A Place Within

by M G Vassanji

  As you return from Karim’s at night, Chitli Qabar Marg has lost little of its bustle from daytime and gained all the festive brilliance of neon and the aromas of foods grilled and frying. Even the children are about. But the woman with you is obviously from the suburbs—her clothes identify her—and even though her head has been covered for the occasion with a dupatta, the stares are discomforting and the crowds seem perhaps a little threatening—this she will not admit but you can sense—so a rickshaw is called for, though this in itself draws attention.

  The Jama Masjid is surrounded by mechanical ugliness: stores selling used motor parts—tires, brakes, engines and their parts, fenders and doors, all spilling into the greasy sidewalk, customers inspecting, shop owners looking on, attendants attending; the odd Urdu bookstand.

  Instead of taking Chitli Qabar Marg out of the city you could take Chawri Bazar from Jama Masjid; the two are roughly, crookedly, parallel, both ending at Asaf Ali Road, one at Delhi Gate, the other at Ajmeri Gate. First comes the paper market, carts and rickshaws carrying away cartons of papers and paper products. We reach an intersection where Nai Sarak—the textbook market—takes off, and where, from first-floor windows, courtesans once upon a time looked down upon the street. At this corner is an old mithaiwala shop, selling kachoris, samosas, etcetera, with lassi; a shack that has been busy since 1837, so says the elderly man who runs a paper business from an even smaller area partitioned off from the main shop, while his nephews run the old snack shop. The children are studying hotel management and catering, to carry on the family’s food business. The paper merchant shows us greeting cards, wedding invitation cards, the latter always in demand. The conversation lingers on the subject of digital scanning and design copyright, and it is agreed that you can’t stop the pirates but ultimately it is the reputation that counts. Anyone can make mattar kachori, says the irrepressible Mahesh, to illustrate the point, but there’s nothing like the ones you sell here. The man is gratified, business cards are exchanged.

  We push through the crowded sidewalks, Mahesh pointing out the various trades as the paper market gives way to hardware, plumbing, and plastic, calculating for me the millions of dollars of business transacted here every day—and pausing occasionally to answer his cell phone as he keeps track of his only living uncle’s declining health. Mamu—his mother’s brother—is only a few years older than Mahesh and more like his own brother; in the early days of Partition, still just a teenager, Mamu would fly kites with Mahesh in the neighbourhood and sold ice cream on Chandni Chowk to help his newly homeless family, refugees from what had become Pakistan. Banias—traders—by caste, they rebuilt themselves in Delhi, succeeding at a stationery business while living in the same house they were awarded by the city as compensation for what was lost, and Mamu is now at a private American-style hospital costing several hundred dollars a day, which would crush an ordinary Indian.

  Chawri Bazar crosses Sitaram Bazar, then arrives at Ajmeri Gate. Across from the busy Asaf Ali Road is the Anglo Arabic School, founded as a madrassa in 1692 by a dignitary of the Mughal court named Ghaziuddin. It later became Delhi College, where in 1842 Ghalib came to be interviewed for a job; he declined it when he arrived on his palanquin and did not receive the welcome he expected from the English principal as the preeminent poet of Delhi. The college is the alma mater of several eminent Indians and Pakistanis, including Pakistan’s first prime minister. The British introduced English, mathematics, and the sciences here, and today it is the local school for the inhabitants of the old city.

  The shabby arched front entrance opens into a quite handsome quadrangle with a green at the centre; the walkways which cross it are of red sandstone, and the cloisters on three sides are arched and painted an off-white. There is a look of recent repairs, apparently undertaken by the city. On the fourth side, directly in front, is a grand mosque next to the tomb of Ghaziuddin. The quadrangle leads through a gate on the left into a run-down area where once Delhi College was located, where Mahesh finished his upper schooling. At the sight of the gate my friend runs through it gleefully, nostalgic, excited; he trots about with his camera, shows me the old library, the Hindi classroom—where he, the future Hindi translator, would make a point to miss his classes, answering the roll call while standing outside, chatting—the prep rooms, the girls’ room, outside which the boys would perpetually hang around, and the wicket where they would pay their fees. Delhi College has since moved, and these rooms are used by the Anglo Arabic School.

