by R V Smith
Brisk Business
The dealers in old coats and trousers seem to be doing brisk business, judging by the rush of customers in both Karol Bagh and Old Delhi. In the former, Arya Samaj Road is jampacked with Rajasthani dealers whose wares overflow the pavements and tend to obstruct traffic, especially in the evening.
In Old Delhi, the second-hand woollen dealers have spilled over from the shrine of Kalimullah Sahib to the Jain Temple leading to Chandni Chowk. Perhaps this is an indicator that the cold is creeping in.
But despite the rush of customers, there are people who avoid old clothes like the plague. Their argument is that these clothes come from the burial grounds and cremation ghats, and no amount of persuasion is enough to calm their fears. Perhaps they feel that Delhi lays its most well-dressed people to rest every day.
Refuge
The shrine of Hazat Sheikh Kalimullah Wali opposite the fort has always been a haven of refuge for the wanderer and the homeless. Among these were Kashmiri labourers who migrated to Delhi in large numbers during the winter months and set up their abode in the precincts of the shrine. They slept in the open under makeshift tents of blankets and bamboos, and people passing by wondered if a caravan was on the way, for there were camp fires at night when the evening meal was cooked from the wood that the labourers, who are mainly wood-cutters, collected during the day from as far away places as Okhla and beyond.
These labourers were in great demand to prune the trees which choke up power lines with their branches and threaten to pull down the walls of the nearby houses during the next rainy season.
The presence of the Kashmiris near the shrine probably attracted the second-hand woollen garment sellers who were removed from under the steps of the Jama Masjid years ago. In fact a regular bazaar has sprung up near the shrine which is less imposing now than it used to be. As for the Kashmiri labourers, few camp near the shrine now.
Winter Nip
The nip in the air is balmed with the incense of the memorial services held in Delhi as the year draws to a close. Homage to the dear departed is, therefore, part of an annual ritual, but looking at the neglect of the cemeteries, one wonders if devotion is not a little misplaced. There are those who cavil at the importance given to the dead in preference to the living. Though they might have a point, it cannot be denied that both are part of a never-ending heritage. Those who have gone over the hill have perhaps as much right to affection as those who are slowly, but surely, on their way up. The year-end is a reminder of this poignant fact of destiny. Tears are not shed in vain over the graves nor is the candlelight wasted on those who have had their amber joys. Hence, a little more care and attention to God’s Acre is not out of place, when the dewy leaves wait for the inevitable winter and masses for the dead are the order of the day.
13
Harinagar Ghantaghar
arinagar Ghantaghar which many take for granted to be just an ordinary clock tower, has a history behind it, though it was built only in 1950. The ghantaghar commemorates Hari Ram Diwan one-time minister (like his father Nandlal) of the Nawab of Jhajjar, a territory that is now part of Haryana. It was built by his son Swaroop Lal Diwan, who died twenty-four years ago. But Swaroop’s son, Shyam Gopal is still around and lives in the ancestral bungalow in nearby Beriwala Bagh, along with his son Ajay and other family members. The bungalow was built in 1906 amidst a forest and farmland that are no more.
Beriwala Bagh is a garden only in name as most of the ber trees have been cut down to make way for flats and other constructions, like a gymnasium and Sulabh Shauchalya. But not long ago a notice outside the bangla used to warn intruders of the ferocious dogs inside.
The Diwans are still an affluent family on whose jagir given by the Nawab, colonies like Subhash Nagar, Tilak Nagar, Virendra Nagar, Swaroop Nagar, Shyam Park, Ajay Enclave and Ashok Nagar have come up. Tihar Jail, DDU Hospital, DTC Bus Depot, and Harinagar (named after Hari Diwan) stand on its land as does Archana Cinema.
