Place · historic bangle market · India
Laad Bazaar
Also known as Lāḍ Bāzār, Lad Bazaar, Lad Bazar, Laad Bazar, Churi Bazaar, Choodi Bazaar, Chudi Bazaar
Laad Bazaar, also called Churi Bazaar, is the roughly one-kilometre market street that runs west from the Charminar in old Hyderabad, lined with shops selling lacquer bangles studded with stones, saris, wedding goods and imitation jewellery. Its name comes from laad, lacquer, the material used to set the stones on the bangles. The market has traded since the Qutb Shahi period, before the Nizams, and sits in the cluster formed by the Charminar, the Mecca Masjid and the Chowmahalla Palace.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Patron dynasty
- Qutb Shahi · Asaf Jahi
- Material
- lacquer bangles set with stones; pearls; textiles
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 17.362, 78.473
Worth knowing
In its heyday the Charminar market had some 14,000 shops, and these are the bazaars Sarojini Naidu recalled from her childhood in 'In the Bazaars of Hyderabad', published in The Bird of Time (1912).
About the place
West of the Charminar, on one of the four roads that branch out from it; the Nizams' palaces lie to its south-east.
Connections (5)
- Site withinHyderabad
Laad Bazaar lies in the old walled city of Hyderabad, on one of the four main roads that branch out from the Charminar, the monument Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah raised in 1591 after moving his capital from Golconda. Hyderabad's Wikipedia entry places it in the traditional retail corridor of south-central Hyderabad with the Pearl Market and Madina Circle, and calls it the most prominent of the city's historic bazaars, popular for traditional wares, gems and pearls, the trade that gave Hyderabad its nickname 'City of Pearls'.
- Site adjacencyCharminar
The Charminar stands at the head of Laad Bazaar: the bazaar runs along one of the four roads that branch out from the monument, and Britannica, cited in Wikipedia, places it immediately to the west. The two belong to the same moment, since the market has traded since the Qutb Shahi period, when Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah built the Charminar in 1591 at the centre of his new city. In its heyday the Charminar market held some 14,000 shops, with bangles its best-known trade.
- Site adjacencyMecca Masjid, Hyderabad
The Mecca Masjid serves as the primary mosque of Hyderabad's old city, and its Wikipedia entry names Laad Bazaar, the Charminar and the Chowmahalla Palace as the historic landmarks close to it. Mosque, monument and bazaar form one Qutb Shahi ensemble: Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah had bricks made from soil brought from Mecca for the mosque's central arch, which gave it its name, and the bangle market beside the Charminar has traded since that dynasty, before the Nizams.
- Site adjacencyChowmahalla Palace, Hyderabad
Laad Bazaar's Wikipedia entry notes that the palaces built by successive Nizams lie to the south-east of the bazaar, including the Chowmahalla Palace, seat of the Asaf Jahi dynasty, whose construction Salabat Jung began in 1750 and which was completed between 1857 and 1869. The bazaar is older than the palace, having traded under the Qutb Shahis, and today it sells bangles, saris, wedding goods, perfumes and traditional khara dupattas a short walk from the court's former seat.
- Associated withSarojini Naidu
Sarojini Naidu, born in Hyderabad in 1879, the daughter of the principal of Nizam College, wrote 'In the Bazaars of Hyderabad' from her childhood memories and published it in 1912 in The Bird of Time, the collection that also carried 'Bangle-sellers'. Its five stanzas walk through the merchants, goldsmiths, fruit-sellers and flower girls of the old-city markets, and the Charminar's Wikipedia history names the poem as the description of the bazaars around the monument, of which Laad Bazaar, the bangle street, is the chief.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Laad Bazaar", "Charminar", "Hyderabad" and "In the Bazaars of Hyderabad". The Hindu, "Laad Bazaar traders cry foul" (22 February 2008).
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