by Raza Rumi
‘The Sufis of Delhi,’ Sadia Dehlvi reminds me, ‘had a significant role in the religious and cultural history of South Asia. In the light of the hadith,6 “God is Beautiful and loves Beauty”, they encouraged beauty in religious expression and became patrons of art, literature, architecture, music and language. They considered local dialects as immediate and intimate modes of communication with the Divine and a way of nurturing love and amity amongst people. Delhi has been traditionally known as Bais khwaja ki chaukhat or the threshold of twenty-two Sufis although the important dargahs of the city far exceed this number.’
A healthy exchange of ideas between Sufi practitioners and Hindu yogis included the borrowing of concentration and meditation techniques from the latter. Sufi culture in Delhi embodied the religious tolerance for which Indian society strives even today. Sadia’s mother loves to say, ‘Sufi dargahs stand witness to our multi-cultural identity with people from various faiths continuing to seek solace and blessings at the threshold of these exalted Divines. Everyone who comes is blessed, no one goes khaali haath.’
Yet, at the khanqahs, a subtle pressure towards ‘Islamizing’ was also ever-present. The Ulema and the orthodoxy, tied as they were to the Sultanate and Mughal courts, were also shaping a discourse from the top. Over time, the Sufi movement was to absorb some elements of such conservatism. For example, to be fully acceptable into Muslim society, a Hindu convert had to shed his Hindu identity and cultural moorings. But this was difficult and has remained unachievable. An intense cultural amalgamation was at the core of society and separateness was impossible.
There was, of course, the economic compulsion as well. Conversion to Islam opened up newer avenues of employment and economic advancement under the Muslim state, as well as relief from severe taxes.
Thus currents and crosscurrents of politics, sociology and economics resulted in substantial numbers of Indians changing their religious identity. There was continuity at one level of the Vedic ethos, yet discontinuity with socio-religious hierarchies. History was never to be the same again. A permanent shift was taking place—irreversibly plural and factious in character and relentless in its interaction with what was imagined to be the ‘local’ India. Sufi khanqahs played a major role in promoting the message of equality and tolerance and later the Muslim state provided incentives of sorts.
There are few urban neighbourhoods that can match the magic of Nizamuddin East. Located opposite the Nizamuddin Basti and sandwiched between the ethereal Humayun’s Tomb at one end and the noisy Nizamuddin railway station on the other, it is a better surviving metaphor for a Delhi that was. One morning, when I took a walk, I was completely spellbound by the atmosphere. It was not the colonial elegance of the Raj homes of Lahore or the modern opulence of contemporary cities. Here tombs appear from nowhere. So, an entry through the gates of the neighbourhood gives one a full view of the tomb of Abd-al-Rahim Khan-i-Khanan (1626), a renowned general under Akbar and Jehangir. It is said that Abd-al-Rahim commissioned the translation of ancient Hindu texts into Persian and thereby laid the foundation for an inclusive court. A large-domed structure erected on a square garden, the tomb has the usual red sandstone and white marble trimming. It seems to be a lesser version of Humayun’s Tomb. The garden is now just a flat tended lawn with attractive palm trees. It is said that the marble from this lonely tomb was ripped off and used to adorn a Mughal noble’s and Prime Minister Safdarjung’s tombs (1754).
Facing the abandoned tomb of Abd-al-Rahim, the numbered gates of this colony lead you into densely tree-lined narrow lanes with a housing stock that is about to explode. But the overpopulation is well concealed by the shade and the crisscrossing of small parks where old couples stroll and kids run around. There are neem trees, old and stocky, with layers of mythical shade that led to enlightenment and self-knowledge in bygone eras. The amaltas trees burn in yellow that morning as I was looking for Sadia’s house. Pipal, pilkhan, palm and ashoka trees define the horizon.
I spot a gardener and ask him for directions. Taking advantage of this unplanned encounter, I ask him to name the trees. Most of them turn out to have the same names that they have in Pakistan. I chide myself for my silly assumption that somehow trees would change their names if they were to move out of Lahore. He mentions neem, aam, sagwan, sheesham, mursari and so on. And there are chandni hedges at the roundabouts, randomly grafted but well kept after a fashion.
