Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Heera Mandi of Lahore
Paintings by Iqbal Husain of the famous bazaar
Diamonds that were not forever
Nirupama Dutt
Heera mandi was to Lahore what Chowk was to lukcknow, Sonagachi to Calcutta and Bhaindi Bazar to Bombay. These forbidden yet most sought-after bazaars where women sold their many talents were known as ``kothas’’. In these abodes lived women, many of them very talented artists, who were nevertheless social outcasts living on the fringes of the society. Interestingly, this place was first known as Tibbi Bazar. And this name is recorded in a Punjabi ``tappa’’.
Tibbi waliye la de paan ni Teri Tibbi de vich dukan ni’’ Next it came to be known as Shahi Mohalla and only later did it get the name which lasts till date--heera mandi.
Not all the women on the street traded in flesh. There were three distinct categories: the singers, the dancers and then the most unfortunate ones who sold their bodies for a living.
Selling their produce in Lahore happened to stray into Heera Mandi on their way back. Looking at the beautifully turned out belles, one said to the other: ``Je rab dhian deve tann aithe deve. Kinj ranian ban baithian ne’’ (if God is to bless one with daughters it should be here. Seen how they sit like queens).
The tale is touching for it reflected the paradox of the society. No one would wish their daughters to reach Heera mandi, yet the lives of daughters of respectable homes were not so evidable either. It was a restricted dumb existence. In some ways the women on the street were more liberated-- they could dress well, dance, sing and live. The patriarchal society divided women thus.
There are still a few old-timers of West Punjab who remember heera mandi in its days of splendour and recall tales which they had heard. Bhag Singh, a Punjab writer and man of culture, goes nostalgic recalling that famous bazaar. He says: ``belonged to Peshawar. But when in Lahore for hockey matches with my college students, a few of us would sneak into Heera mandi. It could not be told then for I may have been thrown out of the house in disgrace. I remember having seen the dance of Jaana Mashooq’’.
M.L. Koser, founder of the Pracheen Kala Kendra, also recounts a secret visit or two to the marketplace of diamonds. Men would put cotton buds soaked in itar behind their ears, wear a bracelet of fresh jasmine flowers and go to the kotha allowed to them by their status. I was young and attracted to the arts, being a dancer in the making myself, I never had the courage to enter a kotha. But the cinema halls in these areas used to present the dances of nautch girls during night shows’’, recalls Koser.
An advertisement for the special film shows which would include live song and dance performances, by cinema houses like ninerva, Grown and Rose would read thus: ``Adhai aane mein teen maze’’. The performers would be from the lower rungs because the high class ``tawaifs’’ never played to the gallery. Their mujra was only for the royalty, nobility and rich business class.
``The well-known tawaifs were women of learning, culture and dignity. Many of them were trained in music by the best ustads of the time. In turn these women made great contribution to music and dance. Sardar Bai of Lahore was a famous singer who had learnt music from Ustad fateh Ali Khan. Pointing out their dignity as women, Bhag Singh says:``They were queens of etiquette or `saleeka’ as we call it. If a customer passed out after having one too many while listening to ghazals, they would put him in a giest room and the lady of the house would keep his purse with her, lest the servants took away some money and it would be returned to him the next day.’’
Tawaif was a word in Persian synonymous with ``ganika’’ in Sanskrit. The oriental system was one of codification and the world’s oldest profession was no exception even here there was an order of merit and excellence. A ``ganika’’ was a woman who had achieved excellence in arts, intellect and etiquette. The fames Amrapali, the ``nagar-badhu’’ of Vaishali, was a ganika at her best.
A ganika came from the Hindu tradition and a tawaif from the Muslim tradition with patronage coming from Mughal courts. It was Aurangzeb who tried to bury forever the arts of music and dance. In Punjab the religious reformist movements lent a harsh blow to the dignity and profession of singers and dancers. The Arya Samaj and the Singh Sabha ``lehar’’ condemned them. And so even Hindu and Sikh women who joined this profession took up muslim names. The decline of princedom and withdrawal of royal patronage was responsible for royal patronage was responsible for many of these artists being forced to sell their bodies.
Heera Mandi of Lahore was the cultural centre of Punjab, the very hub of performing arts in their glory, but other cities and towns top had tawaifs. Patiala . Amritsar, Malerkotla, Ludhiana, Jagraon, Ambala and even the small town of Balachaur had some of the legendary tawaifs.
