Want To Know About The Hidden Jewels In City Of Nawabs? Join ‘Hyderabad Trails’

Though there are many well known heritage sites in the city of Nawabs, Hyderabad, still many of them are hidden in between today's new and tall buildings. Today's busy world don't even observe or try to know the history behind these hidden heritage sites.

One such step is taken by the group called 'Hyderabad Trails' headed by Gopal Krishna, to dig and bring about the beautiful essence of these hidden sites of the city.

Gopal had moved to Hyderabad in the year 2014 and started his city walks in 2015 during Ramzan.

“I moved to Hyderabad in 2014 and wanted to explore the city. It started during the Ramzan of 2015 when we started the Ramzan night walks to experience the city. And, slowly, I realised that there are no heritage walks happening in the city back then. There is so much to explore and appreciate in the richness of heritage in the city and thus it started,” Gopal shared, speaking to a daily.

He addeed that the very first walk was with 100 people and slowly people started turning up for it after the event went viral on social media. Due to so much of interest among people they expanded the walk to every weekend.

Apart from just walks into the lanes, the groups also comes up with various innovative and interesting themes like poetry walks, sketching or storytelling about the different experiences of the city.

When he was asked about the sources to heritage sites and their history, engineer-turned-filmaker Gopal said, “Before we go to a site, we do a recce. We map out the neighbourhood; identify stories from that place, read books or online platforms for the history. Certain heritage sites’ history is readily available like that of Charminar, or Paigah tombs. But, there are other ‘not much known’ sites like sites in Shaikpet, whose history is not easily available”.

The main motto behind the walks was to dig the hidden facts and history behind the names of areas across the city like Tolichowki, Shaikpet and many more.

Hyderabad Trails also celebrated Hyderabad week in the second week of October as it is assumed that the city was founded on October 9, 1591.

“There was a record of the year when Hyderabad was founded but I was also looking for the date of foundation of the city which had no record anywhere even among historians. Then, I got to know about a book written by popular historian HK Sherwani. The book doesn’t give you a date but gives you a lunar position on that day. So, we did backtracking and landed on October 9. The date maybe wrong as well, but all I care about is that we have an opportunity to celebrate the birth of our city,” Gopal shared with the daily.

There is much more to explore in the city of Nawabs including its typical cuisine, artwork, history etc., which can be revived and continued to live among the coming generations.

Hyderabad Trails curates shared experiences of the city through organised walks and activities that explore it’s natural, built and cultural heritage..

Take a look into few clicks of Hyderabad Trails and their walks:

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