The Diwans still maintain the yellow-painted ghantaghar which once displayed clocks imported from UK. A chowkidar lives with his wife and children in the basement. Talk to him and he may be able to tell you the story of the fifty-six-year-old Harinagar Ghantaghar which now has defective clocks made in Hyderabad. Mercifully there are no carvings on it by roadside romeos.
Hathsthal Minar
Shah Jahan was fond of hunting. No wonder he built a minar called the Hathsthal or Hastasal Minar from where he could spot and shoot game like deer, which swarmed Delhi in the seventeenth century. It is situated 17 km from the capital and one can reach it by travelling on the Delhi-Najafgarh Road and turning into a side lane leading to Hastasal village. The tapering 17-metre-high minar is built above a depression that becomes a virtual lake in the monsoon season.
The lower part of it is square in shape and the top, octagonal. The base is 12-sided and the flutings that lend height to it are similar to the ones in the Qutub Minar. Not so far is Hathi Khana or elephant enclosure where the Mughal emperor’s elephants were kept – hence the name of the place. The minar and the Hathi Khana have been misused by the villagers who had been stuffing fodder into them for their cattle. Encroachers and colonizers too did their bit to harm this monument. But belatedly, renovation and restoration measures are being taken by the ASI so that the minar can be preserved for posterity.
14
JAHANGIR’S X’MAS GIFT
hen Jahangir came on one of his last visits to Delhi in 1625-26 it happened to be the Christmas season. To mark the occasion, says an old but credible story, an Armenian merchant, Khwaja Mortiniphus presented him with five bottles of the wine of Oporto. The emperor was greatly pleased with the gesture and asked the merchant what he should give him as an X’mas present in return. The Khwaja said he had by God’s grace everything he could want and that he was already beholden to the emperor for allowing him to trade in his empire. Jahangir appreciated the comment but still insisted on giving him a gift, which turned out to be a precious diamond from the Golconda mines. The merchant in turn presented the diamond to his dear patron Mirza Zulquarnain, who was regarded by Akbar as a foster-brother and made Governor of Sambar (Rajputana) where the Mughal saltworks were located. The Mirza, also an Armenian Christian, got the diamond mounted on a gold ring which he wore nearly all his life.
Jahangir, while in Delhi, incidentally, used to live in Salimgarh, built by Sher Shah’s son Salim Shah, as at that time there was no Red Fort, of which the older citadel now forms an extension. In summer he preferred to stay on a floating camp of boats on the Jamuna. The Armenians, who had two churches in Delhi (both destroyed by Nadir Shah in 1739) used to hold a Christmas drama at which Mughal nobles and Rajput chieftains were among the prominent invitees. They sought the emperor’s presence at the play in 1625-26 and Jahangir agreed as he sometimes used to attend a similar one held in Agra since his father’s time. At that play, records the Franciscan Annals, little boys and girls dressed as angels, took part on Christmas night. The emperor was present and rose petals were showered on him. Earlier ‘on Christmas morning Akbar used to come to the church (that he had ordered to be built) with his courtiers to see the representation of the cave in which Jesus was born and the good shepherds kept watch. Afterwards the ladies of his harem also visited the manger’. Jahangir once presented beeswax candles at the church at Lahore, ‘through which he was conducted like a bishop, to the chiming of bells and singing of carols’. Talking of bells, one of the bells of Akbar’s Church is said to have fallen down when the sacristan ‘went mad with joy’ and pulled and tugged at the bell-rope, along with his friends, on the baptism day of Jahangir’s nephews. The bell was so big that even an elephant could not carry it to the Kotwali for repairs.
