Afzal Gunj always reminds me of the iconic Gowliguda bus station made of the curved metal roof from where we took many buses to and from in important junctures in our life. Despite going up and down that road many times I never noticed the magnificent State Central Library which is right there at Afzal Gunj, a few yards from where the bus stand had been (now shifted across the road and called Imlibun Bus Stand).
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| From the closed gate |
So Sunnie and I decided to do a partial Musi Riverfront walk and started at the Telangana State Central Library. I parked in front at a comfortable place right near the Central Library. It was an early hour, 640 am, so it was not open. But its a beautiful structure which is included in the 2025 World Monuments Watch compiled by World Monuments Fund.
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| From within the library campus |
The library was originally the personal library of scholar Moulvi Syed Hussain Bilgrami and after it became public property in 1891 it was named Asafia State Library in honour of the Asaf Jah dynasty. It was called the Kutub Khana Asafia initially and was established in the place where the present GPO stands, at Abids. In 1936 it was shifted to this building. The building came up as part of the City Improvement Board plan which came into existence after the devastating Musi Floods of 1908, conceived by the 7th Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan and the famous engineer M Visvesvarayya being brought on board to redesign the riverfront. The building was designed by British architect Vincent Jerome Esch and has been granted heritage status in 1998.
It contains half a million books and magazines including rare palm leaf manuscripts. Originally had some 17000 manuscripts going back to the 5th and 7th century which have since been transferred to the Oriental Manuscripts Library.
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| One part of the building - exquisite work |
It would be nice to go in and see how it looks inside. Some other time.
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