With partition, most of these women migrated. Flesh trade continues in Punjab but kothas are no longer there. A low-level of entertainment continues by disco dancers of orchestra groups but these artists have no roots in the classical traditions of dance and music.
These women from different parts of the country were pioneering artistes on the radio, the stage and films. Among them were Begum Akhtar, Noorjehan, Malika pukhraj, Zohrabai Ambalewali, Amirbai Kamataki, Kamla Jharia, Shamshad Begum, Khurshid and even the greatly acclaimed Girija Devi.
A sarangi player of Chandigarh, Ismail Bechain, had the privilege of playing sarangi in his early youth with some of the well-known bais of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Among them was the great singer Mushtari bai of Agra Gharana. ``She could sing the three saptaks and play magnificently the harmonium and the tabla. And such was her status that if an ordinary man tried to get to her, she would waive him off by saying ``pehale meri baal banana wali se baar karo aur phir mujh tak aao’’ (first talk to my hair dresser and then come to me).
At barimam, near Rawalpindi, there used to be an annual cultural festival of tawaifs for which preparations would be made all year round. The best of music and dance would be available to all as these performances were not restricted to nobility.
Prof yashpal, Reader, Department of Music, panjab University, Chandigarh, Ssays: ``The kotha tradition made the most significant contribution to contemporary Hindustani music and dance. There were patrons of great musicians-Munnijan bai of Heera mandi, Lahore, financed and supported ustad Amir Khan in his early career. Ustad Amir khan is known as the famous exponent of the Kirana Gharana of Indore. He later married Raeena, daughter of Mushtari bai. In the entire music world if anyone is asked who was the woman behind his success, the answer is : Munnija of course.’’
Then and Now
Heera mandi still exists in Lahore but the glory of the old world is gone. The diamonds that were traded here were not forever but the legends remain.
From a cultural hub that nurtured many an artist, Heera Mandi has changed into a ghetto that thwarts the spirit of women. Nirupama Dutt tells the story of Iqbal Hussain, a painter who portrays their lives.
FOR centuries, Heera Mandi in Lahore nurtured some outstanding performing artistes, including the famous Noorejahan, Khurshid, Shamshad Begum, Mumtaz Shanti and many others. Most of the early film actresses for pre-Partition Lahore cinema came from the kothas of Heera Mandi. The art of music in Punjab was confined to the streets of the courtesans with Heera Mandi taking the lead as the largest settlement in the cultural capital of the state in undivided Punjab.
Looking back and recalling a well-known courtesan Tamancha Jaan, Pran Nevile, a chronicler of Lahore, says, "My maiden visit to Tamancha Jaan’s salon at Heera Mandi was in 1945 with my friend Saeed Ahmed. We were seated on white sheets spread out on carpets with gaav takias (bolster pillows) supporting our backs. The room was fragrant with fresh flowers and incense sticks. The music played and Tamancha Jaan sang in her sonorous voice enchanting our young hearts."
However, those days are gone by for classical arts are no longer to be found in the kothas of Heera Mandi. It is a leg shake and more to popular music and flesh trade that have become the hallmarks of these streets in the shadow of the imposing dome and minarets of the pink stone of the Badshahi Masjid.
The only reason for the elite to visit the area unabashed is the restaurant that painter Iqbal Hussain has made in the haveli, which was the salon of his mother, aunts and elder sisters. Called the ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’, it is decorated with the paintings of the Heera Mandi done by Hussain and also quaint arty knick-knacks as well as statuettes of Virgin Mary, Buddha and Hanuman.
During a recent visit to Pakistan, we visited one of the salons in the company of some Lahoris. No longer are the white sheets, gaav takias nor incense sticks to be found there, neither the melodious unfolding of the ghazal. What one finds is very different and sad.
In the first salon behind the ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’, we find four girls with painted faces sitting on a sofa facing the outer door vacant eyed. Our escort says in embarrassment, "These ladies have come from Hindustan and want to talk to you." We are quickly pushed in and the door banged shut. The four young girls with made up faces spring and line themselves against the wall. The oldest of them must be just 25 and the youngest is barely 14. The musicians sitting on the floor start singing a loud pop-Punjabi number and the oldest joins them in the not-so-melodious singing. The second oldest quickly wears anklets on her feet and starts doing a cabaret number of sorts in her back body-clinging synthetic shirt and straight pajama. The two younger ones with garishly made-up faces stand glued to the wall, afraid and awkward. It is a moment of relief that the song ends and the haggling for money ends and a toughie opens the door. Outside a crowd of the street boys have gathered to see the strange women coming to watch mujra.
