DELHI BY HEART

by Raza Rumi

  Mushir lambasts the hidden and not-so-hidden biases of Nirad C. Chaudhuri and V.S. Naipaul who lived far away from either the subcontinent, or for that matter, the Arab world. For instance, according to Mushir, Nirad could only see the ruins of the Hindu temples that the Muslim invaders had destroyed and ‘the facts of history mattered little, if at all.’ Naipaul, the self-appointed authority on Islam and Muslims defended the destruction of the Babri Masjid by terming it as ‘an act of historical balancing.’ Mushir reminds one of Gandhi and his role in stopping the rampaging mobs around Jamia Millia Islamia on 8 September 1947, ‘Gandhi came to the campus to inspire confidence; General Cariappa, the Commander-in-Chief, the Prime Minister and the Health Minister followed his visit.’

  What I find most inspiring about Mushir is his candour. On Jinnah, Mushir holds that ‘…his attempts not to wreck secular democracy were frustrated by the inability of the Congress to overcome the influence of the Hindu Mahasabha or a sizable section of its own communalized membership.’ The hasty preparation of the ‘Partition Plan’ of 2 June 1947, and its utter disregard for India’s people and their plight, still needs a careful re-examination, as we agree. The singular focus on Jinnah in the narratives of Indian history is at best, misleading; some responsibility for the violence and uprooting of millions needs to be shouldered by the Congress as well.

  Mushir’s is the strongest of mainstream voices in India, since many fellow voices emanate from Western academies. As he reminds us, six decades after Independence is the opportune moment to ‘revise and reconsider established theories on Partition, introduce a more nuanced discourse, and stay clear of the conventional wisdom that we, the generation born after Independence, have inherited the theme of “communal” politics generally and the Pakistan movement in particular. As old orthodoxies recede before the flood of fresh historical evidence and earlier certitudes are overturned by newly detected contradiction,’ this is the time to heal what historian Ayesha Jalal calls ‘the multiple fractures which turned the promised dawn of freedom into a painful moment of separation.’7

  Mushir also has a lighter side to him. A tremendous sense of humour is evident from the engaging chit-chat that he musters. He also has a wide repertoire of poetry, anecdotes, quotes and qissas in the limitless memory store. The UP culture has a definitive mark on his persona that is faithfully cosmopolitan.

  During the Jamia seminar on Qurratulain Hyder, the Urdu-walas—poets, writers, critics and engaged readers dotted the Jamia campus with a ‘forced’ optimism about Urdu and its literature. Mushir constantly challenged this melee of Urdu lovers. He participated both as a history guru and vice chancellor. He provoked us discussants by questioning Hyder’s political moorings or why she was not as radical in condemning Partition the way, for instance, Amrita Pritam was. He challenged the conventionalism of the Urdu world steeped in an eighteenth-and nineteenth-century rhetoric of glory. To me, this was of immense symbolism in Delhi and India at large—modernity confronting the limits of a language that has politically and scientifically not progressed despite the innovativeness and richness of its literature.

  The Urdu- walas were invited for a dinner by Jamia University. We arrived early, taking Mushir’s advice to ‘hang out’ before the formalism began. The rooftop of the India International Centre is a secluded, open space. Standing next to a glowing coal stove on that chilly winter night, Mushir held forth about India and Pakistan as we waited for the guests to arrive. He makes a few profound statements, spreads a dose of optimism about the future and then in a flash, recites the oft-quoted lines from the great Urdu poet, Ali Sardar Jafri:

  You come from the garden of Lahore laden with flowers,

  We will come bearing the light of a Benares morning

  With fresh breezes from Himalayan heights

  And then, together we can ask, who is the enemy?8

  Later at Sadia’s house, Mushir recites a few lines in Persian from Rumi as the little gathering slowly turns into a cultural soiree. A culture of spontaneous verse and a delightful inter-ethnic and inter-religious bonding emerges in the evening’s moments, moments that have become distant in both India and Pakistan. This was a farewell dinner for me as I was leaving the next day.

