‘Waiting for Singh daantwala?’ he inquires.
‘Yes, isn’t he late today?’
‘He should have been here by now. Or he may not come at all today; he must have been tipped off by informers of higher police security today because of the VIPs visiting the college. Come, sit,’ he hands me a tattered old Kutch embroidered mat to sit on.
‘For how long have you known Amrit Singh?’ I ask.
‘I have seen him learn the trade. His father died just a few years ago—three years. I think. He can do everything his father did. Masala acha bharta hai . . . kabhi, kabhi tablet bhi deta hai [He fills cavities and sometimes prescribes tablets too],’ Syed says.
‘Has he ever been caught by the police?’
‘Arré, no. All these things can be a bit exaggerated. This thin fellow from the municipal authority takes a thousand rupees a month as a bribe from him,’ he whispers, leaning in.
‘That must cut into his already thin margins,’ I remark.
‘Haan. But he is doing well. Recently, he shifted with his family from a room in Tarsali to a flat in Aslam Quarter,’ he says, shrugging his shoulders.
‘With his own earnings?’
‘Arré, no. Some ministers gave him a flat before the elections last year. Sardar hai na, so he was favoured. The government promised to give me one, too, but it never happened,’ he laments.
A lady in her forties waddles towards us, balancing grocery bags in both hands. ‘Where is Singhji daantwale?’ she asks Syed.
‘Don’t know. Maybe he won’t come at all today.’
‘Kyon, raid pad gayi hai kya? [Has the police raided his stall?] she sniggers, before walking away.
‘Wretched woman. She is so ungrateful,’ Syed murmurs under his breath. ‘The trust hospital left her hanging for an appointment for a month. Her cavity was hurting her and Singh finished the job,’ he retorts. ‘See, I know what he does is illegal. He has had cases that have gone badly too. But someone has to take care of the poor, right? Where will people like me go?’
I ask him if trusted the hospitals that offered cheap treatment.
‘Have you seen the queues there? It takes three or four days and hours and hours of waiting for one set of dentures,’ he replies.
‘We are daily-wage workers. How will we survive?’ His face darkens. ‘Or should we keep our mouths closed because our teeth are rotting? Or simply become addicts who resort to more tobacco and kheni and to escape the pain?
‘I have seen so many people go down that route. With bad teeth, getting a job can also be a problem.’ Bad teeth, according to him, is a sign of limited intelligence, an apparent marker of class. ‘They won’t give you jobs as maidservants for children, or in hotels and salons. You will be placed in the background somewhere, far from the everyday public eye. That is what happened to Radhe as well. He had a well-paying job as a peon in a private school until his teeth started rotting—and that screeched “poverty” louder than his broken shoes.’
7
THE URDU SCRIBES OF DELHI
Kashmere Gate is one of the oldest and most thickly populated areas of Delhi. Every square foot here is claimed by someone—hawkers, squatters, beggars asleep on the sidewalks. A street barber, opening his counter across the road, points to a nook in the walls of what was once Shahjahanabad:1 ‘This is where we slept last night,’ he says of his door-less home under the starless sky.
This labyrinth of slimy alleys also houses butchers’ shops selling goats and fishmongers calling your attention to their freshwater trout. Cyclists move past them, coming precariously close to impact and the near-tumbling of goods from the stalls. Old men hobble back home, their hands laden with vegetable bags, a post-retirement duty bestowed on them by their wives. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, all cultures converge here. The main roads run through residential blocks where thousands of humans, animals and vehicles are caught in an endless crusade every hour, negotiating their space in this colossal street theatre.
In the midst of all this, a group of young students, with scraggly beards, spotless white salwars and skullcaps, stride every day through the grimy layers of time—with each step they clamber up a steep incline to shut out this chaos. Each step takes them towards a lime-washed building at the end of the street, wondrously quiet beyond its wrought-iron gate.
This pillared pavilion is the Urdu Academy maintained by the Delhi government, an institution for Urdu-language promotion and teaching, the conserving of history that was long left to turn mouldy by the purveyors of time. The range of books and research published by them is indicative of the academy’s journey from humble beginnings to a measure of monetary but—more importantly—literary success.
