Field Trip to Chowmahalla Palace

On the 30th of June, Grade 10 were taken to The Chowmahalla Palace in connection to our history class. We left the school campus at 09:10 am by bus and reached the monument at around 10:20 am. We collected our tickets and proceeded through the security check into the monument.
The Chowmahalla Palace is a palace of the Nizams of Hyderabad state. The Chowmahalla palace has four main palaces as the name itself suggests. It was the seat of the Asaf Jahi dynasty and was the official residence of the Nizams of Hyderabad while they ruled their state. The palace remains the property of Barkat Ali Khan Mukarram Jah, heir of the Nizams. But the monument is kept for display to the citizens so that they can take pride in their rich past.
The first thought that came into my mind the moment I entered was, “Wow”. The palace is so beautiful. The architecture was majorly Arabic, but it had a few European touches to it as well. From the look of it you could tell that the palace was re-painted a couple of times but it could be ignored. Unlike most monuments this palace has survived vandalism by tourists and visitors. The monument is clearly in the hands of a highly capable person. 
On entering into the first building we saw a splendid view of the Nizam’s Durbar or the court. It was decorated with an array of chandeliers and in the center was the divan where the Nizam used to seat himself and listen to the pleas of his people. We visited several other rooms with a display of the Asaf Jahi family tree.
After this we went to the second building where there was a display of artwork of that time and several other important artifacts. There were over 50 paintings that we saw and we're all simply beautiful. We saw paintings of kings, and their families, pictures of when they were young and many more. Though these were painted a long time ago their craftsmanship is brilliant.
In addition to artwork, the palace had a wide range of handicrafts too. An example of one such work of craftsmanship is the English bracket clock. This clock contains 5 dials showing day, date, month, time and silent or chime and has over 500 moving parts. This clock is still working.
The third and fourth buildings also had rooms containing the handicrafts owned by the dynasty, their clothing, a huge collection of their crockery and an endless display of their weaponry. Some of the most important kinds of weapons used by them were: Afgan Chaura, Pesh Tabz, Chilanum, Katar, Bicchwa, and Jambia. This display also had a couple of original armor. All of these artifacts were in brilliant condition and we actually found it hard to believe that such beautiful works were capable of being made such a long time ago.
After touring all the buildings we came to most of our favorite display: The Vintage Car display. This display contained cars of all sorts. There were around 15-20 cars, but the soul and pride of this museum is the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost of Meir Osman Ali Khan. This is a yellow colored luxury family car. This display also had a couple of chariots.
At the end of our exhilarating tour we had a small photo session near the garden and then bought ourselves some snacks from a shop put up for tourist requirement.
This field trip has been by far the best we’ve been to. The amount of knowledge we gained was priceless. From this field trip we learned about the Nizam’s culture and architecture through the several displays we visited. We also learnt about the value of such historical monuments and about how it is important to preserve them properly.
Complimenting this we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We appreciate all the efforts put in by our schools to help make this trip such a success and hope that we are taking on such enjoyable educational trips in the future as well.
                          By: Nikhila Swarna