Beyond Charminar

One of the biggest enigmas of Hyderabad's heritage are the famed Nizams jewels, a portion of which are with the Reserve Bank of India.

The collection, which includes the infamous 186 carat Jacob diamond, is always a topic when we talk about the Nizams of Hyderabad. 

To understand how big the entire collection is, and the stories surrounding it, host Yunus Lasania speaks with art historian Deepthi Sasidharan is an art historian.

Deepthi is also a curator and founder Director at Eka Archiving, a cultural advisory and works on heritage and museum projects across India with the government, private and corporate clients.

Deepthi, has led Eka projects have been path-breaking in India, including setting up museums, seminal exhibitions, and the creation of several important archives across India. This past year she curated the celebratory AD Museum – Design in 75 years and curated the Dr. Savita N Museum and Library at Porbandar, Gujarat.

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Language is a means of communication, which often is shaped (or changes) based on our socio-cultural and political milieu. In India's Deccan region, the spoken language (widely) today is in fact Dakhni, and not Urdu. The former, often mistaken to be a dialect of Urdu, is actually older and was at one point of time the mainstay of literary culture in the 16th and 17th centuries, especially in the Deccan.
In spite of Urdu eventually becoming the official language over a century ago, Dakhni has still persisted and remained as our spoken tongue. To decode that host Yunus Lasania speaks with researcher and upcoming author Karthik Malli, and also Mohd Affan aka Pasha Bhai, a Bangalore-based hip-hop artist who released his maiden and the first ever Dakhni rap album 'Pasha Bhai'. Affan had earlier released a few singles, but his latest album, which is chosen to sing in Dakhni, is a must listen for anyone looking to understand language dynamics.

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Most of us today know of software giant TCS (Tata Consultancy Services). It's part of Hyderabad's Hitec City that emerged in the 21st century. 
However, many aren't aware that TCS in fact was originally a government Public Sector Unit called CMC (Computer Maintenance Corporation) that came up after IBM was asked to leave India. IBM used to maintain PCs and databases in India and when IBM was asked to leave, the government hired individuals who would set up an alternative.
Among those who were hired was BK Gupta, who was one of the founding employees of the CMC, India's first software company, which he helped set up in Hyderabad. Host Yunus Lasania speaks with Mr Gupta for this episode, whose eventful journey also includes a ship journey from India to the UK at a very young age for his studies. 

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Off-late, the word Razakaars is being thrown around in political circles quite often in Telangana. Referring to the militia under ex-MIM Leader Qasim Razvi in the Hyderabad state during its last Nizam, the Razakars have once resurfaced in the state's politics. 

The Hyderabad state, under its last Nizam Osman Ali Khan (1911-48), became part of India on Sept 17, 1948, more than a year after the British left. What happened in the last two years before that is needed to understand the Razakars, the Nizam and the annexation. 
Rakesh Kamal, Co-founder of Suno India, speaks with host Yunus Lasania to unravel the entire saga of the Hyderabad state in 1948. 

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When it comes to our freedom struggle from the British, one doesn't think of Hyderabad. More importantly, we're seldom taught about how the 'Jai Hind' slogan came about.
Abid Hasan Safrani, a Hyderabadi, was one of those rare individuals who had gone to Germany to study in the 20th century before independence.
A chance encounter with Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose eventually ended up with him undertaking a submarine journey with Bose as an Indian National Army personnel.
How that went and how Abid Hasan Safrani came back is perhaps one of the most important stories from Hyderabad of the freedom struggle.
For this episode of Beyond Charminar, host Yunus Lasania speaks with sisters Dr Ismat Mehdi and Bizeth Banerjee, both nieces of Safrani, about his life, INA and the freedom struggle from a different perspective. 

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2022 July marks the 175th anniversary of the Seth Viccaji - Seth Pestonji Meherji Parsi (Zoroastrian) fire temple in Hyderabad. Founded by the two brothers in 1847, it's also the oldest fire temple in south India.

Once bankers under the Nizams of Hyderabad, the brothers built the temple and set up infrastructure for cotton traders in the 19th century. More importantly, descendants of Seth Pestonji eventually ended up setting up Chermas, one of the largest retail clothing business in the country, in Hyderabad.

For this episode, host Yunus Lasania speaks to Capt KF Pestonji, who founded Chermas in the 1970s, to understand Parsi history in Hyderabad.

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Over the last few decades, the Bhagyalakshmi temple on the Charminar, which is Hyderabad's foundation, has become a matter of heated debate given the fact that the religious structure is an unauthorised structure. Today, the temple has taken centre stage as it has now become a focal point for mainstream political parties to begin their programmes from. However, in terms of history, there is ambiguity about its origins, and many theories are afloat about it.  

To address that, host Yunus Lasania speaks with Oudesh Rani Bawa, a Hyderabadi from a Kayasth family, who has been seeing both Charminar and the temple since her childhood. Ms Bawa, 81, is an Urdu aficionado, and someone who has been deeply involved in the city's socio-political happenings. 

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For many, the demand for a separate state of Telangana was something new when they first heard of it in 2009. It was perhaps out of context, given that school textbooks also barely mentioned the name.

However, the origins of Telangana's creation and demand as a separate state in fact go back to when the state was part of the erstwhile Hyderabad state, which was under the Nizams.

To understand how, from there, the state was first merged with the Andhra areas and then became separate, host Yunus Lasania speaks to Prof Kodandaram, who led the statehood struggle as chairman of the Telangana Joint Action Committee, and with Vijay Burgula, son of Burgula Narsing Rao, a freedom fighter from the Nizam era who was a staunch pro-Telangana voice.

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Earlier in April, Hyderabad woke up to the shocking news that over 100 goons tried to siege the Nazri Bagh complex, the only remaining part of the historic King Kothi Palace. It was followed by an alleged demolition attempt, which has seemingly been thwarted thanks to government intervention. 

Unfortunately, the issues related to the King Kothi palace are also what plague Hyderabad's heritage in general. More importantly, it is an important site where the city's last Nizam lived and died. In this episode of Beyond Charminar, host Yunus Lasania sits with author and journalist Serish Nanisetti to decode/explain why the palace is in the situation it is today, aside from also decoding who the last Nizam was. 

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When we talk of heritage, old buildings usually pop up in our minds. However, more than monuments, or anything else, our most precious historical sites are our rocks which have been around for millions of years.

And sadly, rapid urbanization has caused a lot of our old sites to become victims of destruction. The Khajaguda heritage site, which is a protected site, has now become a bone of contention between activists and the state government, it has fallen prey to local developers and others who have been actively destroying rocks and causing other damage there.

Host Yunus Lasania talks to Ritwik Reddy, one of the activists who filed a petition with the Telangana High Court and managed to stop the destruction, about the site's importance and why it must be preserved.

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