Little wonder that sadness marks the paintings of Hussain even when his subjects are wearing red and gold. A set of paintings under the title of "Silent Fears" have been made into cards by a Lahore-based NGO that is doing work against AIDS. In another very telling painting "Privacy", two women in rose-pink nightgowns lie in repose on a rumbled blue bed-spread. "Reflection" is another sad painting in which girls are shown against a mirror, depicting a perpetual wait for better times. Many of these women are called out to dance parties where they do a striptease and are often raped and even their earnings are stolen from them.
Hussain paints the plight of these women with despair and despondency. "Many land here from rural areas because their parents couldn’t marry them off for the reason that they didn’t have money to give them customary dowry," the painter says, "Some try to break out of their vicious lives of poverty to make more money as sex workers only to find a stark and harsh reality of such an existence."
Hussain’s own mother Nawab and aunts migrated from the Nimmanwali Haveli in the Dharampura Bazaar of Patiala to Heera Mandi. He would have been yet another street boy of the notorious colony if he did not have a talent for drawing. Now he looks after all the women of his family and his own children are getting good education. But such breakthroughs are rare. Hussain says, "I think if I hadn’t been painting, I would have committed suicide."
Hussain has been active in getting women to escape these environments if they can. He also plans to open a food street like the one in Gwalmandi that women have options to start other business.
His paintings at first created controversy but now these are appreciated and one of his works fetched phenomenal amount at an auction at Sotheby’s. At the ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ hangs a portrait of a local woman with her wrists and ankles bound in penitence at Muharram. Hussain says that his subjects always break into tears as he paints them.
Deprived of support from other men, they often turn to him for help because he is the one who flew over the ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’. Iqbal Hussain has done for this red light area in visuals what Saadat Hasan Manto had done in words.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Storm over Jallianwala Bagh
The renovation of the Jallianwala Bagh is drawing a lot of flak from veteran patriots, but the old order is yielding place to the new, reports Nirupama Dutt
Just Imagine the grandson of a Jallianwala Bagh veteran visiting the site where hundreds of Indian patriots had lost their lives to British brutality at Amritsar, Punjab, during the freedom struggle. Imagine the plight of a grandson who has heard from his grandfather what was there in the monument to the historic event, that turned the tide of the Indian freedom struggle. Imagine yourself, as one such grandson, almost hearing the fading, aged voice of your grandfather, and then keen to come and see if what he had said was there, but you could not find it: Reason? Government renovation of those of others like him. Damned, the beloved country’s governance!Jallianwala Bagh is not just another recreational spot for tourists, but a ‘sacred’ place today. This public park, close to the Golden Temple of Amritsar, witnessed a massacre on April 13, 1919. It was meant to be a peaceful public meeting for the Baisakhi festival, to assert the right of people to assemble and protest, which was curbed by the martial law imposed by the then Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, Michael O’ Dwyer. Many in the assembly were just people who had come to say morning prayers at the Golden Temple. Soon after the meeting started, Brigadier-General Dyer opened fire on an unarmed gathering of 25,000 men, women and children. The firing lasted about 10 minutes and 1650 rounds were fired, or 33 rounds per soldier and hundreds were killed by the bullets while others fell into the well trying to escape and many were hurt in the stampede.The renovations are fraught with problems, even as the work is in full progress. The reason for protests by historians and freedom fighters is that some of the important historical relics are being lost in the process. Terming the renovation of historical lanes of Jallianwala Bagh as defacement and destruction of the historical monument, president of Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall Committee 101-year-old Ghadri Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga has sought the intervention of the Prime Minister in the case. “The two already demolished historical lanes of Jallianwala Bagh should be reconstructed, and the third one should not be razed in the name of widening the entry point for VVIPs’ vehicles,” says a vocal critic.However, most of these protests have fallen on deaf ears. A public interest litigation filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in September 2008 was dismissed, and the initial stay given on the petition was vacated. The order of dismissal signed by Chief Justice TS Thakur and judge Surya Kant says: “If the Government, the Trust and the Managing Committee have put their heads together and conceived a plan intended to revitalise and preserve the Memorial (sic)for the future generations, we see no reason why the petitioner should find fault with the same, particularly in exercise of the extraordinary public interest writ jurisdiction of the court.”
