Of finding bhagmati in History

HYDERABAD : Sheher-e-Ishq (City of Love), an event of walks to historical places and palaces of Hyderabad exploring the love stories between kings and queens comes to an end soon. When names of Taramati, Premamati and Bhagmati are associated with the kings hundreds of years ago it naturally draws the attendees more to the narrative and the anecdotes associated with them. The third edition saw several stories of love and loss narrated at places like Naya Qila, Irrum Manzil, Sardar Mahal, Rock Castle among others. The event is organised by Hyderabad Trails. 

Saturday morning walk will see ‘Love Letters and Pamphlets’ at Chowmahalla Palace telling the story of Nawab Mehdi Hasan of Lucknow, who married a British woman Ellen. Later, when he rose to a powerful position he and his wife were slandered and pamphlets were distributed across the city which bore the message that the lady was a prostitute. It’s based on the book ‘An Appeal to the Ladies of Hyderabad: Scandal in the Raj’ by Benjamin B Cohen. Gopala Krishna AB, who runs Hyderabad Trails, refers to books when citing a story and historical snippets.

This time on the last day of Sheher-e-Ishq he’s taking the participants to iconic Qutb Shahi Tombs for ‘Quli – The Prince of Hearts’. As is evident from the title, it’s going to be a narrative about king Quli Qutb Shah and his beloved Bhagmati on whose existence several historians hold different views. 

It was historian HK Sherwani’s paper in the 1960s which considers Bhagmati just as a figment of fiction and not part of historical accounts. But several books have references which infer her existence during the Qutb Shahi period almost 400 years ago. Gopala shares mentions and texts from different journals, “French Traveller Jean de Thevenot, who visited Hindustan in 1665-1666 wrote in ‘Travels in India’ about Deccan: ‘The capital city of this kingdom is called Bagnagar, the Persians call it Aider-abad’.’ He again mention Bagnagar writing: ‘This large town Bagnagar… is full of strangers and merchants’.” 

I was in 1592 that Bhagyanagar was built. Historian Faizi, who was emperor Akbar’s resident at Ahmadnagar during 1591-94 reported in a letter to the king writing: “Ahmad Quli (sic) is steeped in Shiism, and has built a city Bhagnagar by name, after Bhagmati, the old prostitute (fahisha-i kuhn) who has been his mistress for a long time.”

Gopala questions that if Bhagmati didn’t exist then how several historical references to her name are recorded by historians of that time? He cites Persian historian Ferishta, who in 1610 wrote in ‘History of Dekkan’ about Quli: “This prince, on the death of his father, ascended the throne of Golconda in his twelvth year ... The air of Golconda not agreeing with his constitution, he founded a city at about eight miles distance, which he called Bhaugnuggur, after his mistress Bhaug, a celebrated courtezan; but being afterwards ashamed of his amour, he changed it to Hyderabad.” [sic] Ferishta’s book was translated by Jonathan Scott in 1794. Gopala cites mentions from historian Nizamuddin in his book ‘Tabqat-e-Akbar Shahi’ in 1594 as he collects more references from journals and periodicals to narrate from at the last session of Sheher-e-Ishq on March 1. 
saima@newindianexpress  @Sfreen