I am not sure what pilkhan means but I see this huge tree just before the enclave where Sadia lives. Pilkhan’s botanical name is Ficus rumphii as I find out later, and having seen it in Dhaka and Karachi it was familiar to me. By the time I get to Sadia’s residence, I have walked under an interesting jungle jalebi, a rogue kabuli keekar, clusters of gulmohars, papris and, of course, the jamuns that are empty of fruits which have been plucked this monsoon. There are little champaks everywhere with blooming flowers and their characteristic scent. Nankuram, the gardener at Khan-i-Khanan’s tomb has been very kind. I return the favour with a small tip that makes him smile.
Nizamuddin East is imbued with a somewhat medieval air despite its new structures that include some sleek apartments defined by long rows of flashy cars on the small streets. Some of India’s best-known editors, journalists, artists and authors live in Nizamuddin East. This is my own miniature vision of Delhi which refuses to go away even as I explore the rest of the city. It is simply amazing to buy a phone card while standing next to Humayun’s Tomb or to pick up flowers in front of Khan-i-Khanan’s tomb.
With little ado and Nankuram’s guidance I reach the destination. Sadia Dehlvi, as her name suggests, indeed personifies Delhi in all its dimensions—the old, the contemporary, evanescent and permanent. ‘I am a true Dilli-wali,’ she says, ‘one who lives and breathes Delhi, relishing every moment of it. I cannot be anywhere else but Delhi, I hope to die here as well and be buried in one of the graveyards in Hazrat Nizamuddin. A good neighbourhood is important both in this world and the hereafter.’ Sadia shot to fame in the 1980s—a young, gorgeous, media person whose spitfire writings on women and minority issues won her the journalism award in 1989. In those days, few Muslim women were visible on the capital scene and perhaps this made Sadia something of a novelty.
Sadia is a scion of the Dehlvi khandaan, publishers of Shama, an Urdu literary and film monthly that achieved great popularity even in Pakistan. Her grand plans of preserving the Urdu language and its culture are temporarily on the backburner as her energies are now devoted to presenting an alternative narrative of Islam. During my years of travelling in Delhi, Sadia’s book evolved and I am proud to have been her muse. She laments that one of the prices of Partition paid by Indian Muslims was the decline of Urdu as soon as Pakistan adopted it as its official language. However, she ensures it is the language spoken in her home and has a tutor come home to teach her son Urdu. She constantly lectures her son about how Urdu is essentially about the refinement of one’s sensibilities.
The much-bemoaned state of the Urdu language in India is no secret. By all accounts, its status is turning into somewhat of a relic with declining numbers of Urdu readers and speakers. For decades, Bollywood had kept it alive by employing lyricists and scriptwriters who shaped a mainstream Urdu-esque idiom for cinema. I found that the Hindustani now spoken and understood stands somewhere between classical Urdu and a ‘pure’ Hindi influenced by Sanskrit.
I agree with Sadia. Bollywood, possibly the last flag-bearer of Urdu, now uses urban street lingo in its songs. It has jettisoned poetry and more and more lyricists use slang so that songs can appeal to young people. I remind Sadia that this is the ‘Dard-edisco’ phenomenon. The days of ‘Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein’7 are perhaps over.
‘I am so Dilli-inspired, each nook and corner of the city has a story to tell,’ Sadia always announces flatly. We stroll on the rooftop of her flat which overlooks Humayun’s majestic tomb. As we discuss the myriad facets of Delhi, her profile, unaffected by age, merges into the skyline. She is also very Muslim, I discover. Sh
e begins her day with fajr and a half-hour recitation of the Quran. This is followed by a yoga routine including the head stand. ‘I’m then equipped emotionally and physically to battle with the daily stress of city life,’ she says. She is also a self-confessed diwani of the twenty-two khwajas who ‘protect and bless my city. Little is known about some very important dargahs that lie here. Sufism is a message of love and peace, the answer to religious intolerance and extreme behaviour.’ On Thursday evenings, this regular celebrity party face, once flashed frequently on Page 3 of city newspapers, is to be found lighting candles and listening to qawwali at Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya’s dargah. A hazri at the tombs of Qutub Sahab Bakhtiyar Kaki and Hazrat Shah Farhad is a weekend must. Sadia does not see any conflict in her eclectic lifestyle and seems comfortable with what most would perceive as a contradiction. We sit in her living room adorned by fabulous artworks that she has collected over time. Sadia is a fulsome woman with manic energy and charisma that is hard to miss. A femme fatale of yore, I meet her more sober version in Delhi this time.