  Among the attendees were Oroon Das who plays Rumi in Delhi’s theatre production, former diplomat Rangacharya and his wife Kokila, and the civil servant Parveen Talha, who after a long stint in the civil services, retired as a member of the Union Public Service Commission. Eclectic as the gathering was, Mushir’s presence charged the atmosphere and his jokes and poetry were most entertaining. Mercifully, a running commentary on Pakistan did not enter the conversational ring. No contests created, no comparisons made and no contrasts drawn.

  The way it should be. At least, sometimes.

  12

  Ghalib’s Delhi

  T

  he Red Fort stands in the heart of Shahjahanabad, like a relic that someone forgot to worship. Imposing in its presence, it emerges into one’s vision from nowhere. Still used as a symbol for state power and sovereignty, the prime minister speaks, each year, on India’s Republic Day from this grand, sad monument. Its upkeep is as tragic as the Lahore Fort. Before we enter the Fort, I remember what my Delhi friend Rana quoted from an article sometime back, ‘Ignorance of one’s history is a pre-requisite for patriotism’. He had forgotten who had written it though.

  As is the case with the Lahore Fort, the Red Fort is immensely enchanting and instantly casts a spell on the visitor. My Delhi visits would not be complete without extensive explorations of the monument. But it is only in Agra that the majesty of a fairly well-preserved Mughal Fort impresses you with its elaborate and sophisticated architectural and aesthetic nuances. However, both in Delhi and Lahore, the Fort meanderings are mere exercises in visual delight.

  Flanked by a group of Americans, my most detailed tour was a part of a heritage walk. We started off rather early on a chilly December morning, mixed with the anticipation of warm sunlight and the good-natured blabber of tourists.

  Entering the Fort through scanners reminded me once again of the word ‘terror’ juxtaposed with the word ‘Muslim’. The Indian media keeps whipping up these words periodically. But is it not a dangerous alienating game? I shrug off such questions and move forward with the little group amid the sound of clicking cameras.

  The walkways to the main buildings in the Fort complex were clean and quiet as the stream of tourists had not started flowing in. The Diwan-e-aam (public gallery) is our first major halt. This was the site of royals’ durbars including the ones organized by the British. The lonely throne made of marble with intricate inlay work can be spotted behind the protective screens placed around it. I imagine what the Delhi Durbar must have been in all its glory. After wandering through the Diwan-e-Khas which were the royal chambers, bedrooms and inter-connected courtyards, we reach the little gate that provided the escape route for Bahadur Shah Zafar, who perhaps had no idea that this exit would be his final one and that the world inside the Fort was going to crumble and disappear with the brutal end to the 1857 Mutiny by the British. The little wooden gate is locked.

  On the night of the fall of Delhi in early 1858, General Wilson, the Commander of the British forces, celebrated his victory with a festive dinner in the Diwan-e-Khas, the innermost sanctum of the three-centuries-old Mughal reign in India. The dinner would be an eclectic mix of Victorian cold cuts, canned fish and meats, and general army mess cuisine. In the days to follow, twenty-one Mughal princes were condemned, hanged and eliminated in a flash. Many more were shot dead and their corpses were displayed in Chandni Chowk to inform the public as to what would happen to rebellious subjects as well as to remind citizens about the brutal capabilities of the new imperial order. The British contemplated demolishing the Jama Masjid and the Red Fort. However, the exquisite Fathepuri mosque was sold to Lala Chunna Mal, a Hindu merchant, as his private property and the Zinatul Masjid was converted into a bakery. Buildings within a radius of 500 yards of t
he Red Fort were razed to ground. Structures around the Jama Masjid were also cleared in the name of martial orderliness. Quite symbolically, the buildings blocking the new wider roads and the planned railway line were also demolished.

  The kuchas, galis and katras erased in the process represented a larger metaphor—the erasure of not just bricks, mortar and marble, but a centuries’-old way of life. An entire tehzib1 was dismantled and replaced. For Delhi this was nothing new though; each episode of human suffering is real and unique. Delhi’s melancholy was to stay, but counterpoised by the inner zest of its residents who had seen much worse and reinvented themselves like their beloved city.

