Deccani tehzeeb is history

The purdah that until about five decades ago was used to announce the Nizam's presence at the Nazri Bagh Palace in King Kothi gate stands permanently draped today. Inside, the sprawling century-old palace and home to the once richest man in the world Mir Osman Ali Khan cuts a sorry picture in its dilapidated state. The rundown structure is now reportedly sold and is likely to get converted into a five-star hotel. Sitting in a corner of a high ceiling room of the palace, Aminuddin Khan, 80, administrator of the Nizam's private estate talks about a Hyderabad that no longer exists. Having managed the private estate of Nizam for 11 long years, he notes that today Chowmahalla Palace can now run on its own and Falakuma Palace given on 60 years lease to the Taj Group. "It's high time the family does something constructive about Nazri

Bagh and Chiran Palace," says Khan. However, he tells us that whenever Mukkaram Jah, Osman Ali's grandson, is in town, he stays at the Chiran Palace. A management consultant, Khan says that initially it was a challenge to manage Nizam's properties. He was in London when he got a call from the family members and he said he would give it a try. "I tentatively took up the job for three months that stretched to 11 years," he says. When he took over, everything was chaotic. Staffers were oblivious about their duties and nobody knew their responsibilities. But now, Khan says, there is a strong legal team in place and any matter that comes up, is handed over to the team. Besides, there is strict security in place. Scion of an old noble family of the former princely state, Khan says that Hyderabad was the last remnant of the Mughal empire. But today, he says that every thing about the old Hyderabad is finished and forgotten. Having known Mir Osman Ali Khan since he was a four-year-old, he says that old Hyderabdi tehzeeb was a culture largely dependent on the feudal structure. With the drastic transformation of the state not just geopolitically but also culturally and linguistically, the Deccani tehzeeb and zabaan are history now, he says. "Hyderabad Deccan used to be a historical and geographical unit. Biggest of the Indian states, it was tri-lingual with eight to nine districts of Marathi-speaking population apart from Kannada, Telugu and Urdu. English was also spoken. But it was broken up completely when the states were re-organised linguistically. A poly culture that used to be old Hyderabad Deccan vanished between 1948 and 1950. Nizam was a representative of that old culture and that culture does not exist anymore," says Khan, who is also an industrial psychologist and a novelist with three books to his credit. His jagirdaar family's connection with the Asaf Jahi dynasty goes back to 1724. "I lost my father when I was seven years old and it was the Nizam who became my guardian. He enrolled me at Doon School, Dehra Dun, and used to go through my report card," he says. Khan has also contributed hugely in setting up the archive of the Asaf Jahi dynasty in Chowmahalla Palace over a period of eight years. The cataloguing is still going on.Among the small group of people living who saw and met the Nizam, he says that a chunk of what is heard about him is hearsay. Mir Osman Ali Khan was a multi-faceted personality though slightly eccentric. There are many facets and factors of his life largely unknown.But did he have 100 wives as it is widely speculated? Ameenuddin Khan puts it plainly as `women'. According to him, Nizam's first wife Azmathunnisa Begum (Dulan Pasha) was the only one with whom he is supposed to have performed nikah. Others do not have nikahnamas, he says.