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Anvar Alikhan

They say that if you're a Hyderabadi, you carry your city with you, wherever you go. Like a string of old ivory prayer beads, perhaps, to bring you solace and pleasure.

Yes, it's always there, inside, within easy reach: a city located in the heart and in the memory, rather than a place in mere geography. And that's just as well, really. For the city itself is today under siege from the hard realities of the 20th century.

Today, as times change, as the social order shifts, as economic progress shoulders aside the past, the Hyderabad that I remember from my childhood slowly, quietly, recedes from view. Of the Hyderabad that my parents and grandparents knew, of course, much has disappeared completely -- and forever. But then, I suppose, it could hardly have been otherwise…

Time was -- and it was not so long ago -- that Hyderabad was a city of almost medieval ways. A city of domes and minarets, high walls and Moghul arches, tucked away in a quiet corner of the late 1940s.

I find it difficult to believe today, for instance, that right up until then, one of Hyderabad's noblemen had the habit of cruising slowly through the streets in an open limousine, while an aide de camp in the front seat tossed coins out of a brocade bag for the city's poor.

I find it difficult to believe that every so often cannons would boom out over the city to announce the birth of a new prince -- upon which all schools and government offices would promptly shut down to celebrate the joyful event.

I find it difficult to believe, too, that my grandfathers paid no taxes: instead, as civil servants, they were expected to present themselves before the Nizam on ceremonial occasions (the royal birthday, for example) and offer nazar, or tribute -- the customary amount for their station in life being one gold and four silver coins, proffered on a white silken kerchief on the palm of the right hand.

That was the kind of world it was.

Hyderabad was famed, then, for the extreme refinement of its way. (According to a turn-of-the-century British diplomat, it was second only to Peking in the respect.) It was known for its etiquette, its art of conversation, its poetry, its cuisine. Courtesy and generosity were of essence; zabaan and izzat -- a man's world and his honour -- were everything. Formality had to be observed down to the last, littlest detail.

If you were offered a paan or a sweet, for instance, you had to stand up and salaam the offerer seven times before you accepted it. If you were speaking to somebody, you had a choice of at least six entirely different ways of calling him ''you' -- each one signifying a slightly different shade of relationship between his status and yours.

If your were in the presence of your elders and betters you took care not to commit a gaffe like crossing your legs, or turning your back upon them. (In fact, it was said of a certain nawab that not only would he never turn his back towards the Nizam, but he would never even turn his back in the direction of the Nizam's palace!)

But much of this, as I said, has changed. Recently I returned to Hyderabad after several years, and was taking one of the city's now ubiquitous, buzzing autorickshaws. Noticing all the new constructions, the crowded traffic and the huge advertisement hoardings, I lapsed back into the old Hyderabadi dialect, "The city's changed a lot, miyan." I remarked to the auto driver.

"Hao saab," he replied cheerfully, " it's been completely sodomised." It was an apt reply, in more ways than one.

To put things in perspective, one must realize that the old kingdom of Hyderabad was approximately the size of Italy -- give or take a few square miles. It was the foremost of the Indian princely states -- the Nizam being the only Indian ruler entitled to a 21-gun salute and the title of 'His Exalted Highness'. It was known for its superbly engineered irrigation system, its railways, it university and its administrative infrastructure.

Its monuments -- like the Qutub Shahi tombs, the Char Minar and the Mecca Masjid were said to be "ranked among the great architectural creations of the East". And its ruler, the Nizam, became synonymous with the term "the world's richest man".

So much for credentials. But what of history?

Hyderabad was founded sometime in the 1580s by the Qutub Shahi sultans, a remarkable dynasty of poets, aesthetes and builders. The city was named Bhagnagar then, in honour of the reigning sultan's mistress, the legendary beauty, Bhagmati. Over the next hundred years, it grew and flourished in the shadow of the nearby Qutub Shahi citadel of Golconda. And situated as it was, at the heart of the vast, rich, brooding Deccan plateau, it acquired considerable strategic importance.

Then the inevitable happened: the Moghul emperor, Aurangzeb, began to cast a cold, expansionist eye southwards in its direction. In 1687 he hurled charges of godlessness and decadence against Sultan Abdul Hasan -- and swiftly followed these up with his armies.

The mailed fist came down hard. The fortress of Golconda held out for nine bitter months; then one night it fell, by treachery. The Qutub Shahi dynasty came to an abrupt and bloody end. Hyderabad passed into the hands of the Moghuls. And Aurangzeb's brilliant young, 26-year old general, Mir Qamruddin, was appointed viceroy of the Deccan.

And thereby hangs a legend….

Once, during the Deccan campaign, Mir Qamruddin had lost his way in the wilderness. As night was gathering, he saw a faint, flickering light in the distance. It turned out to be a fakir's hut. The holy man, who was about to sit down to his evening meal, asked the young general to join him.

Qamruddin, being hungry, did so, and during the course of the meal ate seven kulchas-- soft, flat discs of unleavened bread. The fakir urged him to eat some more. But Qamruddin thanked him: he had eaten his fill, he said. Again the fakir urged him to eat some more. Again Qamruddin declined politely. Then the fakir prophesised that he would soon become a king -- and as he had eaten seven kulchas, so would his dynasty rule for seven generations.

The prophecy, turned out to be uncannily true. Mir Qamruddin became the first Nizam of Hyderabad. The dynasty he founded ruled for exactly seven generations. And the kulcha became the somewhat whimsical centerpiece of the Hyderabad coat-of-arms. It would appear everywhere, from the golden-yellow state flag and the velvet ministerial despatch boxes… down to the rank markings on a policeman's epaulettes.

I came across that old kulcha coat-of-arms again after many years, recently, when I visited the Falaknuma Palace -- literally "The Palace in the Skies". The smallest of the Nizam's four palaces, it is set high on a hill overlooking the city, and it gives one a small insight into the lifestyle of erstwhile Hyderabadi nobility.

It was built originally by a 19th century nawab (at a cost -- then! -- of Rs 3.5 million). The style is Palladian, with vast expanses of dazzling Italian marble. Workmen from Florence hand-tooled the leather ceiling of the huge banquet hall; its dining table was designed to seat 102 people (I counted!).

The whole place is appointed with richly brocaded Empire furniture, marble statuary, Dresden porcelain, Ming china, Venetian chandeliers, and ruched and ruffled silken drapes. In one of the rooms is a solid silver mango tree; in another, a hookah specially designed for four people; in yet a third, a pianola that plays everything from Beethoven to, somewhat unexpectedly, Humpty Dumpty.

This entire palace was apparently gifted by its owner to the then Nizam when the latter happened to visit one day and mentioned, in the course of conversation, that he rather liked the place. (When I said something cynical about this matter in front of a grand-uncle of mine, the old gent got rather upset. "My dear chap," he spluttered, "it was your privilege to be able to make a gift to your sovereign."

Over the years, the Falaknuma Palace went on to play host to a daunting array of European nobility -- from Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, through various assorted Saxe-Coburgs and Battenburgs, to Edward, Prince of Wales. (When Lord Linlithgow came to stay as Viceroy of India, a bed had to be specially lengthened for him -- because in the charming and often-quoted words of an old palace official, "You see, he was a very tall Excellency.")

If the Falaknuma Palace gives one some idea of the vanished nawabi lifestyle, so too does the Salar Jung Museum, said to be one of the finest one-man collections in the world.

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