To the rear of this cultural preservatory of sorts is an oval-shaped room with high ceilings and a solitary window that allows the sunlight to trickle in. The rest of the chamber has adjusted itself to this window—the walls accepting the habits of weather through the days, learning to eliminate all but the sounds of the sparrows. In a darker corner of the room, a large form—that could be merely a dusk-time shadow—lies very still. Perhaps it is an old piece of furniture covered in white, or a marble statue. My eyes adjust to the light in the room and the shadow turns into a figure, a lean man in a skullcap, with smooth, dark tendrils of smoke for a beard, sitting on his knees, finishing his afternoon prayers. Each of his ageing but firm limbs move like they are choreographed—hands, legs and neck working in a practised fashion as he rolls the mat and adjusts his skullcap. There is no extra flutter, twitch or stretch; each movement has a purpose and no superfluous energy goes to waste. Only his neck moves as he reaches to turn on a switch, bathing himself and the room in white light, revealing the walls crammed with verses in Arabic script—billowing and drooping like waves in their wooden frames, all fashioned by him and his students.
He is a katib, a scribe and teacher of Urdu, Persian and Arabic calligraphy for over thirty years. In the packed precincts of this room, Wasim Ahmed teaches students his craft, and he works and lives to tell a saga—both story and history muddled into one.
A few handwritten posters with verses from the Koran lie beside him; the flowy, bold lettering in navy and turquoise resembling a watery paradise of rivers and springs, a paradise of a religion that emerged from the land of deserts. I caress it, admiring the lettering, when Wasim turns to me, drawing the posters away. ‘Try not to touch these posters.’ He frowns. ‘The depiction of faces and humans is not permissible in Islam. Instead of pictures, these verses are akin to God for us,’2 he explains, forcing a smile. ‘I am pak-saaf. I have washed and performed all the rituals of purification. I can touch them, but being a non-Muslim, you may not have followed the ritual purification,’ he says, clearing his throat, his voice somewhat tortured, like a pebble-grinding machine at work.
With a brief smile, he brushes imaginary dust off the posters with his slim, ringed fingers. A pregnant silence fills the room in spite of the old fan whipping through the thick, dry air, the annoyingly happy sparrows chirruping outside and the exaggerated sounds of the sheets of paper as he wastes long minutes rolling each of them.
Moments later, the door to the room opens and a peon brings in two cups of tea. Wasim habitually lifts the cup and holds it against the tube-light to make sure the peon has cleaned it well, snubbing him for the delay in service. ‘You are late as usual. I was done with namaz ten minutes ago,’ he hisses at him. ‘I draw these for some shaukeen men in the Diwani3 style of calligraphy,’ he says and finally sighs, turning a little towards me, but only talking in my general direction. ‘This style,’ he says, pointing to a framed verse hung above his head, ‘was the secret official script of the ancient Ottoman courts, and each artist had a distinct style, so much so that it could rarely be forged by someone else.’ The letters are intertwined like the threads on a delicate crochet scarf, both flawless in terms of fine design as well flawed in the slight caprices of the artist’s hand. ‘Each piece can take months to finish,’ he continues, ‘and many good, d
evout Muslims display them in their shops and homes. They believe that the sacred verses will bring good vibes and luck. Beautiful calligraphy always celebrates the sounds and meaning of this sacred text.’
‘Do you scribe copies of the Koran as well?’ I ask.
‘The Koran, even a trained katib like me cannot scribe.’ He frowns, shaking his head at my ignorance. ‘The Koran is inscribed by huffaz, people who’ve learnt the Koran by rote.’ They are often checked and certified by government bodies in many countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq. ‘Mostly, I copy educational books and novels that are written by others,’ he explains.
‘But you are still an artist,’ I remark and he looks up with beady-eyed interest, as if the word conjures up the image of an enigmatic, gifted, revered genius.
‘Yes,’ he says after a long pause, dropping his eyes to a bottle of ink lying before him. ‘I’m like an artist and this is art. There is instant reward with this work. You see the result as you move along the paper. Like painting figures on a canvas, these fine arts occur when you are alone—if not always, not always, but . . . I mean . . .’ he grumbles, cursing his ageing memory that whisks words off his tongue. Closing his eyes, he searches for the right phrase, his skullcap moving up to reveal his orange hair that, at certain angles, appears to glimmer, as though fired by the thoughts in his brain.