  At the steps of the open mosque a shaikh sits reading the Quran; a few other men sit inside. No one knows anything about the history of the place; but, says the shaikh, people do come around asking.

  It’s Saturday.

  Asaf Ali Road, edging Old Delhi at its southern boundary, is moderately busy, its low office buildings effectively a containing wall, in place presumably of the original city wall. West of Delhi Gate on this road comes a quite remarkable sight: on the sidewalk outside a bank, a dozen or so men and a single woman are sitting on chairs at makeshift tables busily typing on old-style typewriters. They are law clerks, their clients waiting patiently around them for their documents to get typed. Further along the road comes the Turkman Gate. A few yards inside this gate appears the bead market, a row of stores selling loose and strung beads; further in, and the shop signs are no longer in Urdu script but in Devanagari. And suddenly there are no goats about. We are now in Sitaram Bazar, evidently Hindu in character. It’s not that Muslims do not use Devanagari in modern India; and in the past educated Hindus, of course, read and wrote Urdu and even Persian. But here in the present, the sudden change is meaningful, denotes two peoples. My friend Mahesh calls this a recent phenomenon, reflecting the rise of Hindu communalism. The shops sell a variety of items, including circuit boards and Holi paraphernalia—heaps of coloured powder to dissolve in water and pumps for spraying it—for it is the eve of the festival of Holi, when people go about throwing or spraying colour at each other. Oranges, grapes, and bananas are also on display, occasionally guava, whose season, early in March, is ending.

  There comes the Chaurasi Ganthi Mandir, the temple of the eighty-four bells, a cluster of which is visible from the street, hanging in the front hall. I have yet to find someone who can tell me what the bells signify, if there is a special story to this temple with such a lovely name. Otherwise it’s a simple building, blending in with the business-residences which are its neighbours, right in the thick of the shopping. I walk inside, into a small dark hall, to discover that the cluster consists of numerous small bells hanging around a large iron ring; there are also individual bells hanging from the beams, and large bells at the front and back entrances, which are vigorously rung by worshippers. I can’t help but raise my hand and follow suit. The shrine to the left, a brilliantly lit, colourful area in the otherwise dingy room, indicates by the icons present there that the temple is to the god Rama.

  Almost next door in Sitaram Bazar is the building that’s become famous as the childhood home of Pandit Nehru’s wife, Indira Gandhi’s mother, Kamala. This used to be an old-style haveli in a neighbourhood of Kashmiri Hindus, who are known to eat meat. It is here that young Nehru’s barat, the wedding procession bearing the groom on a horse, would have come to take the bride away. Indira was the only child of that marriage, in which the husband and father was often away during the struggle for independence, canvassing or in prison. There is an outer gate with a massive door leading into a courtyard: cowpats on the ground; a communal water pump; an arched doorway leading into an interior; all around us the back sides of apartments. Obviously the old property has been greatly rearranged. Through the doorway we enter a corridor opening into the offices of an advocate and of a realestate business that seem to belong to a single family. The corridor comes to an abrupt end at a wall, which could be of recent vintage. A man appears, understands our query, and shows us hooks hanging from the ceiling, from which apparently fans had once hung. He takes us to his office, offers us tea, but we decline
. Evidently he is used to curious visitors. But there’s nothing else to see. Kamala’s haveli is oral history, her ghost haunting this location.

  Outside, on the road, preparations are under way for the Holi celebrations tomorrow. At the crossroads, “holikas” have been constructed: piles of wood which will be burnt later, in the evening, to begin the celebrations. But this is also an occasion for spring cleaning, says Mahesh, with his knack for the little detail, pointing out how people have also heaped their junk—old furniture, baskets—on the firewood. Women and children come to stand worshipfully before the holikas.

