by Jerry Pinto
The city has a vibrant literary and arts scene, with poets, writers, playwrights and theatre groups having made the city their home. They work in many languages—including Kannada, English, Tamil and Telugu.
However, the Kannada film industry based here is fiercely protective of its terrain. Its stance connects with the linguistic pride of a vast population of the city and can be explained by the fact that for centuries the Kannada-speaking pete areas were subservient to the cantonment city. Now, with changes in the power equation, the language seeks to reclaim the city. The trick is—as in the case of many Indian cities—to make this claim without discrediting the equally genuine lineage of cultural and linguistic diversity that is also a part of Bangalore’s fascinating history.
Tea time at Koshys
Anita Nair
There is something about this café that makes me think of it as the gangly, loose-limbed cousin of a restaurant. Someone who is all style rather than chic; someone who never did the right things but made just as good without the stars, grades or official recognitions. Someone you can count on any time of the day to be there … and will not turn his nose down at you if you prefer to shred your lettuce rather than eat it.
I come here often. Not as often as I would like. But each time the soul yearns for a whiff of time as it once was; of a city that perhaps exists now only in the memories of its long-time residents, untouched by all that has come to pass, I seek it out.
For within Koshys, time stands still. Push open its door and saunter in. The darkness of its interiors will curl its tongue out and lick at your feet. No matter what secret fears bubble within you, it does not matter. Your date may not turn up. Your meeting may be cancelled. Your life could fall part. However, you will not encounter speculation or pity in a pair of eyes.
Anita Nair is the best-selling author of The Better Man, Ladies Coupé and Mistress. Her books have been translated into over 26 languages around the world.
For Koshys hums. The buzz of a hive where the everyday business of eating and drinking, talking and laughing, arguing and even loaded silences all mesh and fall apart to form a single drone that encapsulates even the lonely and the alone.
Let your eyes sweep the room. They are all here. A crowd of lawyers with the shut-in demeanour of Emperor Penguins on an ice floe; men with a stolen hour sipping at stealthy beers; a lone blue-eyed shaggy-haired tourist sprawled on a chair nursing an omelette and reading a book; another group of student tourists comparing notes in loud raucous caws; a bunch of ferocious-faced women in khadi kurtas and terracotta earrings holding forth; a young couple brushing shoulders, entwining fingers; writers, actors, film-makers, artists, photographers and somewhere amidst this cornucopia of the intellectual and the artistically inclined, an old man in a tweed coat quietly stirring sugar into his cup of south Indian coffee …
If you are fortunate, the brown rexine sofa of the corner table by the window will beckon invitingly. In the early evening, Koshys pauses briefly. This is my favourite hour. I ask myself: what tea-time treat shall it be this evening? Egg sandwich, mutton cutlet, patties, apple pie or fruit salad with ice cream?
You may be on first-name basis with the staff at the happening places but unless they know you here, understand and heed this: in the city of Bangalore, you are still a mushroom-come-lately … That then is the power of Koshys. Cousin to a restaurant and the most happening place in Bangalore since around 1940.
Bhopal
Lake city
Many centuries ago, the site of today’s Bhopal was a densely forested kingdom. Its story dates back to the eleventh century, when the Parmar King Bhoja, often referred to in myths and legends as Raja Bhoja, ruled it. The king is said to have ruled the kingdom for forty years, giving it a rare stability for those times. He got dug many of the lakes that still dot the city. According to some historians, the name Bhopal is a combination of ‘Bhoj’ (the name of the king) and ‘Pal’ (a dam or an artificial lake).
During Raja Bhoja’s reign, many forest-based communities lived around the kingdom, the most powerful of whom were the Gonds. The Gonds had their own political system which was distinct from the other kingdoms that dominated the nearby Gangetic plains. The Gonds are often referred to as an indigenous or a tribal community. They did not transform all their forests into fields—as almost every other kingdom did—but still managed to produce an advanced economy that traded in forest-based goods and crafts. There were many instances of Gond kingdoms being attacked by non-tribal kingdoms, for control of their forests. On some occasions, an alliance would be forged through marriage, to wrest control of a Gond region. A Rajput or Kshatriya king would take a Gond princess for his wife and then lay claim to her forest kingdom.
