Travel to Chowmahalla Palace, Hyderabad, Part 2

After a long walk through the corridors of the Chowmahalla Palace, Hyderabad, I finally reached the Grand Khilwat or the Durbar hall. The 12 acres huge Chowmahalla Palace might seem overtly huge to some, but it originally was a sprawling campus of 60 acres which has been reduced to this size because of illegal encroachments all around it. The Khilwat Mahal is one of the most impressive structures of the 12 acre huge Chowmahalla Palace and it also houses the Takht-e-Nishan or the seat of the Nizam. The Takht-e-Nishan is a massive palace built in composite architectural styles with a high ceiling and octagonal pavilions on either side. The marble floored palace looks impressive and the Takht-e-Nishan from where i could observe was completely made of marble too.

Grandiloquence Muted

But the most distinctive feature of the rooms of Khilwat Mahal are undoubtedly the huge chandeliers made of Belgian crystals. One single chandelier can fill up a normal room. Coupled with the white marble it presents a stunning picture of royalty.

Inside the beautifully Chandeliered Chowmahalla Palace

William Dalrymple visited the Chowmahalla Palace much before it was opened to the public. He writes “What we saw was extraordinary, as if we were in the palace of Sleeping Beauty. In one underground storeroom, thousands of ancient scimitars, swords, helmets, maces, daggers, archery equipment and suits of armour lay rusted into a single metallic mass on a line of trestle tables. In another, album after album of around 8,000 Victorian and Edwardian photographs of the Nizam’s household were covered in a thick cladding of dust. A unique set of 160 harem photographs, dating from 1915, lay loose in a box. On the walls, dynastic portraits were falling out of their frames. In one room were great mountains of princely dresses, patkas, chaugoshia and salvars, drawers of Kanchipuram silk saris, and one huge trunk containing nothing but bow ties. There were long lines of court uniforms as well as sets of harem clothes once worn by the Nizam’s favourite wives. Almost 8,000 dinner services survived, one of which alone had 2,600 pieces.”

This huge collection is now being sifted through and presented to the public in the exhibition at Chowmahalla Palace. The major galleries in the Khilwat Mahal are:

Silsila-e-Asafia(Legacy of the House of Asafias) which focuses on the lives of the Asaf Jahis and their contributions to the state. The Nizams gave the city a lot from the awe inspiring Osmania University and the still used Afzal Gunj bridge to an array of palaces.

Mahallat is a photographic exhibition gallery, one of its kind where there are photographs of the women of the Zenana.

Seileh Khana is a gallery of arms.

Taihniyat Mahal houses the manuscripts and the records of the palace which are now being restored.

Princesses at Aftab Mahal, Chowmahalla Palace, Hyderabad

The Aftab Mahal contains an exhibition called Tamanna-Reflections of the Royal Zenana. The exhibition shows statues decked in the clothes of the women of the Zenana. Various traditions are enacted in these exhibition from the birth of a child to the Nikah and Bidaai in a palanquin are all displayed in this exhibition.

Chairs at Mehtab Mahal, Chowmahalla Palace and the Beautiful Golden Fish - Mahimaratam

The Mehtab Mahal exhibition entitled Shaan – Glimpses of the lifestyle of the Nizams tries to capture the lifestyle of the palaces of the Nizams. There is a fish standard or the Mahimaratam which is used during processions and ceremonial occasions in the middle of the chairs in the picture above. There are sample dining rooms and drawing rooms as well as a bedroom with a palatial bed in the middle as seen in the picture below.

Palatial Bed at the Chowmahalla Palace, Hyderabad

There are a lot of different pieces of furniture present all along the Mehtab Mahal depicting the lives and times of the Nizams.

Some more ornate furniture at Mehtab Mahal, Chowmahalla Palace, Hyderabad

The plush interiors of the Chowmahalla Palace which was just one of the many palaces of the Nizams are testimony to the wealth of the Nizams . The death of the Seventh Nizam brought Mukarram Jah to the throne and found himself in to a grand mess. In the word of William Dalrymple

“He had inherited a ridiculously inflated army of retainers: 14,718 staff and dependents, including 42 of his grandfather’s concubines and their 100-plus offspring. There were around 3,000 Arab bodyguards, 28 people whose only job was to fetch drinking water and 38 more to dust chandeliers; several others were retained specifically to grind the Nizam’s walnuts. Everything was in disarray: the Nizam’s garages, for example, cost £45,000 a year to keep petrol and spare parts for 60 cars and yet only four were in working condition, and the limousine supposed to carry the new Nizam from his coronation broke down.”

More about the broken vehicles and beautiful chandeliers soon.