inhabited by Tamils (brahmins and Mudaliyars), Anglo-Indians, a few elite Muslims, and of course, the famous dargahs, temples, a few Muslim bastis and dalit bastis not far from there. Diversity was the essence in every place of our habitation.

My re-discovery of Hyderabad’s history happened thanks to my first ever journalist job at the Deccan Chronicle with the editor (Jayanti) persuading me to cover the beat called Art and Culture. It was thanks to that profile that I got to traversed the entire length and breadth of the old and new Hyderabad, and saw the kaleidoscope of cultures, communities, festivals, arts and heritage. Finally, over the years, I found home in a locality called Padmaraonagar (named after Diwan Bahadur Padmarao Mudaliyar, the founder of Deccan Chronicle daily), with its own diversity in the surroundings: a Parsigutta (the historic Parsi tower of silence), Warasiguda (named after a Sufi pir, with a Muslim basti in the vicinity), Churches, mosques, gurudwaras and shrines aplenty within a radius of a few kilometers. By the time I moved out permanently from here, the once green area became ‘prime property’, once smaller shrines became larger and louder and the Azans and church bells of the morning got lost in their din.

As I watched sadly the Hyderabad electoral battle from Shimla (where one misses the diversity of sounds – though it is happily replaced by diversity of non-sectarian bird calls), I retraced my recording (of the few I found) of some of the community histories of Hyderabad as a journalist, which I choose  to end with.

Three ‘streams’, classes of Tamil speaking people came to Hyderabad, mainly due to occupational reasons, between the early 19^th and 20^th centuries. There were the sepoys serving the British army which had set up its southern command with base in Secunderabad – called ‘lashkar’ (cantonment) as against the ‘patnam’ (city) of Hyderabad. These were largely from the ‘adi-dravidar’ non-brahmin community. Then there were the intellectual class among the Mudaliars and the Iyers and Iyengars – advocates, and the like, in the higher administrative posts of the Nizam State. And finally, there were the traders, contractors – the earliest among them being the Purushottam Mudaliar family, the proprietors of Ganesh beedi. In the 1920s many Tamils were employed in the Nizam State Railways. Interestingly, much of the Tamilian migration is connected with the railway network connecting the Nizam state with Madras Presidency. Or, with the setting up of army barracks and stables. Thus, the Tamils settled in areas in around Kachiguda, Regimental Bazar, Second Bazar, Trimulgherry, Picket, Gunfoundry, Mudfort (its old name was Tilleri), Yapral and so on. Many of the Adi-dravidars were with the cavalry division. One of the early government schools having Tamil medium was at Bolarum, and another at Mudfort. Nizam College, in fact was affiliated to the Madras University and students apparently went to Madras to write the final papers. The Mudaliars and Tamil Brahmins were patronized by the Nizam-Diwan Bahadur Padma Rao Mudaliar, Ayyavu Iyer, Rajaram Iyer, Ramanuja Iyengar and so forth. Along with the Tamil speaking people came their gods and goddesses, such as Murugan, Karumariamman, Kannabiran, Govindarajaperumal, with temples set up for them at Venkatapuram (Asafgramam), Central Battery, Marredpally and such places. The Murugan temple at Venkatapuram was set up in 1915, with blessings of a Siddhar, Baladesikanayanar. This must be one of the few temples here with non-brahmin priests. The adi-dravida family of Sukadevan (whose grandfather came here with the British army) built this temple with others of their community. In fact, they also set up a Young Men’s Dravidar Association in those days, encouraging youngsters in sports and other activities. Venkatapuram was part of the jagir of Raja Krishna Prasad. The Asafiya minister had donated this land to the adi-dravidars and hence, got the name Asafgramam. The name, Trimulgherry has a Tamil origin, too.V. Ramachandran says this place was locked by three hillocks- at Chota Moulali, Moulali, and Gunrock, hence, tri-mul-giri (hill). His grandfather, Vadivelu Pillai had walked on foot to Hyderabad as a sepoy in the British army. Ramachandran- now 83-was one of the young men who had set up the Tamil Manram where now stands a laundry shop, in Trimulgherry bazaar (or, Lal Bazar). Eminent intellectuals from Madras used to give lectures at the Tamil Manram, largely attended by Tamils, says Ramachandran. The manram stands dissolved today. History is the name for continuity as well as ruptures. Today, many Tamilians here speak Telugu and rarely their own ‘mother tongue’. They are Hyderabadis for all practical purposes, ‘recalling’ their Tamil identity on festive occasions, and as part of the Tamil sangam.

Shri Kewal Singh (former SP) enlightened this writer about Sikh history and the significance of Baisakhi. His family, incidentally, has been part of Hyderabad from 1939 when his father, Sardar Khem Singh came over from Aurangabad. And he was one of the few young lads who started the first procession on Baisakhi in 1948 from the Ameerpet gurudwara in the turbulent post-partition times.

Satish Shah, a Gemmologist said his family hailed from Gujarat, and his early forefathers had settled in Aurangabad when it was under the larger Deccan kingdom. Later on they settled down at Karavan, and became the official jewellers of the Nizams. They belong to the Vaishnavite Gujarati sect, and consider the Saint Vallabhacharya their preceptor. He said that the last of the royal family from Iran to adorn diamonds from Golconda was the queen Farah. The Deccan, and Hyderabad, was so significant that even the French historian, Tavernier, spoke of places such as Gudimalkapur, and Karavan, as important markets for jems, and diamonds. According to Shah, in those days, jewellery was seen as a craft, and people preferred custom made items, unlike today, when things are made enmasse, and picked up from shops.

So many linguistic, religious, regional communities have together built up the truly composite Hyderabad. I revelled in its varied sounds, colours, smells, and flavours of the city. I do not wish (even from a distance) for it to be shrouded over by a ‘singular’ canopy of the illusory, non-loving, autocratic, non-spiritual, fanatic ‘One’.

R Umamaheshwari is based in Shimla and author of From Possession to Freedom: The Journey of  Nili- Nilakeci (Zubaan books, 2018) and other books.