As it happens, the kingdom of Bhopal found itself being ruled by a Gond queen in the seventeenth century. Her name was Kamalawati and she represented the rich cultural traditions of the Gonds. These allowed for an equal relationship between women and men and a less rigid practice of the caste system.
Kamalawati ruled for a long time and was a popular queen. Her reign prepared her subjects for a much longer reign of women rulers in the coming centuries. As it turned out, four generations of women—the famous Begums of Bhopal—ruled the city-state of Bhopal for more than a hundred years!
Kamalawati was the pioneer who blazed the trail for many other powerful women. There is a charming legend that relates how the queen would recline in a lotus barge and drift across the lakes on moonlit nights. The lakes of Bhopal are still quite beautiful and the people of Bhopal are proud of them. This pride is immortalized in the Hindi proverb: Taal toh taal Bhopal taal, baaki taal taliya (The lakes of Bhopal are the only lakes worth the name; the rest are ponds).
An Afghan chief, Dost Mohammed, captured the kingdom from Kamalawati at the end of the seventeenth century. Interestingly, it was a Frenchman, Jean-Philippe de Bourbon de Navarre, who helped him in his takeover of the kingdom. This Frenchman subsequently played an important role in the history of the city. He was allegedly a close relative of the French King Henri IV and had fled from France following his defeat in a duel. He arrived in India after a long and arduous journey through west Asia and finally reached Delhi, where he joined Emperor Akbar’s army. During Aurangzeb’s reign, he joined Dost Mohammed as his artillery adviser. When Dost set forth to capture the kingdom of Bhopal, Jean-Philippe joined him and eventually settled there with his family. The Frenchman left an unusual architectural legacy for the city in the form of Shaukat Mahal. This building has an interesting mix of Indo-Islamic and European styles of architecture. Historians refer to it as ‘a charming mixture of post renaissance and gothic styles’.
Dost Mohammed Khan saw himself as connected to the Mughal empire. His successors, however, adopted the title of Nawab and declared Bhopal an independent state—independent from both, the Mughals and the British. One of Dost’s successors—his general Nawab Wazir Mohammed Khan—created a strong state and developed the city as its power-centre.
During the First Anglo-Maratha War in 1778, when the British General Thomas Goddard campaigned across India, Bhopal was one of the few states that remained friendly to the British. In the early nineteenth century, during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, the nawab requested British protection. Eventually in 1817, when the Third Anglo-Maratha War broke out, a formal treaty of dependence was signed between the British and the Nawab of Bhopal. Since then Bhopal remained an ally of the British all through its Raj in India.
Through the centuries of British rule, many kingdoms in India remained outside the influence of their direct control. The kingdoms managed their independence either through wars or by developing friendly alliances. In many cases, especially when there was no direct economic or political benefit to them (for example, no mines or large tracts of land for cultivation or access to port facilities), the British authorities chose not to get too involved with such kingdoms. Consequently, these kingdoms developed their own distinctive form of political and cultural rule. In the case of Bh
opal, this was expressed as a cosmopolitan outlook that encouraged different communities to live together peacefully. It also saw the development of modern urban facilities in the city and the development of a modern sensibility among its citizens. Much of the credit for this goes to the Begums of Bhopal.
The Begums of Bhopal were four Muslim women rulers who ruled between 1819 and 1926. They were Qudisa, Sikandar, Shahjahan and Sultan Jahan and ruled almost in consecutive order. They often faced strong opposition from the male heir aspirants in their dynasty as well as from the East India Company. Whenever officers of the East India Company made a noise, protesting about Bhopal being ruled by a woman, they would be informed by the ruling begum that the whole of the British Empire was ruled by a woman too (Queen Victoria) so they should watch what they were saying.
