City of Djinns

by William Dalrymple

  Will make blossoms bloom in Fall.

  Before such a leader,

  all enemies will cower,

  While Devi Lal stands tall.

  Devi Lal, leader of the farmers,

  Will make buffaloes rich in milk,

  He’ll give everyone a tractor,

  A record cotton-crop,

  There’s no doubt about it: Devi Lal’s tip-top.

  There then followed a curious little pantomime, apparently also dictated by tradition. The bride’s younger sister, herself no babe-in-arms, confronted the terrified groom and demanded an offering before he and his party would be admitted to the house. Though the groom looked as if he longed to get the whole thing over and done with, he obeyed the dictates of tradition and refused.

  ‘Before you come in, first you must pay,’ repeated the bride’s sister.

  One of the groom’s party produced a fifty-rupee note. The sister folded her arms and shook her head. Another flutter of notes was produced: two hundred rupees more.

  ‘We cannot accept less than seven hundred rupees,’ said the sister.

  Slowly, a few more notes appeared: 300, 400, 550, 650 - finally 700 rupees had been collected. The sister stood back, and the groom, followed by his drunken friends and hangers-on, pushed on into the courtyard. I thought a religious ceremony must now follow, but I was mistaken. The bargaining had not finished. The groom and his close family took their places, cross-legged, on the matting beside the trunk of wedding gifts. Facing them sat Mr Shahiduddin Postman and his brothers. In between the two families sat the village qazi and two other bearded maulvis.

  ‘What are they doing?’ I asked Dr Haidar.

  ‘This moment we call the mihr,’ he replied. ‘The groom’s family must settle how much money they will pay the bride if the marriage is a failure and ends in divorce.’

  This slightly depressing bout of bargaining - which had been brushed over so quickly in the Shah Jehan Nama - took at least a quarter of an hour. The marriage which followed it took a fraction of the time - about three minutes. There was a short reading from the Quran and the solemn recitation of the Offer and Acceptance. Then the groom signed a piece of paper which was passed to Mr Shahiduddin Postman and four witnesses for countersignature. It was only when everyone rose to their feet, shook hands and made a beeline for the cooking tent — where, it emerged, Balvinder Singh had been for the last half-hour — that I realized that the ceremony was over. During the entire marriage the bride had remained in her darkened room.

  ‘What about the bride?’ I asked Dr Haidar.

  ‘She is still in the ladies’ department.’

  ‘And when will she come out?’

  ‘Later. She cannot come into gents’ department until the marriage is over.’

  As Dr Haidar spoke I remembered the miniature of Dara Shukoh’s wedding from the Windsor Castle Shah Jehan Nama. Now I realized what had been so odd about it: amid all the festivities and celebrations there had been no sign whatsoever of the bride around whom the whole affair was revolving.

  ‘So the bride does not play any part in the marriage?’ I asked.

  ‘No. At least not an active part.’

  ‘And still she will not have met her husband?’

  ‘No. But she will meet him soon enough,’ said Dr Haidar. He shook his head gloomily. ‘Now they are husband and wife they must spend the rest of their life together.’

  One day in the middle of February I made an appointment to meet Dr Jaffery at the Red Fort. Dr Jaffery knew the building as well as anyone and I much looked forward to going around it with someone who had studied it for so many years.

  With the note confirming our appointment, Dr Jaffery sent me a photocopy of the Mirza Nama - ‘The Book of the Perfect Gentleman’. This short manuscript, which was only rediscovered in a private library at the turn of the century, spells out the sort of behaviour that was expected of a young Mughal gentleman in Delhi about 1650. I would not properly be able to understand the Mughals’ palace, said Dr Jaffery, unless I first read through their book of etiquette.

  The Mirza Nama was an extraordinary document. It revealed an unrepentantly superficial world where life revolved around the minutiae of outward appearances and public display. What was vital in a young mirza (or gentleman) were the clothes and manners which covered him; the wholeness or corruption of the man within was of no interest or relevance. The most important thing — of course - was being seen with the right people, and the Mirza Nama opens with a salutary warning: ‘He [the mirza] must not speak to every unworthy person, and should regard men of his own class as the only [fit] companions [for him].’ He should not ‘joke with every good-for-nothing fellow’. The key was to draw as firm a distinction as possible between the mirza and ordinary folk. Thus the young gallant should never ever be seen walking on foot, and should at all times carry funds enough ‘for the expenses of a palanquin’ which he should regard as ’the best of all conveyances‘.

