The faded past.

May be I am getting too attached to my home town Hyderabad (can there be a 'too attached' in connection to your home??) or maybe it's just that I feel sad to see the lost legacy of the once Princely State of the Nizams. A couple of days ago I was pouring over a book of photographs taken by Raja Deen Dayal. He was one of the most famous photographers or maybe even one of the only Indian photographers of that age and era. The photography shop that was run by him was called 'Dayal & Sons' and at the zenith of his profession he had two shops one in Secunderabad and if I recall rightly the other had been in Bombay.
So he has photographed the royal gatherings, being a member of the Nizam's court and the palaces and the various structures and the public places etc. Even the famous flood many years back when the river Musi had flooded over the Afzal Ganj bridge has been recorded. The point that I trying to make is I was so very impressed by the photographs and their subjects too.
You could see the way people used to dress , the Indian men in their sherwanis and the jewels according to their station ,their women in beautiful skirts and the dupattas and the finery to match or delicate sarees while the English were clothed in finely pressed uniforms and stately hats and women gowned in voluminous skirts and lace. The interiors of the palace- every single item worth looking at and admiring kept in flawless order and beauty. It was on one hand wonderful and on the other hand sad to see the palaces and the diwan-devdi's. Oh the streets that were and the motor cars!! I could not help but drool over the motor car that the Nizam was photographed standing in and watching a polo match. It had these beautiful rounded protruding headlamps and luxurious leather upholstery and the shiny black colour of it .... of cource in pristine condition.
The wide cobbled streets and the small buses , more like trams in fact and the guards standing at various places. It was an enlightening picturesque experience. How much better it would have been to see all that in person?
Sadly all the that is forever lost because we could not save any of that from being destroyed. We let it fall prey to neglect and and forever loose them. We love to hear about our past, by history I don't just mean a country's story , even our personal family tales and traditions are all lost and remain as stories to be told remincing about bygones.
I wonder why we cannot preserve our history or maybe it's just a natural cource of nature for things and people to keep evolving , keep building one thing over the other, keep giving shape to new ideas and styles in all ages. Today we are making history for the next generation.....