A threshold of memories

The Golden Threshold they remember…

HEMA SINGULURI | Hyderabad

For generations of Hyderabad’s students, theatre aficionados, teachers and artists, Golden Threshold was never merely a heritage building. It was a classroom, theatre, meeting place, library and second home. Beyond Sarojini Naidu’s artefacts, its true legacy lives in friendships, performances, conversations, Irani chai, cigarettes shared outside a pan shop and memories.

That emotional history came sharply into focus on September 7, when the University of Hyderabad (UoH) formally received Sarojini Naidu’s artefacts and personal belongings at the historic Golden Threshold in Abids. The university also received her will and Telangana Government Order No. 1040/Endts.II/A1/2026, dated February 9, 2026, transferring the artefacts to UoH. The collection includes letters, photographs, books and other personal belongings associated with the poet and freedom fighter, painstakingly collected and preserved over the years, including through the efforts of Sarojini Naidu Trust trustee Sheela Reddy.

A house, then a university

Golden Threshold, once Sarojini Naidu’s marital home, became part of UoH’s early history when the university began functioning there in 1974. Now restored as a proposed museum and literary and cultural space, it also honours Sheela Reddy, Papa Rao, Prof. Vinod Pavarala, Dr Shaik Jeelani and Col. Ch. Hanumantha Rao.

But the restoration has also reopened an old question: what happens when a place that lives in people’s memories is physically changed?

‘GT was like a second home’

For theatre practitioner, actor, scriptwriter and casting director Vinay Varma, Golden Threshold is inseparable from the beginning of his theatre journey.

His first step onto the stage began there, when his name was suggested to research scholar Daya Kishan Goel, who was looking for someone to play a rebellious youngster in D.L. Lakshmi Narayan Lal’s Coffee House Mein Intezaar. That opportunity, Varma recalls, changed the course of his life. “GT was like a second home for many of us,” he says.

He remembers the huge tree at the entrance, the lawns near the Padmaja complex, library hours, friendships, the adjoining paan shop where one cigarette was shared by three, Irani chai from Grand Hotel, and Neo Mysore Cafe’s hot vadas and strong filter coffee.

And to explain to a young Hyderabad resident why Golden Threshold matters, he invokes the melancholy line: “Vo shaakh hee na rahi jispe aashiyaana thaa…”

He is also blunt about the present: “As for this project, too little too late.” In his view, the place should have been the go-to destination for arts and culture, but those in authority, he feels, have often paid only lip service while looking for photo opportunities. “Sad that the place now resembles a grave,” he says.

Eight years of growing up

For sociologist and former Population First director A.L. Sharada, the memories begin even earlier. She belonged to the very first batch of the Sociology Department. On the first day, she recalls, even the furniture had not arrived. Students sat on the floor for their first class, taught by Prof. Ratna Naidu. Yet the incompleteness did not feel like a deficiency. It felt like being part of something new and exciting.

Sharada went on to complete her MA, M.Phil. and Ph.D. there. Golden Threshold, therefore, was part of her life for almost eight years. “In a sense, I grew up academically there,” she says.

Sharada recalls Golden Threshold as a warm, open place filled with debates on sociology, politics, music and books, over tea from the nearby stall or Irani chai. She remembers Prof. Gandhi teaching beneath the huge entrance tree. Though classrooms and a canteen came later, she cherishes its early, liberal spirit. For her, it remains both Sarojini Naidu’s historic home and a place where generations studied, debated, questioned and grew.

She has not yet seen the restored building and therefore does not want to judge the physical changes. But she is curious about what has been retained, “not just architecturally, but the character and intimacy of the old place.”

When restoration changes the memory 

Prof. K. Sandhya, former Head of the Department of English and Director, PG and Research, Maris Stella College (Autonomous), Vijayawada, shares a similar unease. “We miss all the nostalgia,” she says.

She recalls visiting Golden Threshold last year after its renovation and finding the place almost unrecognisable. The ambience, she says, had completely changed, making it difficult to retrieve the memories attached to it.

Golden Threshold’s story, then, is not simply about restoring walls or preserving artefacts. It is about negotiating between two kinds of heritage: the documented legacy of Sarojini Naidu and the undocumented memories of the generations who came after her.

The artefacts now have an official home. The restored building has a future. The challenge is whether the conversations, creativity, irreverence and intimacy that once made Golden Threshold feel alive can find their way back too. Because for those who knew it, Golden Threshold was never just a building. It was a place where people became themselves.