  This being Saturday, we pass a road shrine to the god Shani—Saturn—who’s a minor deity but not to be ignored on that account, for he can be vengeful. The shrine is extremely modest, consisting of a low stool, about eighteen inches high, placed strategically at the edge of the road at a busy intersection. On the stool is a metal tray to collect offerings to the god: mustard oil, coins, iron nails. “Black” items, those containing iron, are not to be bought on Saturday, so as not to offend Shani; therefore many people will not buy cars, for example, on this day. Shani is a god to be feared and propitiated, for he is wilful and can bring bad luck, just like that, even though he is a very minor god in the hierarchy, nowhere close to Shiva or the Goddess. In particular, there is a special curse to be avoided, called the “Seven,” that can beset you for seven years, causing havoc in your life. If you find yourself a victim of persistent bad luck, chances are you’ve been struck by Shani’s Seven. There is no attendant in sight at the shrine now, for obviously who’s going to steal from Shani? But Mahesh tells me there’s probably a fellow somewhere who has put up all the Shani stalls in the area and periodically goes around—like a parking attendant (Mahesh’s image)—collecting money from them, and the oil and coins and nails. Shani also has temples to his name, which many people visit. Mahesh tells me a colleague’s wife, a university professor, had gone to pay her respects to Shani only yesterday, what with a grown daughter’s marriage prospects to worry about. A Shani Seven in such a situation can be deadly; it’s best to preempt it. Such belief in supernatural agencies can be quite casual among the educated. Consulting a horoscope, after all, is an essential part of the marriage process. A few years ago, many people had subscribed to the sensational stories of Ganesh statues, in various parts of India and abroad, imbibing real milk; some people even claimed to have seen the phenomenon.

  A grand temple to Shani is situated just off Chandni Chowk. Above the entrance hangs a massive statue with seven horses. This is the sun god, but what is he doing in such a strategic spot outside Saturn’s temple? Because, we are told when we inquire, the sun is the father and will keep naughty Saturn in check.

  Ghantewala’s sweet shop, a pre-Mutiny establishment, is close by on the Chowk. Equally old are the teeming parantha shops of the Paranthewali Gali, just further up, where you squeeze into benches at allocated tables and order from an assortment of paranthas available, stuffed with bhindi, karela, daal, carrot, or any of half a dozen more items. It’s as well not to look too hard at the cloth used to wipe the table, and not to worry about the same hand being used to fry the parantha. Gloves are not the thing here.

  Still on Chandni Chowk is the Sunehri Masjid—the Golden Mosque—from where Nadir Shah looked upon his troops’ massacre of Delhi’s citizens. The mosque, which has three domes, is not really golden. When I inquire in the neighbourhood, nobody really knows about it; someone even points me to the Sikh temple, which has golden domes. Having the temerity to inquire about the mosque at the temple, where a Sikh guru was martyred by a Mughal emperor, I am duly rewarded with a scowl.

  The only queen to occupy the Delhi throne was Raziya Sultana, who lived from 1205 to 1240.

  Her tomb lies in the midst of a residential area, in a courtyard surrounded by the back sides of grimy old buildings. Local residents know about it, rickshaw drivers find it with difficulty. It lies tucked away within a maze of gulleys close to Sitaram Bazar. Passing dimly lit workshops from where busy young men and boys look out at us from their seats on the ground, hand-printing plastic bags, beading leather, and hand-decorating clock faces, we enter what is essentially a residential block, go through dingy corridors, climb some steps, and there below us is the burial compound of the queen, surrounded by a low brick wall. There are two ancient graves to look at, of Raziya and her sister, and, in a corner, two children’s graves. There is a mihrab—a niche, which you face—for prayers, and a tap for ablutions. A man in modest traditional attire, presumably a caretaker, is readying himself for prayer. There’s no sign to identify the site. But for seven hundred years the young queen has lain here, while all around her grave, houses have been built, demolished, rebuilt.

  But there is a mystery here. This is still Shah Jahan’s Delhi, so why is the Turkish queen from centuries before the Mughal’s period buried here?