‘Sometimes, weeks, months or even years later, I smile, thinking about certain words from Allah that I scribed many eternities ago. And that thought gets my heart beating rapidly,’ he says, his deep voice clearer and filled with love for his Allah, like the voice that calls out the morning azan from the dargah. ‘It is like being close to Allah.’
The door swings open again, interrupting Wasim’s thoughts, and he scowls in response. Twelve students walk into the room, their heads bowed; they cast a quick glance at us before flipping up the backs of their kurtas, so as not to dirty them, and sit up against the wall and hastily start their prayers before class. Wasim glowers again, as if their presence has made it difficult for him to remember things. He lifts his upper lip and flares his nostrils, a grimace that the students have learned to recognize as ominous.
Reputed to be a martinet or, at his benign best, an academic version of Aunt Polly from Tom Sawyer, Wasim has a smile that never reaches his eyes. He is an unyielding master of the script and the bane of those with poor handwriting. His mandate: To evolve from block-lettering to graceful, flowing lines and turn illegible Urdu and Arabic doodles into calligraphy. ‘Round and then curve. Move your fingers carefully!’ he snaps at a student who approaches him with his corrections. ‘Did you practise at home?’
‘No, huzoor,’ the student meekly replies, hanging his head.
‘This art needs your brain and heart to work together. Work harder, you get that?’ he roars, tapping the desk with his knuckles, eyebrows furrowing in a serious rictus.
‘Ji, huzoor.’
‘Can’t you say anything else?’
‘Huzoor?’
‘Off you go,’ Wasim shakes his head, scowling, ‘and make sure you write that line ten times.’ And then, clicking his tongue, he mutters, ‘We rely on them to take our traditions forward. Deplorable!’ He suddenly thunders, ‘These students ask me why Urdu is written from right to left unlike English.’ A student or two peer above their boards, suddenly interested in the conversation.
‘Now, how do you answer questions like that? Such dimwits. Why are humans born? Why are they being rebuilt in labs? Why repeat God’s mistake?’ He throws back his head and cackles with laughter.
‘Arré, different cultures prescribe different things. The Japanese write in columns, from the top to the bottom. The Greek write from the left to the right. There is nothing wrong in anything, I say. Nothing is wrong with change either,’ he continues, softening his voice, but the smile on his face disappears. ‘Let us not fight over our differences. Let us not fight for hate. But fighting for discipline, to maintain heritage and culture, can be good sometimes. Just like jihad. If there is something wrong happening, it has to be addressed . . .’ he says, closing his fist, turning to address his students, who stare back at him, perhaps wondering if this conversation was still about khushkhati.
For a while, everything is silent except for the pleasurable, scratching sound of the reed pens on paper. ‘It is a difficult art,’ Wasim finally murmurs, as the students start practising Urdu alphabets—alif, bay, pay—letters neatly piled on top of one another, some dotted with diamonds, most in scripts dating back several centuries. ‘It requires training in history and mathematics at the same time. One needs to be aesthetically aware, too—a connoisseur of beauty. But, most importantly, be physically fit for this profession.’
Gauging my surprise at the mention of physical fitness, he explains, ‘Yes, a strong spine and back are required. This isn’t one of those graphic design classes where with a few clicks here and there, the pages are ready. We put in long hours in this work while maintaining body posture and balance. The hand is aligned with the leg and body in a way so as to cause minimum stress and maximum longevity. No motion of the body should be wasted. Only then can we create a verse in a more poignant form. But not many people can continue khushnavisi for long—it strains their lower backs and necks; spondylitis and chronic back pain are common issues for us,’ he says, hawk eyes on the students throughout.
‘I’m usually nailed to my seat till the late evenings,’ he says. ‘Every morning, I start promptly after the Fajr prayers, stopping only for lunch.’ He then works meticulously until dinner, scribing legions of books—about twenty pages a day in the same font—balanced and exact. ‘At least eight or nine years of daily practise is needed to master basic scripts like the Nastaʿlīq4. Add another decade to learn the fancier ones.’
