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Happy birthday Secunderabad, sleep tight

As Secunderabad celebrates 200 years of its existence today. There are no celebrations. Is our heritage the property of the government, SERISH NANISETTI discovers more

Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

Beyond the ridge If the Qutb Shahi Hussain Shah Wali created the lake, Sikander Jah wrote the birth certificate of Secunderabad 200 years ago for the land beyond the ridge

There is no ticker tape, no balloons, no festoons and no cakes but still it is time to celebrate Secunderabad’s birth exactly 200 years ago. It was on 25th Rabi-ul-Awwal, 1222 (Tuesday, June 2, 1807) that the then Nizam, Sikandar Jah, issued th e firman marking out Secunderabad in a letter to Captain Sydenham who was the British Resident at that time.

“...May God make this grant auspicious for all the well wishers of the state in general and for your lordship in particular. By the grace of God this place has now been populated by the regiments and Cantonment. It is therefore required that it should be given a name. On account of the unity and co-operation that exists between our state and English Government, Secunderabad is proposed as its name and by this name it will be styled in future.”

Secunderabad is no poetry in stone, no lyric on a river and is not a love story. But doesn’t it deserve a celebration befitting the occasion?

Exactly one year back, there was much hoo-haa about 200 years of Secunderabad, the government’s hand was forced and Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy was made to watch a short documentary on the once tented city and now a boom town. Befitting a cantonment town, Parade grounds saw some of the rockers from the city as well as Remo belting out some numbers to groove the youth between June 3 and 12.

Now, on the occasion of exact 200 years nothing is happening.

Why? The mai baap sarkar is no longer interested having spent a few crores in 2006 for the forced celebration.

And thereby hangs a tale. A tale of people looking up to the sarkar for everything. Right from preserving the heritage to celebrating it. This sorry tale continues.

“Whenever I have friends visiting this place I make it a point to bring them here. They are amazed by the sheer complexity of the building, the size and the shape,” says a lecturer of Koti Women’s College which now functions out of the Residency building. “Don’t you think more people will come here if they really know the story? The only people who still fancy this place are the film makers who shoot songs and people sit on this this canon which was a gift of the Nizam,” says the lecturer pointing out the huge canon sunk to the ground with its original wheels and wood carriage. Incidentally, Residency building was the centrepiece of insurrection against the British 150 years back but neither the cavernous prisons have been cleaned nor have they been lit up to enlighten a different generation.

As the cab-driven generation rushes to work from Secunderabad to Gachchibowli beyond Toli Chowki all it needs to do is look up and see the Bala Hisar rising from a green foreground. Nearly five hundred years old, it houses the mosque where the first Qutb Shahi king was killed by his son. Put it in perspective, and you have an unbroken record of 500 years. Instead of celebrating its heritage there is a big wrangle going on about documenting the site for the UN Heritage City nomination which was made way back in 1993. If one consultancy wants Rs. 10 crore for documenting according to UN standards, then another consultancy is willing to pull all the sarkari stop to scuttle the deal. The wrangle gets curiouser and curiouser and the delay gets longer and longer. In the meantime, Katora Houz, the lake that was the source of drinking water for the Golconda Fort is turned into a sewerage dump by fancy pink and blue villas that are cropping up within the precincts built by neo-nawabs.

And we wait for the sarkar to wake up.

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