# Modern Hyderabad (Deccan)/Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.
His Highness the Nizam.
When, after a year in India, I visited the city of Hyderabad (Deccan), I like many English people fell under its spell. The unique scenery, the orientalism, the gorgeous colouring of streets and houses, the palaces of a ruler and of nobles who seemed to belong to mediæval times, the marriage processions with blazonment and fireworks, the secluded ladies of whom such wondrous tales were related, and above all, perhaps, the absolutism of the ruler—these things glamoured my imagination and made me think of the India I had read and thought about in England, the India that no longer exists under the prosaic rule of Englishmen.
Encircled by great rocks and crags, which resemble the fortifications of ancient cities, and are believed by the common people to have been placed in position by giants, the city of Hyderabad, with its suburbs, and the fort of Golconda, gave me enough to think about during the short time that I spent among the ruling ​community—those courteous and highly-cultivated Maho-medan gentlemen who seem to take a pleasure in helping the English visitor to form and carry away a pleasant and romantic impression of the capital of His Highness the Nizam's Dominions.
H. H. Mir Mahabub Ali Khan was then living, and I heard that he was a very small man, but one who had "a kingly presence and a regal eye." He wrote poetry, he was a great shikari, he had a kind heart, and he was generous to a fault. In his principal palace, which covered miles of the heart of the city, he had entertained King George and Queen Mary when Their Majesties visited India as Prince and Princess of Wales. He was the son of "Our Faithful Ally"; he had volunteered to take the field in person when a Russian scare had made the Government of India nervous; and, by the offer of a princely gift for the defence of the Frontier, he had brought the Imperial Service troops into existence. He was India's Premier Prince, the first of those ruling chiefs who make Great Britain an Empire.
His Highness the late Nizam I did not see. But H. H. Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur, the present ruler of Hyderabad, I saw several ​times while he was Heir-Apparent; and I noticed that he was strongly built, and that he had fine eyes—large, dark and smouldering—, and shapely hands.
And I was told that he possessed determination of character and will-power, and that he had a marked aptitude for business, which he showed by digesting the many State documents that, by order of his august father, were placed before him every morning. His upbringing had been somewhat stoical and strenuous, it was said, and not altogether unlike that of King Edward VII, who was then nearing the close of his short reign.
The next time that I saw His Highness the Nizam was at Delhi, where, at the Coronation Durbar, he, as premier prince of India, walked first to the thrones and bowed there to King George, who, at the same time, and in the same way, returned his homage. He wore a plain English morning suit and the yellow Hyderabad turban, and his quiet manner and dignified bearing seemed to make a very favourable impression on the vast assembly.
Later I had a yet pleasanter view of His Highness, and one that I like to retain in ​my memory. This was shortly after Lord Hardinge's visit to Hyderabad in September 1913, a visit that had been converted into a nightmare by anarchist threats, and characterised by viceregal isolation and aloofness. Every little heap of stones beside the railway line had been guarded by policemen while the viceregal train rushed past, and motor cars had conveyed Their Excellencies from entertainment to entertainment in Hyderabad city and its suburbs, while the lives of the common people had been made wretched by police regulations and restrictions, and the public had offered up a daily and hourly prayer that the Viceroy might go safely and quickly away. Soldiers had guarded the Faluknama Palace, where Their Excellencies had been the guests of H. H. the Nizam, and beds, chairs, cupboards, and sofas there had been searched for bombs by trembling menials. Rumours concerning anonymous letters from anarchists had been afloat, and it had been said that the man who threw the bomb at Lord Hardinge at Delhi was actually in Hyderabad city and threatened to do further mischief.
Well, Lord Hardinge had departed in safety, and it was the greatest day of the ​Mohurrum in Hyderabad, the day of the Langar procession. And in case anyone happens to be ignorant of the origin of this ceremony, I will briefly relate that not long after the city of Hyderabad had been built by Muhammad Kuli, at the close of the sixteenth century A.D., a Kutb Shahi prince was riding from the city to Golconda on an elephant, and, after crossing the Purana Pul (old bridge), the elephant became mad, and scattered the royal retinue and carried the prince into the jungle.