The background goes like this. In 1923, the trust purchased land for the project from the Jallewala Sardars at a hiked-up price of Rs 5.65 lakh. The money was gathered by an international appeal for a memorial issued by Mahatma Gandhi. The British Government in India was keen to turn the Jallianwala Bagh into a cloth market so that all traces of the incident were wiped out. Nationalist leaders, however, formed a committee headed by Madan Mohan Malviya. The land was purchased from the Jallewala Sardars at a hiked up price of Rs 5.65 lakh. The money was gathered by an international appeal for a memorial issued by Mahatma Gandhi. The upkeep of Jallianwala has been with a Mukherjee family of Bengal. S.C. Mukherjee, an associate of Malviya, was appointed the first secretary of the Trust. It subsequently went to his son and now to his grandson S. Mukherjee. A memorial designed by American architect Benjamin Polk was built on the site and inaugurated by the then-President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, on 13 April 1961, in the presence of Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders. A flame was later added to the site. However, the past few decades have seen the monument in neglect and decay with only a fraction of the people who come to the splendorous Golden Temple next doors visiting it. Interestingly, the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Committee is headed by the Prime Minister of the country. But in spite of the high profile management, the memorial suffered complete neglect during the past many decades. Defending the renovation work, trustee S. Mukherjee says; “We are not destroying any historical site. In fact we are preserving and renovating the memorial so that more people can relate to it. Otherwise the old building would have crumbled.” However, one of the lanes demolished was the one in which patriot Udham Singh, who was later to kill General Dyer in England, had helped the injured and the dying. A new wall is being constructed at the main gate for a light and sound show that is to be introduced here. However, ITDC engineer maintains that the bullet marks on the walls are being preserved carefully and red sandstone is being used to give the monument a heritage look.The ambitious project was proposed by Maninderjit Singh Bitta, former president of the Indian Youth Congress to late Prime Minister P.V. Narsimha Rao. However, the project could see the light of the day only after a high-level meeting of the board of trustees was held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The project also include making of videos and CDs of the proposed light and sound show and distribute it throughout the country as part of an awareness campaign. The next question is about an entry fee. “All the historical monuments in the country have an entry fee, the only exception being the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial entry for which is free for visitors," says Mukherjee. Baba Bilga says: “The government should not convert the historical monument into a tourist place.” But no one is listening, as the old order changeth, indeed, yielding place to the new.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Dilli ki Gallian
Pilgrimage to poetry
Nirupama Dutt
The big city was suggested by Albert Camus as a remedy to life in society. He called it ‘the only desert within our means’. But deserts have oasis. And Delhi too is not without them. Here they exist in the lanes and the by-lanes. These may be to an outsider unfit to live. But to a Dehlvi these have been the very source of life: The very reason for existence. Remember the famous couplet by Ustad Zauq written at a time when Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was in exile, the decline of the old city had started and no patronage was available to the poets, who had started migrating to Deccan for sheer survival:
In dinon garche Dakhan meinHai badhi Qadr-e-sukhan,
Par kaun jaye Zauq par Dilli ki Galiyan chhodh kar
So to a sacred gali, which is not a part of the old walled city, but has its very special significance. It is the crowded lane which leads to the dargah of sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. One chanced upon it in the late 70s when a painter friend took me there one evening with her for she wanted to say a prayer for a friend who was admitted to a hospital in a precarious state following an accident. So we walked past the naan-kabab joints and shops selling incense sticks, Khuss and sandal perfumes in small glass bottles, and offerings of flat baskets strung with Indian pink roses. The prayer was said. The ailing friend died a few days later. It is the act of the prayer that counts and not the fact that it is answered or not.
The gali and the dargah stayed with one as it would with a resident of Chandigarh, a too new and planned a city to have by-lanes dating back into history or culture. Yet another reason was being adderessed as `Begum Sahiba’, never mind one’s shabby clothes and worn-out walking shoes, by the shopkeepers hawking out their wares. So one returned many a time for this pilgrimage, which is a pilgrimage to poetry.
