Mar 30 2025 to Mar 30 2025 6 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

The once picturesque Bhagmathi, the old city of Hyderabad, with her gardens, lakes, open spaces and rich architecture, survives today as a soulless urban sprawl, stripped of her beauty and assets. The city, at one time, was home to more than 1200 Deodis, the old style stately homes of the Hyderbadi feudal lords, which thrummed with life. Life in the city revolved around the Nizam and his lords, who presided over the fate of the Hyderabad state. It is in those deodis that the famous Hyderbadi Tehzeeb evolved and flowered. Music, dance, poetry, literature and fine arts flourished around those deodis, where the nobles vied with one another to patronise them. Hyderabad then was a tapestry of ethnicities, cultures, languages, cuisines and tastes.

Each deodi, be it that of a Hindu or a Muslim noble, had its own architecture, ambiance and rhythm, reflecting the identity of its owner. Sprawling townships grew around each deodi, the relationship between the two being symbiotic. Jewellers, master craftsmen, weavers, carvers, embroiders and nakkashi workers, calligraphers and werek makers had their hands full, with the wealthy classes giving them more work than they could handle. Poets and versifiers, Quawwali singers and storytellers alike crowded to those stately homes looking for patronage. In a unique blend of Ganga Jamni culture, these men were rewarded for their art, never mind their faith or origin. This is the beautiful heritage that the city of Hyderabad lost in the aftermath of the dismantling of the erstwhile Hyderabad state.

A talk by the Author of The Deodis of Hyderabad Rani Sarma will be followed by a discussion and a Q&A with the audience.

Speaker

Rani Sarma
Author
Emani Rani Sarma is a die hard heritage activist and passionately believes that heritage must be protected in all its forms. Heritage is a nonrenewable resource and once erased, cannot be recovered.

She taught history for several decades in Delhi and Hyderabad and took it as a mission to instill a passion for the subject in her wards.

As the convener of INTACH, Visakhapatnam, she conducted many activities to achieve that end. She fought fiercely to protect the heritage of Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam and when she realised that much of old Hyderabad’s heritage was systematically and irretrievably eroded, she scrambled to document what was left. The book, The Deodis of Hyderabad – A Lost Heritage is the result.

Deodis is her first book, released in the year 2008. Subsequently she wrote Thathagathuni Adagajadalu in Telugu (2019) and Buddha in my Backyard in 2004.

The central theme of all her books is ‘heritage and its protection.’