However, before the begums there was yet another woman who ruled Bhopal. She was not officially referred to as a begum, but did indeed pave the way for the political role that they subsequently played. She was a Hindu Rajput woman, called Mamola Bai (1744–95) who married Dost’s son, Yaar Mohammad Khan. She ruled the city-state from behind a purdah, allegedly in place of her ineffective sons, for a good fifty years!
The first begum, Qudisa (1819–37) was served well by the Frenchman Jean-Phillippe. She made him prime minister. She was a strong woman, courageous and wise. She was a pioneer in public works and hired a British engineer, David Cook, to construct a water pipeline in the city. She is said to have negotiated a railway line and a postal system, and modernized the city’s waterworks. She was responsible for the construction of the Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque), an imposing building architecturally similar to Delhi’s Jama Masjid.
Legends tell of how she walked around Bhopal in disguise, in order to check on the state of her kingdom. She was also known for her open-house meetings with her subjects. Even though she was the ruler of the state, she met her own daily household expenses through a small, embroidery-based cottage industry. She discarded the use of the purdah in 1832, knew much of the Quran by heart, and was a seasoned politician.
A particularly dramatic incident was when she slapped a British political agent, Wilkinson, in full public view in her court. He had touched her diamond earring and was admonished sharply. ‘Wilkinson sahib,’ she is reputed to have said, ‘don’t you know that it is an insult to touch a Muslim woman.’
Sikandar, her only daughter, succeeded Qudisa in 1844. She survived an assassination attempt by her own husband, Jahangir—an attempt that was engineered by his family. (Jahangir, by the way, drank himself to death.) Sikandar turned Bhopal into a modern city. She was charismatic and aggressive. She avoided ostentatious displays of power and wealth, though she loved playing polo and was a crack shot, and an accomplished archer and lancer as well.
She personally inspected the courts, army and administrative offices. She pushed for agrarian reforms, was a devout Muslim, and rejected the system of the purdah. She too would walk in the city in disguise. Reportedly, she was once stopped by her own sentry on palace duty and she rewarded him for doing so!
Sikandar’s daughter was Shahjahan. She was a marked contrast to her powerful mother in terms of personality. She was a quiet person but did a decent job of administering the state, building on what her mother had left behind.
It was the last begum, Sultan Kaikhusrau Jahan, who abdicated in favour of her son, eventually allowing the first male ruler of Bhopal to emerge after five generations of women’s rule. However, she accomplished quite a lot before handing over power.
She succeeded her mother at the turn of the twentieth century and was a great modernizer as well. She set up educational institutions for women and established a modern municipal system in Bhopal. Although she had her own palace Sardar Manzil (now the headquarters of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation), she preferred the quietness of the outskirts of the city. So she built a walled mini-city named Ahmedabad after her late husband. This city was situated at Tekri Maulvee Zai-ud-Din, located at a distance of a mile from the fort. She also built a palace called Qaser-e-Sultani (now used by Saifia College), an area that became a posh residency with much of the royalty and the city’s élite moving there. She installed the first electric water pump in the city and developed a garden called Zie-up-Abser. She also constructed a new palace, known as Noor-us-Sabah (or ‘Light of Dawn’), which has been converted into a heritage hotel. She was the first president of the All-India Conference on Education and the first chancellor of the Muslim University of Aligarh. She was a tireless worker for women’s emancipation and education and publicly abandoned purdah, two years before her death.
Her son, Nawab Hamidullah Khan, ascended the throne in 1926. He became deeply involved in the political developments of his time. Those were the years of the freedom struggle, which pushed many independent states like Bhopal into a dilemma. Joining the struggle against the British also meant giving up their own independence and distinctive histories. The nawab was firm in his belief that Bhopal must remain outside the purview of the fiery changes taking place on the subcontinent.
