Virtually unknown outside Hyderabad, tucked away in an inner lane of Purani Haveli area, the Nizam’s Museum was a collection that was begging to be burgled. Thieves made off with a clutch of priceless artefacts sometime between Saturday night and Monday morning. Located in a cul de sac in a residential area, the museum is housed on the first floor of the building while a school functions from the ground floor.
“The museum gets about 400 to 450 visitors on an average. Most of the visitors are tourists or school students. Very few locals come,” says a former employee of the museum. A flight of wide wooden stairs that creaked when someone climbed takes visitors to the first floor museum. No elaborate frisking, visitors walk in after paying ₹ 100 for an adult and ₹ 150 for a still camera. A visitor to the Salar Jung Museum would be surprised at the low level security at the Nizam’s Museum. This proved to be the undoing when burglars gained access and made off with a few objects. Objects that were gifted to Mir Osman Ali Khan during the silver jubilee celebrations of his reign in 1937. Though Osman Ali became the Nizam in 1911 and the jubilee was to be marked in 1936, it was postponed by a year due to the demise of King George V. In the 1937 gala, the subjects of Nizam brought gifts that were not just ashrafis (gold coins) but something more substantial. The gifts ranged from diamond-encrusted kahwa cups, golden model of jubilee pavillion, golden tiffin box encrusted with precious stones, miniature gilded objects, silverware and other expensive objects.
In 2000, the Nizam’s Jubilee Pavilion Trust put together the exhibition and it was the first glimpse of the Nizam’s life and times. The more fabulous and tantalising exhibition, albeit a temporary one, of Nizam's jewellery was inaugurated in the city in 2001 at the Salar Jung Museum.
The Jubilee Pavilion Trust also brought in other gifts received by the Nizam to expand the collection that included one of the longest wardrobes and a wooden lift built by R. Waygood Co of London. The gold trowel used for laying the foundation stone of Osmania University, silver models of buildings commissioned during Nizam’s time, precious stones-encrusted keys and a host of other objects, both small and big.
“The collection was housed in a building belonging to the Mukkaram Jah Education Trust. The Jubilee Pavilion Trust is a tenant. It was also served a legal notice recently. This conflict perhaps led to the lowering of guard and quality of maintenance,” says one of the aides who shared ideas with Muffakam Jah to set up the exhibition.
