Daily Archives: April 25, 2016

A showcase of biodiversity of vegetation

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Green Initiatives / Environment, Nature, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion
Steeped in history:The entrance of Gandhari Vanam in Adilabad district – Photos: S. Harpal Singh
Steeped in history:The entrance of Gandhari Vanam in Adilabad district – Photos: S. Harpal Singh

Gandhari Vanam in Mancherial town will soon have a museum showcasing millions of years of biodiversity of Adilabad.

Gandhari Vanam, a nature park near Mancherial town in Adilabad, is where you can go millions of years back in time. The 174-million-year-old tree fossils to be exhibited in a section of the soon to come up facility will help you visualise what the district must have looked like back then.

Steeped in history: Mancherial Divisional Forest Officer B. Prabhakar observing a Jurassic-era tree fossil at the nature park.– Photos: S. Harpal Singh
Steeped in history: Mancherial Divisional Forest Officer B. Prabhakar observing a Jurassic-era tree fossil at the nature park.– Photos: S. Harpal Singh

“That was the time when the giant dinosaurs roamed here, thriving on these coniferous trees. The Pranahita-Godavari valley of upper Gondwana is unique as it has preserved many of nature’s components from the era in its 3,000-metre thick sediments deposited over a period of 200 million years,” said Mancherial Divisional Forest Officer B. Prabhakar, pointing out the uniqueness of the nature park being developed by the Telangana Forest Department at a cost of Rs. 3.6 crore.

The park, located on the Mancherial-Mandamarri main road on the fringes of the coal town, is named Gandhari Vanam as the Gandhari fort is located close to it. It is a 350-acre facility divided into three parts.

“A 20-acre plot on the left side of the road (coming from Mancherial) has been developed as a picnic spot with ornamental plants, apart from a host of things. At least 500 visitors come here on weekends,” the DFO said.

The second 50-acre enclosure will become a good forest, and the department has plans to make it a deer park and an aviary in the near future. The third section, and the most important one, is the 280-acre facility on the other side of the road. It is like a repository and museum of the huge local biodiversity in terms of vegetation.

“Adilabad forests at one time had boasted of at least 500 types of trees, and we are planting many of these, which, for the sake of awareness and convenience, have been segregated into a few sections. For instance, we will have a medicinal plant section with 250 species, and others which will have trees linked with horoscope and nine planets,” Mr. Prabhakar disclosed.

For nature enthusiasts, Gandhari Vanam also has a walking track, while a boating facility and a couple of check dams are coming up. The authorities have also put up boards with information regarding the given sections, trees and fossils for the benefit of people. “We have designed the park to be educative too. People should know about nature, what it was and what it should be,” the DFO said.

The 280-acre facility is like a repository and museum of the biodiversity in terms of vegetation

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Telangana / by S. Harpal Singh / Mancherial (Adilabad District) / April 25th, 2016

A tale of two cities

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, All
Narendra Luther. Photo: K. Ramesh Babu
Narendra Luther. Photo: K. Ramesh Babu

Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

Narendra Luther talks about weaving in amusing legends and fact-filled anecdotes in his new book ‘Legendotes of Hyderabad’

‘Don’t google the meaning of ‘legendotes’ for there is no such word,’ historian Narendra Luther says in the introduction to his new book ‘Legendotes of Hyderabad’ (Niyogi Books; Rs. 995). A combination of legend and anecdotes, ‘legendotes’ is also an encapsulation of nuggets of history, backed by research, presented in the style of a coffee table book illustrated with photographs of people and buildings that provide a window to the past. “To my surprise, the publishers were eager to have more photographs,” he says with a smile, speaking to us ahead of the launch of his book on Thursday in the presence of historian Aloka Parasher Sen.

“During the course of my research on Hyderabad over the years, I came across both legends and anecdotes. Legends are generally considered gossips of history, but some of those are also stuff that makes up history. Former historians, I believe, walked on the highway of history whereas I feel many pieces of history lie scattered in the lanes and by lanes of the city. I collected a few of these and applied tests of historicity and veracity before documenting them,” explains Luther. Narendra Luther focuses both on stories that are now popular knowledge and lesser-known facts that give readers fresh insights into the history of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. “These are not mere ‘he said, she said’ facts put together,” he emphasises.

Luther also prefers to gather information from people than just documents from the archives: “I believe in interviewing people to know about history than merely going through archives; they have given me a wealth of information,” he says, referring to how he got the late Zahid Ali Kamil to share the story of Kazim Razvi, who led the Razakars movement. The author draws our attention to rocks of Hyderabad that are 2500 million years old and as he points out, ‘older than the Himalayas’ and traces the origin of Hyderabad, including the much-debated tale of romance that gave birth to Bhagnagar. “The historicity of Bhagmati has been established beyond doubt,” says Luther, and states his earlier research while penning a biography of Mohd. Quli Qutb Shah that led him to a document mentioning an old seal of ‘qazi of Bhagnagar’. “And in the court of Jehangir, there was a reference to the city of Bhagnagar in the South, established by Quli Qutb Shah in memory of his beloved,” he adds.

The book contains quirky stories of a dog made to sit on a throne by Sultan Tana Shah in recognition of it raising an alarm spotting an intruder, Aurangzeb’s visit to Bhagnagar and Stalin’s orders on the red revolt. There’s also a perceivable effort to make history relevant to the times we live in, in the chapters that detail how the King Kothi got its name, the story of Lal Bazaar in the then Lashkar that later came to be called Secunderabad. “I’ve given historical citations even for amusing stories,” smiles Luther, citing the story of seven kulchas and how the kulcha was represented on the Nizam’s flag. “This was contradicted by the man himself, the first Nizam, who said the ‘circle’ was a moon that denoted his name Kamaruddin (‘Kamar’ in Persian means moon). But later when the sixth Nizam was approving the design of the flag in 1899, issued a written mentioning the big white circle as a kulcha.” Like his previous works, this book too is an ode to Hyderabad.

Hyderabad connection to ‘Jai Hind!’

Did you know that it was a Hyderabadi who coined the slogan Jai Hind? Zain-ul Abideen Hasan was pursuing engineering in Germany at the time when Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose visited Germany and urged Indian students to join his movement to liberate India. Abid Hasan gave up his studies and became Netaji’s secretary and interpreter. ‘Legendotes of Hyderabad’ discloses why Abid came to be called ‘Safrani’ in later years and how he coined the term ‘Jai Hind’ as the greeting for his army and for independent India.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Sangeetha Devi Dundoo / Hyderabad – January 30th, 2014