Sadia lived in Pakistan for a little over a year. ‘The best gift from Pakistan is my son, Arman, who was born in 1992 at the Lady Dufferin Hospital in Karachi,’ she says fondly. However, she says that Islamabad ‘is pretty oppressive and limited for one used to living in buzzing metros where so much is happening all the time. I made many friends and possibly even some enemies! I have loads of family and friends with whom I am in touch all the time.’ Sadia liked Karachi though, for she found a number of ‘independent women’ there and liked its relatively nonjudgmental atmosphere.
Arman was born, as Sadia believes, through a mannat at Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti’s dargah in Ajmer. His date of birth coincides with the great saint’s urs on the sixth of Rajab8 and Sadia firmly believes that Arman’s extraordinary musical talents are a gift from this Sufi saint. Starting his training from the age of three, Arman is quite the little maestro at the tabla, harmonium and electric guitar. He is a student of the Dilli Gharana style of classical singing. At twenty, Arman already has many concerts to his credit. Like his mother, he is as comfortable singing verses from Khusrau and Ghalib as he is with heavy metal and rock. Later, Arman renders a few verses from Ghalib’s poem Hazaron khawhishain aisee. He gets Urdu and Quran lessons at home and has become a great favourite at Delhi’s milad mehfils for naatkhwani and qirat.
Dinner consists of mouthwatering food from Al-Kausar owned by Sadia’s family. Not content with contributions to the cultural landscape of Delhi, Sadia is equally passionate about Delhi’s dastarkhwan or spread of food. She says, ‘There are few real Dilliwalas left in Delhi, which has now become a multicultural city.’ With ‘fusion’ food taking over, special efforts have to be made to keep the culinary traditions of our city alive. Thirty years ago, Sadia created the first kabab eatery kiosk on the streets of New Delhi. Earlier, authentic Delhi cuisine was only available in the gulleys of the old city. Al-Kausar’s menu includes classic Delhi barbecues and Dilli ki biryani and qorma. For over three decades it has been the Delhi elite’s favourite little dhaba.
In one of her irreverent moments, of which there are many in one day, she confesses, ‘Other than sharing emotions and a similar culture, living in India and Pakistan is very different. In Pakistan, I never really found the space to exist freely as one does in India. Pakistan is about conformity and I have always been a non-conformist. I’m used to a diverse culture. Every time I landed at Delhi, I used to feel comforted at the sight of turbaned Sikhs at the airport. Thank God, my grandparents chose to remain in Delhi!’ Minority status and the baggage of Partition have created a fragile environment for Indian Muslims but they continue to make their mark in every field.
An old friend and disciple of the iconic Indian writer Khushwant Singh, Sadia appears frequently in his writings. Singh’s book, Not a Nice Man to Know, a compilation of some of his most well-known works, carries the dedication, ‘To Sadia Dehlvi, who gave me more affection and notoriety than I deserve.’ Sadia also appears on the cover of Singh’s infamous Women and Men in my Life.
As I discover, Sadia is a key figure in Khushwant Singh’s salon. She says, ‘I have learnt many things from him. He is humble, lives simply, is accepting of everyone, a living example of peaceful coexistence.’ She is always amazed at his ‘accessibility and openness of mind and the ability to write at the age of ninety-eight. There are more people wanting to spend time with him than he has time for… what a wonderful way to grow old! He is truly a national treasure.’ I remind her of an article where KS declared that Sadia was his best friend and the only one who would moan and cry at his death. She continues, ‘I haven’t known anyone else who works so hard and is so disciplined every day of his life. She describes the launch of his somewhat recent book, the Illustrated History of the Sikhs, where the Indian prime minister was the chief guest. During the evening, KS made a tongue-in-cheek comment that his words of praise for the prime minister should not go to his head! Only he, at his venerable age, could take liberties like that. On Sadia’s marriage to Karachibased Reza Pervaiz, the veteran Sikh wrote a piece describing how he ‘gave away’ Sadia or performed the kanya daan ‘with cake, champagne and tears’. An intriguing relationship indeed! Singh proudly considers Arman to be his grandson and insists the lad call him ‘nana’.
