My Experiments with Delhi

My Experiments with Delhi

Of Sufis and Poets

One fine evening when I got an early off from the office I decided to execute on my plan to explore Delhi in Wordsworth’s way (“I wandered lonely as a cloud!”). Unfortunately laws of physics do not allow me float like a cloud and to fulfill my goal I needed some vehicle. Delhi buses were a nightmare for me .For first time when I came to Delhi after getting my campus placement and boarded a Blueline bus to Noida, my first beloved Samasung mobile (bought under Reliance under 501 scheme) was stolen. Disheartened at it I pledged never to take a bus but consider Autos (6 year back Autos were not that costly).

“When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men”. The famous lines by Maulana Rumi , a Persian sufi poet has always ignited a flame in me to know more about Sufis and Sufism. So I choose to go the holy shrine of Sufi king Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya to be my first wandering destination. Obeying my pledge , after a stringy bargain I cracked a good deal with an auto guy, 100 bucks for a return journey to the destination which I had chosen and started my first hour of wandering.

While galloping on wide roads surrounded by greenery I could sense the happiness in environment which the recent monsoon had brought. But the cloud 9 dream shattered before I could even think of dreaming, on reaching the destination the auto guy turned hostile and started demanding 100 bucks for only one side journey only and started accusing me of usurping him. A gathering accumulated and then few elderly people of the area came forward and hearing the case and checking his meter gauge decided the case in my favor and the auto guy had to run away after being tagged as a rouge.

A Thumps-up would refresh me but while I was in middle of refreshing my self a rare music caught my attraction. It was a Qauwaali coming from inside the shrine complex. I could not resist my self and moved straight to the ‘Dargah’ area. Reaching inside I saw a guy playing qauwaali on a Daf (tambourine) and the lyrics were in Persian .I sat around for some time over there and his voice, the music and lyrics had and intoxicating effect on me. Tears started flowing out of my eyes and the heart would consider shunning all the worldly pleasure and I felt I was in tranquility for some time. After performing the rituals at the shrine I sat over for a while again and became the part of more Qauwali session. Most of the qauwali lyrics had a common name in their ending verses, the name was ‘Khusroo’.

Although I had read about Amir Khusroo in ‘Discovery of India’ but was happier to know that his shrine was in the same complex. Knowing more about Khusroo became my immediate priority. Fortunate enough I got a research book on his work at a nearby store. I started reading fast and found most of the lyrics I had heard during the quawali session were written by him. The power of expression and the art of writing is remarkable, I never had a chance earlier to read a fusion poetry. Such was his power that he could create a composition having one line in Persian and the next in Hindi (remarkably rare and marvelous). A famous Bollywood song (Zihale Miskin makun Barajish) is inspired from his fusion work itself.

Returning home I felt that I had almost left my heart at that place only and for the first time felt the duality in me. The night I spent with Khusroo , his poems still have the same effect on me.

In search of Food or In search of Ghalib?

If you are a fan of Jagjit Singh’s Ghazals and have heard his Ghalib album you must have heard the famous line by Gulzar .

Ballimaran ke mohalle ki wo pechida dalilon ki si galiyan
Samne taal ke nukkad par bateron ke kaseede
Gudgudati hui pan ki peekon mein wo daad wo wah wah….

Isee Benoor andheri see gali kaasim se Ek tarteep charagon ki shuroo hoti hain
ek Kurane sukhan kaa safaa khultaa hai asadullah khan Ghalib ka pata milta hai…

These lines clearly give direction to the house of the famous poet Mirza Assadullah Khan Ghalib. I have a passion for Ghalib’s poems and I always wanted to reach to this place but a few unsuccessful attempts in search of churiwalaan and Gali Banu Qasim Jaan made me believe that these directions must be 2 centuries old and may not be left anymore now and stopped my attempts (google maps were not there at that time J).

Back in my hometown Kanpur, Javed Bhai, a close fried to my father would not exhaust telling the stories of his days at Delhi and his foodie affairs. According to him the best Nihari (a non-veg dish) you can ever have India is at Delhi and Delhi’s best is at Bada Hindu Rao. He would happily narrate the tales of how he nearly missed his flight to Pakistan just to fetch the same Nihari which he wanted to take carry it cross border for his friends and relatives. The mouth of his audience would always be watering while he is busy narrating his stories.

While I was on a return journey from Kanpur to Delhi I met a guy , my co-passenger in the train who was a resident of Old Delhi, exchanged his experience on food at old Delhi and asked me that I should first try the Niari at Ballimaran before trying the one at Bada Hindu Rao. He gave me the directions to the place and on getting down from the train I started on my search operation.

After an hour of roaming here n there I could not find any stall which the guy had mentioned when a person well acquainted with the lanes of the area guided me to the correct lane. But by the time I reached to the stall the food was finished and I had to take a U turn. While I was returning I saw I was standing just in front of an old house which was tag by ASI (Archeological Survey of India). To my surprise it was Mirza Ghalib’s house. My long waited dream was fulfilled while I had totally dropped the idea I would be able to reach to this place or even that place still exists on earth now. The paradox was while I searched for Ghalid I did not find him, when I went in search of food I did not find that but instead found Ghalib.