  The negligence of the Fort as it stands today is quite monumental; in particular, the later-day additions of iron grills and fences which are completely out of sync with the place. The government departments in Pakistan and India are incapable of appreciating fine aesthetics and the buck, as usual, stops at ‘lack of resources’. Many walls of the Fort have been tastelessly white-washed for purposes of ‘conservation,’ and the shoddy patchwork amid small Mughal bricks or sandstone conspicuously mars the impact of the old structures. In many ways, the Delhi Fort is modelled after the Lahore Fort—the public and private quarters, gardens, Sheesh Mahal and the underground chambers. The differences can be attributed to the innovations of Shah Jahan and his highly refined female companions, the Queen and Princess Jahanara, as well as its proximity to Chandni Chowk and the city of Shahjahanabad.

  The American tourists in our group are not particularly gripped by the grandeur and myriad architectural styles unfolded by our charismatic companion, Sadia Dehlvi, as she attempts to unravel the centuries of evolution, glory and destruction that the Fort has experienced. She explains how the Fort was a self-contained city, an elite version of the Shajhanabad outside, that even provided for residential and training spaces for the troops, servants and royal staff. There were spaces too for local commerce for the royal ladies. I wonder if I could visit the Fort alone at night when there is no one else.

  As we reach the sandstone chabutras designed for musical soirées and for poetry sessions or mushairas, the cloistered spaces open up. How magical it must have been! I attempt to explain the concept of mushairas to the Americans but feel inhibited by the impossibility of translating the inner language of culture. Mushairas were the high points of Delhi’s literary culture. Young as well as more seasoned poets recited their verses with elegant etiquette in the late evenings; these sessions continuing well into the dawn. Kings and nobles, patrons of the Delhi poets, would be the chief guests, adding decorum to these events. Despite many internal and external attacks, by the early nineteenth century, the Fort grew into a hub for poetry and its experimentation, especially in Urdu. The finest Persian carpets would be unrolled for the poets. A roving candle would light up the poetry in front of the bards. Ghazals, a genre of poetry, expressing love for the temporal and divine with doses of existential rambling, was popular.

  The ghazal is uniquely structured in that each couplet is a universe of meaning and there is no compulsion, despite the formalism, to build on a single theme. Even the mood varies with each couplet and so does the theme. Disparate yet whole, the couplets of a ghazal are connected.

  As the comforting sunlight added little patterns on the red sandstone, I mused about how the eminent poets of Delhi—Ghalib, Momin, Azurda, Sahbai—would all gather during a typical mushaira presided over by Bahadur Shah Zafar. The poets would play games with Ustad Zauq, the king’s favourite poet, by paying compliments to his rivals and by over-rating lesser poets.

  Such was the cultural climate of Shahjahanabad that a Frenchman, Alexander Heatherley, adopted the nom de plume of ‘Azad’ and became a pupil of Delhi’s Urdu poets, finding a place at royal gatherings. He was already composing high-quality verse at the age of twenty-one. Trained in medicine, he loved poetry, and would travel to Delhi from his various postings. A unique combination of a white man dressed as a military officer, a mushaira buff and speaking in chaste Delhi Urdu!

  I dream up an imaginary portrait of Nawab Mustafa Khan ‘Shefta’. Shefta was another master-poet who had received his coaching from the legendary Urdu poet, Momin. Such was Momin’s aplomb that for his one couplet, Ghalib was willing to forgo his entire collection of Urdu verse. Momin’s couplets were simple. When translated they lose their stunning impact:

  When you are with me, it is like

  Nothing else is there.

  Modes of praise during these poetical soirées were also quite formal. The younger poets had to be encouraged while the senior ones were praised with artistic restraint. The masters disliked it if their couplet was extolled beyond its worth; they themselves being aware about which of their creative rhymes deserved appreciation and to what extent.