To come back to the X’mas gift, while on his death-bed, Mirza Zulquarnain (known as the father of Mughal Christianity) gave the ring with Jahangir’s diamond to the Father Provincial of the Agra-based-Hindustan-Tibet Apostolic Mission, of which Delhi was a part. From him it was passed on to
the succeeding prelates till it came to the Italian Archbishop Dr Raphael Angelo Bernacchioni of Figilne, who died at Dehradun while on a visit in 1937. But before that the Archbishop nearly lost the prized ring at Agra. According to the late Natalia Bua, an Armenian descendant herself, ‘One day after lunch while the Archbishop was washing his hands outside his kitchen, he took off the ring and kept it on the washbasin. A vulture, attracted by the brilliant diamond, carried it away to its nest under the statue of Michael the Archangel, along with the smouldering stub of the cigar the Archbishop had just discarded (and kept near the ring). Dr Raphael looked with dismay at the nest, with a prayer on his lips and, believe it or not, the nest suddenly caught fire and the bright ring, along with the still burning nest, fell 100 yards away on the steps of Agra’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Servants were sent to search for it and they succeeded in finding the ring and returning it to the Archbishop. What happened to it after his death is not known but some think it was buried along with him under the Cathedral altar.’
May be the medieval ring is still there – an emperor’s priceless X’mas gift to a pious merchant, whose mausoleum, known as Padre Santus’ Chapel is situated in old Lashkarpur’s Martyrs’ cemetery in a grove gifted by Akbar to a saintly Armenian woman, Mariam Pyari. Can anyone visiting Salimgarh during these Yuletide days ever imagine that Jahangir once played Santa Claus there? A vulture, interestingly enough, still builds its nest under the wings of the Archangel’s 1840s Belgium-built statue, perched high up on the Cathedral facade.
15
Waiting for Lakshmi
iwali evokes the spirit of joy, irrespective of caste, colour or creed, more so among the young, for whom festivals hold greater interest than the grown-ups. And of course they are the heart and soul of any festival, because it is they who maintain tradition despite all odds.
But personally speaking, Diwali means a visit to the walled city. It has been so for the past thirty-eight years when as a young man I lived in hotel in the area and carried my children in my arms, with their mother following after in the hunt for Diwali toys sold in the temporary shops set up in Chandni Chowk and Chawri Bazaar. Television had hardly made its pressure felt in those days and mechanical toys were not much in fashion. Clay toys or paper-mache ones attracted children. There were the special toys for girls, which brought the whole kitchen alive for them, with nearly all utensils, and even a well. For the boys there were the soldiers, especially the bugler, and of course the animals and birds. The pride of place, however, was taken by the gujaria, with a mutka on her head, in which the kheel was placed. Toys made of sweet were also popular and eaten with great relish, starting with the elephant’s trunk and ending with the camel’s hump.
To bring the toys home without breaking the beaks of the delicate birds or the soldier’s bugle was a difficult task. And God forbid if any of these broke on the way. A howl of protest greeted one as soon as the loss came to light and only another visit to the market could satisfy the child who was to receive the broken toy.
Came the evening with its profusion of crackers and to play it safe, one generally went in for the less noisier ones, the sparklers dominating the show. And after the children were safe in bed it was time to see Diwali glow all over the town. For this one walked down Esplanade Road, past the temple of Rama and Dauji and into Chandni Chowk again. The scene that greeted the eye there was one of serenity. The shopkeepers sitting on their gaddis with their wives and children filling up the shops for their once-a-year special visit.
There were shops where the families were missing and only an old sethji sat with folded hands praying to Lakshmi. The diyas burning in front of him cast a magical glow over the shop and one felt that here certainly was the true spirit of Diwali.
It was just a nostalgic visit for one given to romanticizing such events as Diwali, with its legends and traditions, at a time when traffic had not become such a monster as it is now. It was also a time when prices were not so high, a time when old values had still not been discarded.
One has long ceased to make such visits. The children have grown up now and toys do not interest them any more, save for the one who is doomed to be a child all his life. Yes, for him toys are still brought and broken beaks adjusted with wet flour and then gujaria’s mutka filled with kheel-batasaha. Diwali crackers interest him if they are not loud and the light of diyas hold a fascination as they shine in the colony from every house that the eye can see. It is for children like these that Diwali still holds a natural thrill and for them toys have to be bought, though not from Chandni Chowk but nearer home after the change of abode.