The story about the decline of the Dehlvi family is both interesting and sad. Over time, the fortunes of the family shrank and, though it is still considered one of the more affluent Muslim families, its fame as a pre-eminent family of yore is now a mere episode in the tale of the social historian of contemporary Delhi. Her family mansion at the Sardar Patel Marg was sold to none other than Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. Ironically, this was once a house that was a symbol of the high opulent culture of the Muslims of Delhi. Now, quite poignantly, it houses the offices of the largest Dalit party that is supposed to represent the ‘lower’ classes and is thus diametrically different from the cultural extravagance that Delhi’s Muslim elites were famous for. Sadia makes an interesting comment, ‘Mayawati shifting to an elite neighbourhood and Muslims shifting to other lesser localities symbolizes what is happening to Muslims in India. The dalits, because reservation politics have moved them forward, while development statistics prove that Muslims have slipped below the dalits. Whatever must be shall be.’
However, Sadia and her inimitable mother, Zeenat Dehlvi, are not peeved. They have adjusted well to their spacious apartments in Nizamuddin East and West respectively. Most importantly, they are close to the dargah and accept that God has his own little scheme that ‘His believers cannot always comprehend’.
In the mellow dusk of Delhi we are driving through treelined roads towards Khushwant Singh’s house. Sadia is restless as usual and the endless numbers of important and frivolous telephone calls only add to it. Sadia considers Singh as a part of her inner world. He has continuously mentored and influenced her. I have no clue where he lives… I know only that he lives in Sujan Singh Park.
Built by Sardar Sobha Singh during the Second World War, flanked by the charming Lodi Gardens half a mile away and Khan Market next door, Sujan Singh Park is one of the numerous hearts of Delhi. The British-ness of its layout and architecture is obvious. This, after all, is Lutyens’s Delhi. The chief architect, Walter George, a disciple of Lutyens, has several other structures to his credit including the Scindia Park. During the Great War, younger military officers lived in Sujan Singh Park. This was also the period when the havelis and bungalows of Delhi were being morphed into the strange world of apartments. George designed the place so that each block of the four-storey building stands facing a small square park.
As we enter the apartment block known as Sobha Singh Mansion, where its prominent resident lords it over the rest of the metropolis, I find myself staring into the face of British India. I am a stranger here. But it is Sadia’s space since she is a frequent visitor to this place. We enter the apartment from the rear entrance which is swarming with cats. Apparently, frequent visi
tors don’t ring the bell; they just walk through this entrance.
The famous and illustrious son of Sardar Sobha Singh reclines on a chair that looks very comfortable with a footrest and except for a lone visitor, the durbar is not in full attendance. We are in a warm, intimate sort of a room with books and artifacts casually placed, betraying a lack of meditated arrangement. What strikes me are two things—the wooden engraving of the Muslim kalima9 on the wall and curtains with the imprint of asalam alaikum to which Singh points almost immediately after we have met.
Yet, this is not the house of a wannabe Muslim. Among several eclectic symbols, which make this post-Victorian apartment so un-British, there is also a gaunt Buddha sculpture reposing in one corner while a bust of Jesus stands in another. I am introduced to Singh and when he hears the words, ‘Lahore’ and ‘Pakistan’, his demeanour changes and his face lights up. Without any need to level with an imposed visitor who suddenly descended upon him, he points to a framed photograph at his side, asking me, ‘do you know this gentleman?’ I make a dishonest guess (hmm… this must be Pakistan’s eminent jurist, Manzoor Qadir), I tell to myself saying, ‘I believe this is Manzoor Qadir.’ All those black and white photographs in old frames is the old world that Singh still lives in. Singh confesses that he can never turn away a visitor from Pakistan and they are always welcome in his home.