No musk in mahal: Stench rises from state government apathy

CHARMINAR: It is called Mishq Mahal. Mishq meaning musk, but it does not live up to its name. For, there is no fragrance but only stench of excrement - both human and animal. This is the state of the once imposing, listed heritage structure: a massive public toilet.
Off the busy inner ring road, along the margins of a quiet by-lane, the palace, is the epitome of disrepair and apathy of successive governments with regard to the city's heritage.
It stands as an island of an bygone era, surrounded by a large land parcel, which shows signs that it was once a tilled field. The half grown but bone dry stalks in the ground are proof. Explaining how the structure got its name, noted heritage expert and former member of the then active Heritage Conservation Committee, Sajjad Shahid says, “A story goes that a caravan of musk traders were unable to sell their consign ment and ran into the Qutb Shahi king of the time. When he enquired why they looked crestfallen, the merchants said that it was because they couldn't sell the musk. Infuriated that nobody in the city bought the fragrance, the king bought the entire consignment and dumped it into the foundations of the then under construction mahal. The the name.“ The structure was constructed in the 16th or 17th century , he says.
While the structure is an example of the Qutb Shahi architecture, experts opine that its style does have traces of the West. The experts said that the 17th century was a time when the city had a sizeable Armenian population.
“The Bheemunipatnam port in Visakhapatnam had a Dutch settlement. It is quite possible that they could have influenced architecture of the a few Qutub Shahi structures somehow,“ an expert said.
The Mishq Mahal, does not find itself on the list of 27 protected structures of the Depart ment of Archaeology and Museums in the city , neither is it protected by the Archaeological Survey of India. And with the scrapping of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority's Article 13, it only a matter of time till it finds itself razed, unless the authorities wake up and work towards restoring it to its former glory.