Walking the Munn Map

Hyderabad: World Heritage Day was chosen to launch Hyderabad Walks; heritage experiences specially designed and offered for tourists, school children, college students, corporate groups, senior citizens and scholars. 

It is an initiative of the Krishnakriti Foundation to present Hyderabad. The inaugural walk: Walking the Munn Map in Darushifa was conducted by an Indian Foundation Arts Fellow Sirisha Indukuri, as she guided a motley group into the past of Darushifa, a popular Shia shrine that houses Alawaa E SartauqAsurkhana, which was the first in-patient Unani hospital in India more than 150 years ago, built by Mohammed Quli Qutub Shah. A few hundred metres away is the resplendent Azakhana-E-Zehra built by seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan in honour of his mother Zehra Begum. 

The specialty of the walk was that it traced the trail as was seen on a ‘Munn map’ – one of the first municipal survey maps of Hyderabad made by Leonard Munn, offering rich details of spaces, streets and buildings commissioned post the devastating flood of 1912. The walk that began at Darushifa and ended at Azakhana-E-Zehra was dotted with rich anecdotes, historical facts and trivia, and was an engaging one.