Down the history lane

There was excitement in the air on Saturday morning as 40 enthusiastic Hyderabadis gathered at Hotel Nayab in Old City to experience a walk through history. As part of the Krishnakriti Festival, around 550 maps, commissioned by the last Nizam of Hyderabad after the floods of 1908, drawn for preventive purposes, were released with the name Munn Maps, christened after the project supervisor Leonard Munn.

History enthusiast Sirisha Indukuri, who is pursuing a fellowship from Indian Foundation for the Arts in conjunction with Kalakriti archives, guided participants who navigated with a map that was drawn over hundred years ago. The idea was to re-imagine how the city once looked like. The maps are intricately detailed, even revealing names of some residents who lived in some of the houses! 

Sirisha explains, “We went along the routes on the map and identified places that are totally different now, and even new places that aren’t on the map.”

The trail was from Hotel Nayab to Aza Khana-e-Zehra, an Ashoorkhana that wasn’t part of the map. The group then moved to Daru Shikha, that translates to ‘House of Healing’. What used to be a Unani Hospital is now an Ashurkhana and a school!

Then came the Diwan Deoli, that was a house of a noble, but exist no more. Sirisha explains, “Now, it is a shopping area. In the map, the elaborate house of the noble, including the gardens, courtyards, etc. are shown, but now only two gates remain.”

The walk ended at Purani Haveli with all the participants better informed about the area.

K. Vijay Kumar, a 57-year-old participant, couldn’t help but marvel at his newly acquired knowledge about the city that he has been living in since 25 years. He says, “What was to be an hour-long walk stretched on for another hour-and-a-half. The best part was that everyone stayed till the end. I always came to this side of the city to see Charminar; I would stay on the main roads and leave. But here, we went through bylanes. The walk was a real eye-opener about how much history the city holds. I never knew that we could enter most of these places. There was a place where Prophet Moha-mmed’s relic was placed and I didn’t know about it until now. The group that I went with was knowledgeable so there was exchange of information that was happening throughout. I am now planning to go for the next walk at the Hill Fort Palace too!”