Wasim grew up mostly in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, a few hours from Meerut. It was while playing with his friends one day in his early teens that he noticed a mullah making a poster. The mullah was inscribing tiny verses with his hand within the drawing of a figure; painting dark, thick letters within swerving lines to create a verse that finally looked like a Sufi singer with long robes; moving round and round in a trance, seeking pleasure in Allah. Within a few days, he took an apprenticeship under Ustad Khaliq Tonki, an eminent katib. ‘It was magical to see the ink flow from the reed pen and catch the paper, an art that brought me close to God. I never thought that was possible . . .’ he says slowly. Slow enough for me to imagine the pleasure he felt looking at the drying ink on the paper, like the blood drying on the shiny backs of bare-bodied men on the holy days of Muharram.
‘There was also a lot of demand back in my apprenticeship years to write texts from the Koran. It was an honourable deed, for the protection and proliferation of the word of God,’ he reminisces. ‘This would be a great profession, I thought to myself.’ The ustad lived a few villages away and Wasim covered ground every day on foot as well as by hitching rides on the bullock carts of local farmers to reach his teacher’s home. This prosaic rhythm of the initial years of labour formed his character—no-nonsense, clear and straightforward. The ustad’s daily plodding and lack of sympathy for mistakes, Wasim tells me, became the foundational essence of his own character. He treated himself like the author of books, giving his work the same nurturing care.
Soon, he moved to Delhi looking for work. The vagaries of life were many here, he intrinsically seemed to recognize, so while his writing reveals meticulousness, it is cloaked in light, easy patterns—inspired by everyday Muslim household items like prayer mats, arabesque designs on ink bottles, embroidery on skullcaps, tasbeeh, the qiblah compass and diacritic dots and accents. He sat at a window in his home, often looking up the pages and staring through the window and listening to the sounds outside, as writers mostly do.
‘Customarily, a teacher never charges a disciple for this pious art. The ustad only expected discipline and loyalty from his students; he took me under his wing after a long testing period, putting to trial my dedication by making me work
long hours. We read through many manuscripts with various styles of Khat that were predominant centuries ago. He taught me well and, even now, when an ancient script is brought to me, I can roughly conclude its age,’ he says.
It took many hours of sun and cold, and four years of intense practice, for Wasim to learn calligraphy and its myriad forms—Khat-i-Noori, Nastaʿlīq, Solas, Diwani and Naskh. ‘Thirty years later, I’m still trying to master the craft. The only way you are respected in this profession is if you are the best.’
The journey of Islamic calligraphy in the subcontinent is enthralling, making swift progress over time. Calligraphy is essentially pre-Islamic, but, in India, it saw massive development during the Islamic period. Intricately laced with religious or devotional art during the initial years, it was mostly used to draw the suras from the Koran and then later adapted to different texts. In the beginning of the sixth century, the reign of the Ghorids—a medieval Islamic dynasty of the eastern Iranian lands—in India saw books such as Tarikh-i-Fakhr-i-Mudabbir and Fawaid-ul-Fawad in floriated Kufic.5 The Mughal rule from the tenth to the eighteenth centuries gave way to the golden period of calligraphy in the subcontinent, developing styles such as Nastaʿlīq, Rayhan, Reqa and Sekasta. Due to a higher rate of literacy among the nobility, calligraphy became a pastime for everyone with means.
‘I wrote the text for schoolbooks for the state board in Kashmir,’ recalls Wasim, speaking of his early years of work. ‘I absorbed all the knowledge in my isolation—studying geography, which I never did in my own school. Then there were the Mughal Shehzadiyan, a book on the lives and literary contributions of Mughal princesses. There was lots of literature on shayari too. And that children’s paperback . . . what was it called . . .’ He strains his weary eyes trying to recollect silhouettes from the vast vista of his work.
Drawing back, he carefully takes out a large box of mysterious handwritten papers and books from the wooden chest he writes on—ranging from material on mushairas to school texts to religious books—assembled into hand-sewn books or wrapped in advertising fliers, newspapers and crumpled gift wrappers. ‘Ah, here it is, Subah Ki Pari.’ He points to a frail book with yellowing paper. ‘What a beautiful book! They don’t write them like this any more.’ The pages have text neatly printed in black—sometimes floral or plaited, making bold and beautiful handwritten art on paper—but there is not a single drop of ink or a stray line anywhere. ‘I have written countless books in Urdu and hundreds in Arabic, and they really paid me for learning from them,’ Wasim says, chuckling excitedly, hardly able to maintain his usual composure.
The Lost Generation Page 10