  If, while on his litter, the mirza should pass through a bazaar and see something which appeals to him ‘he should not make any difficulty about the price, and ought not to buy like a common trader.’ This distaste for the subject of money should also guide his behaviour if another gentleman was impudent enough to enquire about his income: ‘[In such a situation the mirza] should try to get the topic changed; if not he should leave the house to its owner and run away as fast as his feet can carry him. He should not look back.’ Nor should a gentlemen ever discuss that most unfashionable subject religion, lest some fanatic ‘cause him bodily injury’ (still good advice in Delhi today).

  It was also important for any aspiring young gallant to give good parties. Towards this end the mirza should make a point of smoking scented tobacco blended with hashish; precious gems - emeralds and pearls - should be ostentatiously crushed into his wine. As far as conversation was concerned, there was one golden rule: a gentleman should avoid telling shaggy-dog stories. Moreover if any of his guests ‘begins a long story, the mirza should not attend it, because [such stories] are styled “the prison house of conversation”.’

  Literary accomplishment was to be valued: all aspiring gentlemen were expected to know by heart the Gulistan (The Rose Garden) and Bustan (The Orchard) of Sa‘di; but more important still was grammatical correctness: ’In society the mirza should [always] try to guard against the shame of committing any mistake in conversation, for such incorrectness in speech is considered a great fault in a gentleman.‘ It was even acceptable to chant or recite a verse or two in public if the young mirza had ’beauty and a good voice‘; but he should not do so too often or at length for fear — heaven forbid — that he be mistaken for a professional poet or singer. (The mirza, moreover, ’should never trust any well-clothed person who pretends to be an author ...‘)

  Having your own original opinions was clearly a major flaw in a mirza and, just to be on the safe side, the Mirza Nama offers a few acceptable opinions for the young gentleman to learn by heart and adopt as his own. Among flowers and trees he should admire the narcissus, the violet and the orange. He should eat his fill of watermelon (‘the best of all fruits’) and ‘rice boiled with spices should be preferred by him to all other eatables.’ A gentleman ‘should not make too much use of tobacco’ but ’should recognize the Fort in Agra as unequalled in the whole world [and] ... must think of Isfahan as the best town in Persia‘; if he insists on travelling he should visit ’Egypt because it is worth seeing‘.

  Finally, the Mirza Nama advises the young gallant on the tricky matter of dress. Brightly coloured coats, shirts and trousers should be tailored to a tight fit; an elaborately decorated scarf should encircle his waist and hold a dagger: ‘With a monthly salary of one hundred rupees let him allot ten rupees for the belt and the embroidered badge ... if he spends fifty rupees on a fur it will not be prodigality.’ But things could be taken to excess. While it was vital to be well turned out, the young gallant should beware of imitating those fops who spent their time building huge a
nd elaborate turbans: men like Mirza Abu Said, a great amir under Shah Jehan, who was so fastidious in the construction of his head-wraps that the Imperial Durbar had usually finished by the time he had finished tying it all together.

  ‘In India,’ concludes the Mirza Nama, a gentleman ‘should not expect intelligence and good behaviour from those who put big turbans on their heads.’

  The Red Fort is to Delhi what the Colosseum is to Rome or the Acropolis to Athens: it is the single most famous monument in the city. It represents the climax of more than six hundred years of experimentation in palace building by Indo-Islamic architects, and is by far the most substantial monument - and in its day was also by far the most magnificent — that the Mughals left behind them in Delhi. Viewed from the end of Chandni Chowk, the sight is superb: a great rhubarb-red curtain wall pierced by a pair of magnificent gates and fortified by a ripple of projecting bastions, each one topped with a helmet-shaped chattri.

