“The city has lost so much of its past,” said best-selling author and historian William Dalrymple as he inaugurated the Centre of Deccan Studies at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University on Tuesday. Dalrymple, who was the chief guest and delivered the inaugural lecture on The Syncretic Civilisation of the Deccan, expressed his sadness over today’s Hyderabad.
“I was here during the ’90s when I was researching for my book White Mughals, but now I get lost when I come here. Hyderabad’s rate of conservation is the worst. Over years, beautiful buildings have been destroyed, art collections have been lost and natural fabric has been damaged. Raymond’s Tomb was bouldered, Moula Ali’s has been encroached upon,” he said during his interaction with the press. “Little has been done in the last 20 years while destruction has been ongoing. A big conservation needs to be done,” he added.
Talking about the Centre for Deccan studies, he said, “It’s absurd there’s not been a centre for Deccan Studies anywhere before. People here go on to study engineering and commerce but don’t know the history and literature of this part of the world.” On the controversial existence of the dancer Bhagmati, the love of Hyderabad founder Quli Qutub Shah’s life, in the history of Hyderabad, he didn’t take the bait, saying that he wasn’t qualified to answer that. “I am aware of the controversy, but I have never studied that period. All I can say is that one should not ignore the oral traditions. If this was to be looked as a case in the court, then one would take the word of the eyewitness over the people who have heard things weeks after,” he said.
On the Hyderabad Literature Festival, the co-founder of the Jaipur Lit Festival said, “I have not been to the lit fest so I don’t know how terrible or good it is, but three elements need to be kept in mind: there has to be 2/3 desi to 1/3 incomers (ratio), more nationalities need to be involved, raising sponsorship. What could be a USP is that the directors of the Jaipur fest are writers themselves. We are hunting in our own forests.”
Dalrymple’s next, The Return Of A King, which tells the story of a Anglo-Mughal, will be out in December.
source: http://www.DeccanChronicle.com / Home> Tabloid> All-Rounders / by Babli Yadav, DC / September 12th, 2012