  Raziya’s story is a tangle of vaguely remembered historical intrigues; it is also one of a heroic and able female ruler in a male-dominated medieval world full of court machinations and treachery. She was named successor to the throne of Delhi by her intensely religious father, Iltutmish, the second sultan of Delhi, against the wishes of the mullahs and some of the Turkish nobility. After Iltutmish’s death, the nobility, having first rejected Raziya’s claim in favour of her weak brother, eventually installed her as queen. In order to take direct control of the affairs of state, she emerged from purdah and abandoned her female attire, appearing in public dressed in a cloak and hat. Delhiites would be amazed by the sight of her openly riding on the back of an elephant. Plots were soon hatching against her. She had elevated an Abyssinian slave called Yaqut to a high status, and it has been suggested that there was a love affair between the two, which historians have with surprising alacrity dismissed as baseless. Yaqut was ultimately murdered, and Raziya, after further misadventures, was finally killed in battle. Bollywood has made a film about her. And the next queen to rule in Delhi, so to speak, was Indira Gandhi, also killed, whose memorial lies not far away in the necropolis along the Jumna.

  Punjabi Delhi

  I know even after I am gone I will still wander the streets of Delhi…. The noisy racket of Delhi’s people I will hear as one who listens to music. Jamun, shahtut, phirni, chat-pakodi, bedmi kachori, rabri khurchan. Ahh! Ghantewala’s pista-lauj.

  KRISHNA SOBTI, The Heart Has its Reasons

  MANY OF THE DELHIITES I have met are Punjabi, having come as children with their refugee parents from the part of Punjab that is now in Pakistan, or having been born in Delhi of such refugees. Punjabis form a majority in Delhi, and there seems a sense among them of entitlement to the city. Where once Persian or Urdu might have been heard on the streets, now it is Punjabi and Hindi, which is essentially the same as Urdu (the national language of Pakistan) but after Independence has become more Sanskritized. Attempts were made to purge Hindi of its English and Persian loan words, to render it more “national,” but of course that proved impossible, as it is impossible now to avoid Americanisms. My friends during their lighter moments together often break into Punjabi, which would be partially understandable to most north Indians, and I find it rather close to Kutchi, so it is not quite foreign. Mahesh recalls a train ride with his mother at the time of Partition, and her, pointing at smoke in the distance, saying, Look, Lahore is burning. Lahore, the pride of Punjab, went to Pakistan. Right up to the time of her death, she would refer to her birthplace as “Our Pakistan”—not in the political sense that it belonged to India, but to indicate where she came from. I’ve often seen Mahesh, a liberal-minded professor, get into confrontations with those among his colleagues whom he sees as Hindu chauvinists or nationalists. His interest is African literature, and he has translated several African authors into Hindi. I was introduced to him as an African Asian author outside a book fair when my first book was published in India. Over the years, I have seen him look progressively more stressed and harried, for Delhi life, for a man with several interests, who is also
a father and a son in an extended family, demands much more than he thinks he can give. In India traditional obligations—of a parent, a wife, a son—which we from East Africa have learned to turn coldly away from, are not neglected even in the most dysfunctional families. But remove Mahesh from his sansara, the prison of worldly responsibilities, say to the bar of the International Centre or to the venerable United Coffee House in Connaught Place, and he is at his expansive best, a different man.

  The coffee house is a den of the affluent. It being Saturday, both the main and the mezzanine floors are full, crowded with middle-class families and young couples, and, at the round table at which we sit, a rambunctious middle-aged group. The place is about seventy years old, the seats are plush, unlike the metal-and-plastic of the “cool” new establishments so favoured by the young. The food is north Indian—daals, sabzis, a variety of naans and chappatis.

  Mahesh grew up in the Delhi of independent India, Nehru’s child, if you will, and his memory and his narrative art are phenomenal. Eyes shining, wide smile on his bearded face, his voice loud and expressive, he lets forth. Even the waiters pause to listen. He tells us of the time when the well-to-do families of the city came to the United Coffee House so that a child could view a prospective spouse, and when the great merchants of the city would gather for their coffee in the morning and make their deals. He details the progress of a cricket match in Delhi way back in the sixties, when the West Indies were here to play India. Ah, the days of lost youth; this Delhi is as dear to him as Mir Nahal’s was to him. He speaks of a secret meeting in the night with a minister when he was a leader of the powerful teachers’ union. The next day, when the union leaders called off the strike, shoes were thrown at them and they escaped (perhaps) with their lives. He describes his travails as a tour coordinator when he led a group of uncouth fellow English teachers to a conference in East Germany. He describes the dramatic appearance of Indira Gandhi at an embassy function. And he tells us how one day he met Rajiv Gandhi at a bookstore next door.