  Dr Jaffery had with him a proof of the new translation of Inayat Khan’s Shah Jehan Nama while I had brought a leather-bound copy of Bernier’s Travels. Both contained good accounts of the founding of the New City. Before we looked at the Fort, we sat in a chai shop, sipping hot tea and reading out loud from Inayat Khan’s chronicle. Like the Mirza Nama, the Shah Jehan Nama worships superficial, shiny things - gifts, uniforms, jewels - and deliberately ignores the darkness and corruption which lay at the heart of the court. Where it differs from the Mirza Nama is in the richness of the fawning which curdles every sentence: reading Inayat Khan’s chronicle you experience a sensation like drowning under a sea of the sweetest, stickiest honey.

  Several years before the thought came to His Majesty’s omniscient mind that he should select some pleasant sight on the banks of the River Jumna ... where he might found a splendid and delightful edifice. In accordance with the promptings of his noble nature, he envisioned that streams of water should be made to flow through the proposed fort and that its terraces should overlook the river.

  For all its oily sycophancy, the Shah Jehan Nama probably gives the authentic flavour of the enterprise: Shah Jehan’s town, like Shah Jehan’s court chronicle, was there to glorify the ruler. The Emperor wanted to raise a city as a memorial to his rule; for, as the contemporary historian Qandhari observed: ‘A good name for Kings is achieved by means of lofty buildings ... that is to say, the standard of the measure of men is assessed by the worth of their buildings.’

  In their different ways, both book and buildings were part of a great Imperial Mughal ego-trip.

  Making our way through the crowds - great busloads of excited if baffled-looking Rajasthani villagers — Dr Jaffery and I passed over the moat and through the outer gate, part of the indecorous additional defences erected outside Shah Jehan’s fort by Aurangzeb. Without adding much to the defensive capabilities of the palace, these outworks succeeded in masking the original work of Shah Jehan ‘like a veil over a beautiful bride,’ as Dr Jaffery put it.

  Leaving the legacy of Aurangzeb behind us, we took in the original façade. Ahead of us towered the great octagonal bastions of Shah Jehan’s Lahore Gate, an impregnable wall of solid sandstone overlaid by some restrained detailing: blind arcades of cusped arches, a delicate jharokha, and a pair of carved lotus flowers floating on the sandstone spandrels of the great horseshoe arch.

  From the gate we passed into the covered bazaar, and after running a gauntlet of salesmen (all offering the same smudged post-cards printed on blotting paper) emerged into the open in front of the Naqqar Khana, the House of the Drums. On passing under the building a cacophony of kettle drums and trumpets would once have announced the arrival of any important visitor. According to Bernier, who regularly visited the fort over the six years that he spent in and around Delhi:To the ears of a European newly arrived, this music sounds very strangely, for there are ten to twelve hautboy, and as many cymbals, which [all] play together. On my first arrival it stunned me so as to be insupportable: but such is the power of habit that the same noise is now heard by me with pleasure; in the night particularly, when in bed and afar, on my terrace, this music sounds in my ears as solemn, grand and melodious.

  Before the British destroyed the surrounding buildings in 1857, the Naqqar Khana gave on to an enclosed courtyard leading up to the Diwan-i-am, the forty-pillared Hall of Public Audience, the site of the Imperial Durbars. Today the original effect is entirely lost. Both Diwan-i-am and Naqqar Khana stand as isolated buildings, marooned in wide seas of green grass. Dr Jaffery could still point out the faded murals which filled niches of the Drum House - pictures of Central Asian plants, he thought, put there to remind the Mughals of their TransOxianan homelands - but the painted and gilt ceiling of the audience hall has entirely disappeared, along with the awnings, the Kashmiri carpets, the solid silver railings and the magnificent Peacock Throne which, with its twelve pillars of emerald supporting a golden roof topped with two gilt peacocks ablaze with precious stones, was arguably the most dazzling seat ever constructed.

  To flesh out the red sandstone skeleton - to recreate within the cusped ribs of the cadaver the durbars of Shah Jehan — I again opened Dr Jaffery’s copy of Bernier. Standing in front of the Audience Hall, I read the Frenchman’s description of the scenes which had taken place within, then a Delhi commonplace, a tiresome chore for the nobles:Every day about noon [the monarch] sits upon his throne, with some of his sons at his right and left, while the eunuchs who stand about the royal person flap away the flies with peacock tails or agitate the air with large fans ... Immediately under the throne is an enclosure, surrounded by silver rails, in which are assembled the whole body of Omrahs, the Rajahs and the Ambassadors, all standing with their eyes bent downwards, and their hands crossed. At a greater distance from the throne are the inferior nobles, also standing in the same posture of profound reverence. The remainder of the entire courtyard is filled with persons of all ranks, high and low, rich and poor ...

