By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

The year was 1975. I was a first year medical student at the M.R. Medical College, Gulbarga and we were on a class tour of Aurangabad and the world famous Ajanta and Ellora Caves nearby. That was the time when Arif Zafar, my classmate from Raichur and I were the only ones in our class who possessed cameras. He had a brand new Yashica 635, a unique model, which could work with both 120 and 35 mm film and I had my newly acquired Nikomat FTN, a much aged workhorse that  digested only 35 mm.

I had got this new acquisition for rupees five thousand, when my monthly allowance, including my room rent, was just rupees five hundred. It had come up for sale, quite unexpectedly, with three high-end, prime lenses, when its former owner, a French visitor to Gulbarga, decided to part with it, before leaving India. I sent an urgent telegram to my father in Mysore for money to buy it and thankfully, he, whose own hobby was photography, responded to my telegram with his, saying that I could go ahead and buy it, which naturally sent me into unbridled ecstasy.

But those were the days when instant bank transfers and other modes of digital payment were not even envisioned, let alone being operational and so there was no way I could get the money I needed before the French visitor left Gulbarga. Although there used to be a service called Telegraphic Money Order, its upper limit was well below the cost of the camera I sought to buy. So, even before I could ask him to do something about it, my father sent me another telegram, sou moto, ‘authorising’ me to request one of my Professors, Dr. D.C. Galagali, the French visitor’s friend and host, to make the payment, which he would reimburse later by cheque.

The sale took place immediately and I was quickly in possession of my new, expensive toy, much to my relief and delight, a day before we had to depart for Aurangabad.

During our tour, while chatting with my friends, as we were sitting on the ramparts of the Beed Fort, I suggested to them that we should undertake a tour of Mysore, my hometown, because, with its many sights, it was a tourists’ paradise. To this, my friend Arif immediately retorted that compared to Hyderabad, which was much nearer, Mysore had nothing great to boast about, except for just three Palaces, with only one of them being open to the public and the marble statues of two of its former Maharajas, at the two ends of a road that passed in front of it.

He went on to say that Hyderabad had more than a dozen Palaces and the best cuisine too, which just could not be matched by anything that Mysore could offer. I was quite piqued by his remarks but not having seen Hyderabad, I decided to tread cautiously instead of getting into an argument with him and I left the matter there.

Our tour went off well and we returned to Gulbarga and settled down with our studies. But with my friend’s rather disparaging remarks about Mysore, my mind somehow refused to settle down. Very soon after this incident, when my parents visited me in Gulbarga, I suggested to them that we should visit Hyderabad, which we did, very soon. That is when I first discovered the fabled Hyderabadi cuisine and the sights the city had to offer.

After exploring Hyderabad for about four days, I had to swallow my pride and secretly admit to myself that Hyderabad was indeed superior to Mysore when it came to Palaces worth seeing and eateries that opened in the evening and remained open till the wee hours of the morning, serving the most delectable and exotic dishes.

While the legendary Hyderabadi Biryani, surprisingly failed to impress me as being superior to its counterpart, that we enjoyed back here, their Khubani ka Meetha, made out of Apricot pulp and kernels, became an instant hit with me. It was literally ‘love at first bite’ and there has been no looking back, even after so many years.

While it is said that there were seventeen Palaces in and around Hyderabad, once upon a time, thirteen of them still exist with about six of them being open to the public. Although we were able to see just three Palaces and the fabled Salar Jung Museum, among the most important places of tourist interest, during our first visit, we were told by the locals that Hyderabad’s best architectural marvel was the fairy-tale Falaknuma Palace, which was unfortunately closed to the public. So, after my return from Hyderabad, I carried back not just happy memories of our visit but also a strong desire to see the Falaknuma Palace, somehow, sometime. But this dream not just remained with me but it became more and more intense, as time went by and I got to read as much as I could, in print, about the Palace of my dreams, in the pre-internet era.

Much later, I was also able to see very impressive pictures of the Palace taken by Raja Deen Dayal, the most famous photographer of the era, when royalty could be seen in life and blood, across the length and breadth of India.

At last, in the year 2010, when I learnt that the Falaknuma Palace had been converted into a luxury hotel by its owners, in partnership with the Tatas, who owned the Taj Hotels brand, I felt very happy that my dream of seeing it could now become a reality. But, very strangely, with this turn of events, my impatience to do it, somehow became less intense, perhaps due to the knowledge that it was no longer an impossible task to accomplish.

And that long-standing dream was realised at last, when I was in Hyderabad two weeks ago, with my wife, to attend a medical conference. My daughter Sarah decided to book us both a slot for the evening High Tea at the Falaknuma, which also included an unhurried, guided tour of the beautiful place. It turned out to be a most wonderful experience for us, on both counts. The elaborate and almost ceremonial tea that has a chef-crafted menu and the Palace tour, which ends with an hour-long, open-air Qawwali.

Our guide that evening was Prabhakar, a lean, tall and imposing man, in a black Nawabi Sherwani, who hailed from  Akkalkot, near Solapur in Maharashtra and who had been in the service of Taj Hotels for well over two decades. His bearing clearly suggested that more than a trace of the elan and refinement of the royals, who once dwelt in the Palace, had soaked into his personality. Being a most patient and obliging man, he was kind enough to answer all our questions and point out to us every one of the unique features of the Palace.

It was built in the year 1894, at a cost of forty lakh rupees by Sir Viqar-ul-Umra, the then Prime Minister of Mahbub Ali Khan Bahadur, the sixth Nizam and handed over to his master, who fell in love with it when he once went there, as a guest, upon invitation. We were told that the Taj Group took a full ten years to get the Palace refurbished, at a whopping cost of rupees eighty crore. But the time and effort have visibly been well spent. Most notably, its magnificent library with its entire collection of nearly six thousand rare books, has been retained intact.

My wife and I were so charmed by our tour of the magnificent edifice that we chose to go there again for dinner, the next evening. Had we gone there as State guests, we would perhaps have had an opportunity to sit down for this repast, at the main dining table of the Palace, that is reputed to be the longest in the world and which can seat a hundred and one guests.

But being lesser mortals, we had to be content with dining at Adaa, the restaurant which serves traditional Indian Cuisine. But still, it was and will remain, a most memorable experience for the two of us, for a long time to come!

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