Public
Gardens aka Bagh-e-Aam
was built by the Nizam regime in 1920s. As a kid I remember going to
a place with my family which was full of greenery, flowers, fountains
and never ending view of the sky. While my parents and relatives settles down with their irani chai, osmania biscuits and the overload of gossip session, we kids, myself, my sister and
brother, sometimes cousins, used to run in the huge never ending
garden of tiny mountains of lush green grass, screaming, dancing and singing until the lunch is ready
to be served. We used to climb the mountains and roll down like a
dice. There was so much to do in one whole day that it used to feel
like just few hours. Later as I grew up, my dad enrolled me into this
Saturday Art Special class conducted by Mr T. Vaikuntam at Jawahar
Bal Bhavan. Although I had attended the class only once it's still
embedded in my memory like a seal.
And
how can one forget Lalitha Kala Toranam, the open theatre,
inaugurated by the then CM Mr NTR as a service to general public to
watch some beautiful telugu black and white movie of NTR, ANR, Anjali
Devi and Jamuna, and many more, under the full moon night for free?
Nostalgic.
Having
completely lost touch with it due to my education and growing up, i
re-discovered this place in early 1990s all by myself and was amazed.
The State Archeological Museum is a delight for art lovers. The
museum boasts of one of the richest repositories of antiques and art
objects in the country including the Buddhist gallery, Brahmanical &
Jain gallery, Bronze gallery, Arms & Armour gallery, Numismatics
gallery, Ajanta gallery and more. Adjacent to the State Museum is the
Contemporary Art Museum where i got introduced to the original
watercolor wash technique art of Chugtai. Also this is where I first
had a closest look of an Egyptian mummy. Brilliant!
This
was 80s and 90s.
The
new millennium saw a radical change and development in the nawabi
city of Hyderabad. Most certainly this place also got affected.
2015
gives a very different picture altogether. Today whenever I visit
Hyderabad, i make it a point to go for Friday prayers in the
beautifully peaceful Masjid at the entrance of the garden. After
finishing my namaz I just take a leisure stroll across the garden to
see if something new has come-up. Definitely things are different
now. Clearly this place is becoming more of political leaders set up
(due to its adjacent Telangana Legislative and Assembly office) and
for some stupid reason there are more and more concrete structures
being built by the government than preserving its flora and fauna.
Last I heard the locals have filed a case in the High Court to stop
further construction of any sort of building in the gardens. Bravo!
But
all said and done nothing actually is lost in the end. One can still
spend a few hours lazing around doing absolutely nothing. Now won't
that be so much fun!