Went inside the complex , ASI has maintained it brilliantly , one would easily feel that the poet is around and soon he’ll take his Huqqah (waterpipe) and soon his friends would surround him and would scream with ‘Wah Wah’ on his every couplet.

While I move in the inner part of the complex I saw his famous poems hanging in frames on the wall . One of the famous is as below.

na tha kuch to khuda tha, kuch na hota to khuda hota
duboyaa mujh ko hone ne, na hota main to kya hota

hua jab gham se yuun behis to gham kya sar ke katne ka
na hota gar judaa tan se to zaannon par dharaa hota

hui muddat ke 'ghalib' mar gayaa par yaad aataa hai
wo har ek baat pe kahna ke yuun hota to kya hota

The Holy Cat

My younger sister has a great passion for cats and she had one as a pet with pink nose and black patches on her white coat. She lost her pet when she came to stay with me at Delhi for few weeks. The cat went missing and the rumors were that actually stolen by a guy named Gullu (at Kanpur) because he had a chicken farm and the cat used to dine on them every second day.

She was sad, missing her dear pet but one fine morning in Hindustan times City edition featured Dilli photographs by Dilliwala (Mayank Austin Sufi). Among those photographs there was one which featured a fakir with a cat. The cat appeared to be the clone of her missing cat and she jumped up in surprise claiming that her cat was indeed stolen by Gullu and has some how reached to this fakir. To add to her excitement my father approved her doctrine by saying he recalls to have seen that fakir sometime back near Kanpur railway station. What next, I was assigned the task to search the fakir and get the cat from him.

Imagine 1483 Sq Km of total Delhi area and the cat which would not even constitute a 0.01% of this area was to be traced. A Herculean task! but thanks to Mayank Austin sufi to mention the location as Jungpura in the photograph caption. My hunt began taking the photo in hand and in search of the Fakir. A search with a photograph showing old arches in background should have been easy but moving to and fro from Bhogal to Nizamuddin it took around three hours and people guided me to one or the other historical buildings but all the attempts were fruitless.

Finally I decided to park my car and go to the holy shrine of Hazrat Nizamuudin which was nearby and take a rest. At the parking lot I showed the photograph to another fakir and he immediately recognized the fakir in the photo and guided me to place named ‘Chilla’.

It’s an escapist’s paradise. The chilla, or retreat, of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya is Delhi’s most serene monument. Here, the city’s iconic 14th century sufi saint lived, meditated, and died. This was his khanqah – a monastery – where he also used to perform chilla-kashi, the spiritual practise in which a secluded sufi goes without water, food or sleep for 40 days.

The graveyard in the backyard is as peaceful. Some tombs have potted plants. An electric lamp hangs from a peepal. In the evening, Sikh devotional songs waft over from the gurudwara. The effect is calming.

A tea vendor near the gurdwara helped me trace the coordinates of the fakir and told me that he lives here with seven cats. I was happy that finally I achieved what I had been looking for and thought that this guy must be passionate for cats and has therefore stolen 7 cats around different parts of the country. But meeting that guy totally changed my views about him; he was a real fakir who had shunned all his worldly pleasures and lives at the secluded place. The only question I asked him was whether he has been to Kanpur or not and after his negation. I was convinced that my sister’s theory was wrong.

He showed me his cats, It was true that one of the cat was the clone cat which my sister had but then the chronology of the events in which her cat went missing and the time when fakir got that cat were out of order. I told him my version of missing cat, he even offered his but I declined. He then blessed me with his unusual stick.

The guy then took me around the Chilla and told me facts about it .Built on a stone platform, the khanqah has a vaulted veranda leading to a domed chamber, where Hazrat Nizamuddin prayed. In a recent renovation, the grassy yard was laid with marble. (In winter, the cold stone numbs the feet.) Battered walls of rubble masonry were partially painted white. New lamps were installed. The chamber’s grilled door was done in green; it remains locked. Sitting on the veranda’s blue velvety durree, the detached world of the khanqah grows intimate and hypnotic. The air appeared saturated with solitariness.

Then he showed me his chamber which has an alcove in which believers light the candles to wish away personal distresses. Pointing to a cell in the adjacent Humanyun Tomb complex, the fakeer told that it was Hazrat Nizamuddin’s original hujra, or chamber where he would withdrew from the world. According to him, the khanqah was raised by a court noble called Ziauddeen Wakeel. When Wakeel offered to build a new chamber, Hazrat Nizamuddin warned that the person commissioning it would not live for long. Wakeel went on with the project saying that everyone has to die someday. The khanqah took 30 days to finish. On the first evening of its completion, a mehfil was organized. As the samaa built up, and songs and dancing started, Wakeel’s ecstatic soul left his body. His grave lies in the courtyard.

The sun was about to set and a layer of fog ready to cover the skies. Before Wakeel’s soul would start mourning I decided to leave the place. The day concluded in yet another paradox, the missing cat was found but not found!