When the news reached Golconda, the Queen said that she would give to a Mahomedan recluse a gold chain "as thick as a langar" (a chain used to tether an elephant) if her son returned safely to the Palace. Some hours later, the prince arrived at Golconda on the runaway elephant, and the Queen then ordered the city goldsmiths to make the promised langar, which was afterwards taken by the prince in procession to the retreat of the recluse, and there cut up into many small pieces and distributed among religious mendicants.
Such was the beginning of the Langar ceremony, which is still performed each year in Hyderabad city in memory of the prince's ​escape and the queen's thank-offering. And although time has robbed it of many a picturesque incident, the procession is still of unique interest, because the whole of the State army takes part in it. His Highness's regular and irregular forces may be seen in this yearly pageant—gorgeous African Cavalry Guards on magnificent horses, smart Household Cavalry, the Golconda Lancers, the Imperial Service troops, and all the rest of the regular army, and also the irregular forces, the descendants of the soldiers who helped the first Nizam, Asaf Jah, to reconquer and settle the Deccan tableland at the beginning of the eighteenth century a.d., and to carve out and consolidate the country that is now known as "the Nizam's Dominions." Wild and weird some of these irregular soldiers look while they dance and sing in the procession and brandish all sorts of antique weapons. And terrible, indeed, appear the State executioners, who are dressed in red and hold aloft their hideous emblems of office.
The procession, which takes several hours to pass a given point, is swelled by nobles with their retainers; but in modern Hyderabad it would appear that the greater number ​of noblemen prefer to assemble at H. E. the Minister's city palace, and to watch the Langar ceremony there in shade and comfort. Thence the procession passes through the crowded streets to the city palace of the Nizam; and after having been inspected by His Highness, the troops disperse and return to barracks.
At all times Hyderabad city presents kaleidoscopic views of peculiar interest; but on Langar Day it seems to surpass itself, for then the streets are filled with men in holiday clothes, among whom pace gorgeously-caparisoned elephants, while carriages dash past, driven by syces in rainbow-coloured liveries, and carrying little children dressed in the most brilliant and varied garments. Behind the chicks of the windows, unseen but felt, are the secluded ladies, for whom, no doubt, the Langar is a great annual event, and every roof and every doorstep is covered with sightseers, who seem to vie one with another as regards the brilliancy of their attire.
The vast crowds in the streets are kept moving by vigilant policemen, but swarm at every corner and climb to each point of vantage, and the city resembles during the ​Langar Ceremony, nothing so much as a huge, humming, buzzing beehive only, to make the simile correct, the bees should be of every colour and not mere brown and black insects.
Now on Langar Day, October 1913, into these swarms of his loyal subjects, drove H. H. the Nizam, quite unexpectedly and heralded only by whizzing whirring rockets.
"His Highness!" "His Highness!" shouted galloping policemen, and the people in the streets hastily divided and piled themselves up on either side of the road. Silence seemed to fall on the masses, and only the voices of those in command were heard while a carriage drove past, a carriage driven by an English coachman in yellow satin, who wanted only a powdered full-bottomed wig to make him look perfect.
In the carriage sat H. H. the Nizam, quietly dressed, as usual, in a dark English suit and the yellow Hyderabad turban, and on either side of him were the two eldest princes, while behind him stood a tiny princess, who bowed incessantly to her father's delighted subjects.
Now it had seemed to me that the face of H. H. the Nizam had worn a somewhat ​bored and uninterested expression at functions of various sorts at which English people had been present; and I was glad to see that here, among his own people, he looked quite happy and pleasant. With hand raised to forehead, he glanced keenly from roof to pavement, and the low murmurs that rose from his salaaming subjects seemed to fill his mind and swell his heart.
So the carriage drove slowly through the silent, swarming people, with His Highness salaaming, the little princes wondering, and the tiny princess bowing, and then returned to the city palace.