When India became free on 15 August 1947, a number of princely states tried their best to retain their independence. They did not want to join the newly formed state of India. The state of Bhopal was no exception. However, a group of young nationalists chose to influence Bhopal’s citizens by spreading the heady zeal of independence amongst the people. They launched Nai Raah, a weekly journal in Hindustani.
It soon became very popular and influenced public opinion in favour of merging with the Indian state. Subsequently, there were many violent protests until Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel intervened on behalf of the union government. Bhopal State became part of independent India on 30 April 1949.
Today Bhopal is the capital of the state of Madhya Pradesh and remains a fascinating combination of a traditional city, rich in history, and a modern one, with a strong emphasis on urban planning and industrialization. Bhopal is informally divided into two parts—the Old City and New Bhopal—even though these are not official names. The Old City (often referred to in Bhopal as just the ‘City’) is the one built and developed by the Begums of Bhopal. You can see their legacy alive in all kinds of ways: in Bhopal’s famous zardosi work, a kind of embroidery done on bridal outfits, sherwanis and purses; in the famous handicraft of the batua, a small string purse usually used with Indian traditional clothes; even in the continuing popularity of shairi and poetry recitals and in the nafaasat (or sophistication) of its old residents; or in the many recipes for the preparation of betel leaf or paan that are still consumed here. An integral part of the old Bhopal culture are the eunuchs, who are intrinsic to the city’s public spaces and can still be seen roaming the streets and joining every major celebration.
Among its many exquisite monuments, Bhopal’s Taj-ul-Masjid is said to be the largest mosque in the country. The building of this towering edifice took place sporadically all through the reign of the begums but was completed only in 1971.
New Bhopal was developed after Bhopal became the capital of Madhya Pradesh. Its most famous symbol is the Bharat Bhavan—an important cultural centre exquisitely designed by Goan architect Charles Correa.
However, the most momentous and tragic event in the city’s modern history is the infamous industrial disaster, often referred to as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. On 3 December 1984, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal leaked 40 tons of toxic methyl isocyanate gas, which killed more than 3000people outright and injured anywhere from 1,50,000 to 6,00,000 others.
In many ways, the disaster revealed the callousness with which the city’s authorities, the Indian state government, and the multinational corporation had treated the residents of Bhopal. It is a disaster which many of its citizens—especially those affected and their descendants—continue to think of as a symbol of all that went wrong for their city in free, independent India.
The lyric, the epic, the tragic
Ashok Vajpeyi
Bhopal was scoffingly called a city of three Bs: the babus
, burqas and buffaloes. This despite the fact it was always a city with two lakes, many hills and a lot of greenery.
The royalty that had ruled it for long hardly nurtured, like other royalties, traditions of dance, music, painting etc. Instead, they had deep interest in shikar (hunting), shairi (Urdu poetry) and cuisine. Nevertheless, there were legends, one of which related how the Kathak family of Bindadin Maharaj, after the destruction of the Awadh durbar of Wajid Ali Shah in Lucknow, escaped and found haven in Bhopal. Another related to Allama Iqbal, the great poet-thinker of Urdu, who spent some months as a guest of the Bhopal royalty.
A civil servant by profession, Ashok Vajpeyi has been conferred with the Sahitya Akademi Award (1994). He was the first Vice Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University.
In the 1970s, when I arrived in Bhopal to live there for nearly two decades, it was the newly created capital of the sprawling state of Madhya Pradesh. It was a city where Muslims and Hindus lived in a mutually supportive and enriching atmosphere. The story of Bhopal’s development as a modern city is, sadly, also a tale of the marginalization and undermining of this ethos. Many Muslim boys and girls were illiterate but incredibly skilled. You could give four wheels and a rod to an unlettered boy and he would be able to fabricate an automobile out of them! For many years, the exquisite mutton and chicken preparations of Madina, a small hotel in one of the bylanes near the chowk, were ordered and consumed in huge quantities by the new city-dwellers. Madina used to open only for three hours in the evening. If you or your driver were late, there was no chance of your savouring the eatery’s famous mutton korma, Nargisi kofta or kebabs that evening.