It is a nostalgic experience year after year and something which one has come to relish, both for the sake of the Mongol child who does not grow up as for one’s own memories hidden away in the years of youthful jollity. And when the last crackers have ceased to make a din, one sees in the mind’s eye the wealthy seths of old making obeisance to the goddesses with their families. It makes you wait for Lakshmi keeping a light near the door. But she doesn’t come this way anymore, you know. Nevertheless, one hopes against hope and this year too it will be the same hope and anticipation that will make one peer at the main door through the darkness to the spot where the candle burns in anticipation of cherished desires, and all the good things that one longs for on a Diwali night.
16
Pleasure & Risk of Eating Out
ome people leave behind lingering memories, like the blind kachori seller of pre-Partition days and Kesho, the halwai.
In more recent times, an old man with a long beard and a baldpate, which he used to cover with a turban, is sorely missed by food aficionados who used to relish his shammi kebabs. Mullaji, as he was known, used to work at an eatery near Sadar Bazaar. He would stand in the lane making kebabs with great dexterity and then pack them up in a leaf and a torn newspaper sheet. At the same time he would pass on the order for the number of rotis required, to the man making them at the tandoor (clay oven). The owner of the joint meanwhile would be servicing the other customers who came for korma, biryani, or stew. Some sat down inside the shop itself and had their fill.
The more discerning, however, just went for the shammi kebabs priced at `2 each. They were big, well-fried, and tasty, even without the chutney, and were lavishly provided along with sliced onions and green chillies. Afternoon was the best time to buy the kebabs as they were freshly made and stacked in a utensil for the evenings as Mullaji did not stay on till then. Last time when one went to the shop, one didn’t find Mullaji nor the kebabs. He had gone back to his village in eastern UP, deciding to return again to his old haunt because of family problems.
Now one goes past the shop to buy seekh kebabs or the smaller shammi kebabs. The bigger ones are available only after 6 pm and cost `7 each. Prices of mutton and other kinds of meat have risen pretty high and so the kebabs have become expensive too. But the taste that was a special feature of Mullaji’s kebabs is missing. However, one has to make do with whatever is available and hope Mullaji would return at least once to tickle the palate of his old customers and fill up the cash box of the dhaba owner.
To keep the price down and yet make a profit is a difficult proposition for the seller of kebabs or any other dish and so is the case with the Sadar Bazaar dhabawalas. For non-vegetarians there is biryani, tandoori roti, and curry. A quarter plate of biryani costs `15, rotis are `2 each, and curry `12. You can only expect to get buffalo meat at this price.
It is not only in this time and age that people try to eat cheap. It has always been so or the Bhattiyara would not have flourished, Ghalib could eat seekh kebabs for a few paise at a time when cowries and damris were among the smallest currency.
The situation is similar in other countries too. A report from China speaks of two brothers becoming rich by selling buns stuffed with human flesh obtained from a crematorium, with none of their customers being the wiser for it. In the Philippines, an infuriated bride’s father killed a youth who accidentally touched her
bottom and fed his flesh to unsuspecting wedding guests.
Some years ago, a dhaba owner was caught in one of our towns for selling pariah kites as chicken. He used to bait the kites with a hook from the window behind the dhaba. Easier than fishing!
In the nineteenth century, if Allauddin’s tales be true, a man ate mince tikkas and got cured of a disease which his hakim said was only curable by ingesting human flesh. And since he would never be able to eat that, added the physician, there was no hope of a cure. So when the hakim came to know that his patient had recovered, he accompanied him to the spot and saw the pavement tikka seller.
That night the tikka seller sold his stuff as usual and called out, ‘Koi hai’. A belated labourer responded to the call and was asked to carry the utensils, brazier and hot plate. As the jhalliwalah entered the dingy house, a sword blow thrown by someone standing ready for the purpose sent his head rolling.