  But Mirza Ghalib was the odd one out. His Persian poetry was outstanding even as his Urdu ghazals were not always accessible to most listeners in a degenerating environment. The range of subjects and the countless moods and styles that he experimented with were not prevalent in such an ambience. He lamented at mushairas that there was no one who could truly appreciate his worth. There was sarcasm in this verse:

  I seek no praise, nor care for rewards

  If there is no meaning in my verse, so be it.

  I recall a vivid description of a mushaira in Farhatullah Baig’s book, Delhi ki Akhri Shama (The Last Lamp of Delhi). Baig’s evocative portrayal of the mushaira at the Haveli Mubarak-un-Nisa Begum, where the last mushaira under Zafar was arranged, deals with the ethics, aesthetics and refined cultural nuances of this institution. This was the age of Urdu’s popularization and its entry into the mass media.

  Lithographs were introduced to Delhi around 1840 which popularized the written script and reach of Urdu to those who were not a part of the exclusive elite cultural extravaganza. Poetry collections or ‘diwans’ of leading poets started to be published and Urdu newspapers came into being. In 1841, Ghalib’s printed Urdu diwan was available to the public and four years later, his Persian collection of verse was published in Delhi. Notable Urdu newspapers like Aina-e-Sikandar and Jam-e-Jahan commenced their printing in Delhi. They carried printed news of India and the world. Urdu had finally reached its zenith though its glory was to eclipse after the traumatic events of 1857 and afterwards.

  The mushaira continued as a popular participatory poetic event well into the twentieth century. After 1857, regional kingdoms and other dispersed centres of power patronized poets and Urdu poetry. The late-nineteenth century witnessed a new realism in Urdu poetry that narrated the tales of ordinary people and their everyday lives. Nazeer Akbarabadi and other such poets experimented more with the medium of the ‘poem’ rather than the ghazal. However, the classical style was to continue as a mark of purity and cultural ascendancy in Delhi, Lucknow, Aligarh and elsewhere.

  It was in the early decades of the twentieth century that Urdu literature began to shed its self-conscious and indulgent classical trappings by adopting a modern, particularly Leftist orientation. The birth and subsequent evolution of the Progressive Writers’ Movement was the finest moment in Urdu literature as it endeavoured to bring various Urdu writers and poets from all over India to buy into the concept that literature should not be created just for its own sake but should have the larger goal of social change. These were the heydays of the anti-colonial movement. The Progressive Writers’ Movement had some of the best poets and writers as its vanguards. Faiz Ahmed Faiz is the best-known torchbearer of this tradition whose poetry was to provide a moving expression of the public sentiment and political movements in Pakistan. The other luminaries of this movement were Sajjad Zaheer, M. D. Taseer, Rashid Jahan, Kaifi Azmi, Ismat Chughtai, Sahir Ludhianvi, and Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, to name a few.

  The Progressive Writers’ Movement continued in post-Independence Pakistan and became a threat to the post-colonial state that carried on with the old style of ruling through a well-developed steel-frame bureaucracy. The ones who migrated to Pakistan faced a n
ew reality that, in the words of Faiz, was not the dawn that they had hoped for:

  This blemished light, this dawn by night half-devoured

  Is surely not the dawn for which we were waiting.

  They say that poetry flowed easily before modern life occupied all the major intersections and filled cultural life with concrete. This is why the mushaira is now a dying institution in both India and Pakistan. Such events are regularly held but they are ritualistic, often lacking in imagination, and rather removed from the prevailing cultural environment. For the young, e-forums and dedicated websites have overtaken mushairas. Earlier in Pakistan, state-owned television had provided much impetus to the coverage and even sponsoring of mushairas on all important national occasions. Since the 1990s, the supremacy of the market and the ‘sale’ of airtime have taken that away from the viewers.

  Urdu was created by Delhi for its imperial efficiency and social amalgamation. Its variegated vocabulary from Turkish, Arabic, Sanskrit and Persian provided immediacy and connection to all. Urdu was a marker of social mobility, a measure of refinement and urbanism, and found votaries in Delhi and several towns and cities of northern India such as Lucknow, Aligarh and Allahabad. Later it gave way to English, while in Pakistan, it, ironically, became what English is to India.