Delhi
Page 18
In 1921, the popularity of trams was said to be at its highest, but soon after there was a general strike in which the tramways were also badly affected. The 1921-22 strike probably led to rethinking and introduction of city buses for an expanding Delhi a decade or so later, initially run by the Scindia Gwalior bus transport company (if one is not mistaken). At its best the tramway company had 24 trams that linked important parts of Old and New Delhi. In 1947, when the refugees from Punjab and Sindh flooded Delhi, trams ran jampacked as many of them were eager to pay obeisance at Gauri Shankar mandir and at Gurdwara Sis Ganj, opposite the Phawarra (fountain), named after Lord Northbrook. Obviously there were many Sikhs among them, carrying swords, spears and shields, something the local populace found intimidating, until their fears were calmed by the tram conductors who welcomed the opportunity as heaven-sent for good profits.
Dr Ausaf Ali, who had come to Delhi from Allahabad in 1954 to join Maulana Azad’s Message Weekly and later Hamdard, recalls that as a bachelor he would often travel by tram to Rui Mandi and eat Kaleji (liver) and roomali roti at the shop of a man with only one eye. He had lost the other one probably in smallpox. At a function attended by the U.K. High Commissioner, Sir Michael Arthur, at Nicholson Cemetery some years ago, O.P. Jain of INTACH, disclosed that as a young man living in the Walled City he frequently travelled by tram. But to go to Rouse Avenue, then considered a lovers’ lane by young people, he had to use a bicycle, which also came in handy for carrying a friend on the front or back of it, depending on his or her closeness with the biker. That was the era when motorcycles were so few that they could be counted on the fingertips, and cars were also scarce. Ahmed Ali in Twilight in Delhi devotes some space to the tramway which linked Lutyens’ Delhi with ‘the old-world charm of Shahjahanabad and the lush greens of the Town Hall’. In those days the Town Hall was the focal point, for after the tramway was launched from there it was to the Queen’s Garden (now renamed), behind it that many went for picnics on balmy winter afternoons, cool summer evenings, or rainy monsoon days. But came December 1963 and the tramway stopped operating, much to the regret of many. The girl Marion, who went to buy a sari in it, was perhaps the most disappointed, along with her companion, who had braved the crowd with her near Fatehpuri (the starting point of the trams), one memorable Diwali day.
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Windmills to revive ‘The past’
windmill looks just as much out of place in a landlocked area like Delhi as perhaps a lighthouse. And so the windmill that stares at you near Moti Bagh in New Delhi and the one at Pusa Institute draws a lot of comments from passers-by, for it generally stands limp, like a ceiling fan which has been switched off. But this windmill has a purpose, and a very worthy one at that. It it is used to draw water from a pond for irrigation of saplings planted by the Delhi Administration sponsored Smriti Vatika Society. Set up many years ago, the society laid the first Smriti Vatika or commemoration park in the capital. And then another one across the Jamuna. People who wanted to plant trees in the park initially had to make a donation of 1,000 to 10,000 rupees to perpetuate the memory of their near and dear ones. A plaque proclaims the name of the donor and the one in whose memory the tree has been planted.
This novel scheme, suggested by a former lieutenant-governor of Delhi, M.N.K. Wali, was launched on a 10-hectare project. The response to the scheme was fairly good with over 200 people from all over the country having registered themselves. By the time the year ended and 1987 dawned, many more joined the venture, and as the years passed by the 10 hectares got filled up with people of all faiths and communities trying to commemorate their friends and relatives. To cater to the mounting demand another Vatika was started. Sitting near the windmill, all sorts of fanciful ideas come to mind. One is reminded of Holland, which used to be known as a country of dykes and windmills. The scenario is quite different here though, with not much water around; but there is some foliage on which the mind feeds and the eye forms the description of the shape of things to come.
A commemoration park is quite different from a cemetery where lie the dear departed. And the few cemeteries in Delhi are filling up fast, with encroachments by the living, adding to the problem of burying the dead in a suitable place. Perhaps, the time will come when people might have to travel miles to find burial space for their kith and kin.
The Smriti Vatika scheme therefore, has not come a whit too soon. Like Thomas Gray in the Stoke Poges Cemetery, one might be able to wander ten years hence in the commemoration park and admire not only the shady trees but also the plaques, and spend some moments engrossed in thought as to the lives and times of those who, though dead, ‘live on’ because of the trees. And the windmill may be there to egg on the memory, for this is the idea behind the commemoration park – ‘Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree’s shade / Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate!’
Talking of windmills, there are windmills which supply power at cheap rates and windmills which help to run flower mills. One is reminded of The Mill on the Floss, in the celebrated novel of the same name. But India and Delhi particularly have very few windmills compared to places like Lowville in New York, which has 195 giant turbines above the 400-feet high Tug Hill. These turbines have 130-foot-long blades that spin at 14 revolutions a minute. They, according to AP are part of the 400-million-dollar Maple Ridge wind project.
One wishes that some enterprising firm does something like that in Delhi too. Besides other benefits, it will save us the tedium of long hours of power cuts. However, the Maple Ridge project has come with a big emotional price: it has made life unbearable for many families which find the ‘rhythmic woosh, woosh, woosh of wind turbines’ unbearable. One resident says that he ‘hates the sight of the windmills as they disrupt his sleep, invade his home and consciousness’. But surely if the number of wind turbines is less and they are not as huge as the ones in Lowville, then they would not disrupt life and perhaps make it more bearable. And just think that with so much wind power available we could have many more Smriti Vatikas not only in Delhi but elsewhere too.
About the Author
Ronald Vivian Smith is an alumnus of St John’s College, Agra and began writing as a teenager in 1954. He has authored a number of books, including four on Delhi, a romantic novel, Jasmine Nights & the Taj, three volumes of poetry, a collection of ghost yarns, and a profile of the eighteenth-century Smith family he is descended from. As a septuagenarian he does not spend time on an easy chair but in surveying out-of-the-way places for unusual stories that form the grist for weekly newspaper columns, ‘Quaint Corner’ and ‘Down Memory Lane’. This publication of his completes the proverbial baker’s dozen.
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