  Whenever a word escapes the lips of the King ... however trifling its import, it is immediately caught by the surrounding throng; and the Chief Omrahs, extending their arms towards heaven, as if to receive benediction, exclaim Wonderful! Wonderful! He has spoken wonders! Indeed there is no Mughal who does not know and does not glory in repeating the Persian proverb:If the monarch says the day is night,

  Reply - ‘of course: the moon and stars shine bright.’

  These Imperial durbars were Inayat Khan’s favourite material, giving him ample occasion to tug his forelock and fill the pages of the Shah Jehan Nama with paeans to the generosity of his Imperial paymaster. Day after day, like some fatuous television game-show host, Inayat Khan lists the presents given and received:On Sunday the 17th of Rabi‘I [20 March 1650] the festival of Nauroz [New Year] was celebrated in the most splendid and sumptuous style as the ocean of royal bounty and munificence broke into surging billows ... At this auspicious assembly, from the foaming waves of kindness and munificence, Prince Buland Iqbal received a gorgeous robe of honour with a vest; a dagger studded with precious diamonds and sapphires and incised ornament and a girdle studded with diamonds ...

  And so on and on and on.

  The Diwan-i-am was as far into the Imperial Palace as most nobles would ever go. Only the most privileged would hope to cross from here into the inner enclosure, where amid streams, paradise gardens and pavilions, lay the zenanas of the women and the private apartments of the Great Mogul. Bernier, in his role as imperial surgeon, did make it into the zenana complex, but was not much the wiser afterwards:Who is the traveller who can describe from ocular observation the interior of that building? I have sometimes gone into it when the King was absent from Delhi and once pretty far I thought, for the purpose of giving my advice in the case of a great lady so ill that she could not be moved to the outward gate; but a Kachemire shawl covered my head, hanging like a large scarfe down to my feet, and a eunuch led me by the hand, as if I had been a blind man.

  You must be content, therefore, with such a general descript
ion as I have received from some of the eunuchs. They have informed me that the seraglio contains beautiful apartments, more or less spacious and splendid according to the rank and income of the females. Nearly every chamber has its reservoir of running water at the door; on every side are gardens, delightful alleys, shady retreats, streams, fountains and grottoes.

  Miniatures still survive showing this part of the palace decked in all its splendour with shady silk awnings of brilliant scarlet, gilded cupolas shining atop the chattris and, lying open to pavilions, the Hayat Baksh or Life-Bestowing Paradise Garden, planted with cypress, mangoes, apricots and sweet-smelling nargis, kuzah and gulal. Through everything runs the bubbling runnel of the canal, the Nahr-i-Bihisht or River of Paradise, punctuated by pools, carefully carved water-chutes and groups of free-flowing fountains.

  Today the inner enclosure should still be the climax of the fort, but the sight of it produces only a sensation of severe anticlimax. As Dr Jaffery pointed out, the British of the last century must take much of the blame for this. At the back of the fort they diverted the Jumna and laid in its place a main road so that the delicate Mughal pavilions look out, not on to the source of the Waters of Paradise, but on to Mahatma Gandhi Marg, the most noisy and polluted stretch of the Delhi Ring Road.

  Inside the walls, in a similarly enlightened spirit, the conquerors destroyed most of the courtyards of the palace, leaving - and that grudgingly - little in the inner enclosure except the Pearl Mosque and a single string of pavilions spaced out also on the Jumna battlements. Even the Mughal gardens were uprooted and replaced with sterile English lawns. In the place of the marble fantasies they tore down, the British erected some of the most crushingly ugly buildings ever thrown up by the British Empire - a set of barracks that look as if they have been modelled on Wormwood Scrubs. The barracks should have been torn down years ago, but the fort’s current proprietors, the Archaeological Survey of India, have lovingly continued the work of decay initiated by the British: white marble pavilions have been allowed to discolour; plasterwork has been left to collapse; the water channels have cracked and grassed over; the fountains are dry. Only the barracks look well maintained.