Many Hyderabadis were surprised a few days back when two of Hyderabad’s well-known groups Hyderabad Trails and Tale Tellers Troupe India (TTTI) had a showdown on social media, where the former was accused of copying the latter’s walk ideas.
It all started when a senior journalist from the city, Yunus Lasania put up a post on Facebook pointing out that Hyderabad Trails had copied his idea of the Naya Qila walk which he was conducting on behalf of the TTTI. Although the post has been deleted, it did make a lot of waves on Facebook.
Noticing that many prominent people from the city were supporting Yunus, Gopala Krishna, the founder of Hyderabad Trails posted a message on Facebook, revealing that the walk in question was in fact, announced much before Yunus’ walk. Gopala also accused TTTI of “running a concerted and relentless smear campaign against Hyderabad Trails (sic).”
Talking about the incident, Gopala says, “Hyderabad Trails’ Naya Qila walk was planned much before that of TTTI’s. However, for some time now, I have noticed that Santosh Mohan Veeranki (the founder of TTTI) has been criticising us on various platforms.”
He adds, “Since the time Hyderabad Trails started conducting the heritage walks, many other heritage walks have lost their shine. Those who tried their hand at it did not get the kind of crowd that Hyderabad Trails manages to attract. Due to this, I have faced much criticism, but I haven’t ever responded to any of it. However, Yunus tagged many influential people in the city and there was a lot of engagement on the post. That’s why I felt the need to respond to it.”
Gopala explains that he isn’t scared of competition. “Everyone is entitled to explore the heritage and the more people do it, the better. In fact, Hyderabad Trails has supported many who wanted to venture into walks,” he says.
Meanwhile, the founder of TTTI, Santosh Mohan Veeranki, who hasn’t said anything on social media, shares dragging TTTI into the controversy was inappropriate. “We have never done any kind of heritage walks ever. Since Asif Khan Dehlvi, the founder of Delhi Karavan was going to be a part of the recently concluded International Storytelling Festival, we thought it would be a good idea to do the walk. This was completely owned by Yunus and Asif, and I am not 100 per cent sure what went wrong,” he says, adding, “However, us (TTTI) getting dragged into it was not very appropriate and hence, I didn’t comment on it.”
On the personal remarks made against him by Hyderabad Trails, Santosh says, “I don’t know about it. I am very passionate about TTTI and don’t want anything to impact that.”
In yet another development, Yunus did apologise for his post, saying that he was misinformed.