For in close proximity in this area are the tombs of different poets of different ages. Close to the mazar of the Auliya is the mazar of his dear disciple Amir Khuro, who is hailed as the first poet of Hindi. While Khusro was proficient in Persian and Arabic, he yet chose to write a body of verse in Khadhi boli, language of the people here. It is said that once happy with Khusro, Hazrat Nizamuddin said: “Ask for what you wish and it will be granted.’’
And Khusro asked for `melody and intensity’ in his verse. That is perhaps the greatest boon any writer would wish for. For Khusro of `Chhap-tilak taj deenhi re tose naina mila ke’ fame, the boon sure was granted and his verses have stood the test of time. Nearby are also the tombs of Khan Khanan and Jehanara. And by the side of the lane near the Ghalib Akademi is the mazar of Ghalib, one of the best loved of the poets of the land.
The lane also has many a sad scene to show. To the dargah of the `Gharibnawaz’, who gives out of boons and alms even without the asking, the poor and the suffering come in large numbers. The overcrowed, shabby lane also represents the fading away of an era and the ghettoisation of a culture and people. Yet spirit and the mood of the people soars above the situation as does the crescendo of the Qawali every Thursday:`Ab mori naya paar karoji…,
Walk to the mazar late evening and the durbans of `Karim’s’, a popular Mughalai restaurant, stand in their maroon sherwanis and white turbans at the beginning the the street. Their job is to flash torches and guide cars to find parking space. A little before the mazar, the auditorium of the Ghalib Akademi is all lit up. A mushaira is in progress. The theme is Dilli again with Urdu poet Astraaar Jaamayee addressing Badshah Zafar whose greatest misfortune was that he could not be buried here. Telling him of what the city has turned into with crowding, pollution, inflation and what not he has his little dig saying that here two yards of land will now cost 70 grand:
Keh do Zafar se Dilli ke us Kooh-e-yaar mein
Do gazzamin milti hai ab satahar hazar mein.
The big city was suggested by Albert Camus as a remedy to life in society. He called it ‘the only desert within our means’. But deserts have oasis. And Delhi too is not without them. Here they exist in the lanes and the by-lanes. These may be to an outsider unfit to live. But to a Dehlvi these have been the very source of life: The very reason for existence. Remember the famous couplet by Ustad Zauq written at a time when Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was in exile, the decline of the old city had started and no patronage was available to the poets, who had started migrating to Deccan for sheer survival:
In dinon garche Dakhan meinHai badhi Qadr-e-sukhan,
Par kaun jaye Zauq par Dilli ki Galiyan chhodh kar
So to a sacred gali, which is not a part of the old walled city, but has its very special significance. It is the crowded lane which leads to the dargah of sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. One chanced upon it in the late 70s when a painter friend took me there one evening with her for she wanted to say a prayer for a friend who was admitted to a hospital in a precarious state following an accident. So we walked past the naan-kabab joints and shops selling incense sticks, Khuss and sandal perfumes in small glass bottles, and offerings of flat baskets strung with Indian pink roses. The prayer was said. The ailing friend died a few days later. It is the act of the prayer that counts and not the fact that it is answered or not.
The gali and the dargah stayed with one as it would with a resident of Chandigarh, a too new and planned a city to have by-lanes dating back into history or culture. Yet another reason was being adderessed as `Begum Sahiba’, never mind one’s shabby clothes and worn-out walking shoes, by the shopkeepers hawking out their wares. So one returned many a time for this pilgrimage, which is a pilgrimage to poetry.
For in close proximity in this area are the tombs of different poets of different ages. Close to the mazar of the Auliya is the mazar of his dear disciple Amir Khuro, who is hailed as the first poet of Hindi. While Khusro was proficient in Persian and Arabic, he yet chose to write a body of verse in Khadhi boli, language of the people here. It is said that once happy with Khusro, Hazrat Nizamuddin said: “Ask for what you wish and it will be granted.’’
And Khusro asked for `melody and intensity’ in his verse. That is perhaps the greatest boon any writer would wish for. For Khusro of `Chhap-tilak taj deenhi re tose naina mila ke’ fame, the boon sure was granted and his verses have stood the test of time. Nearby are also the tombs of Khan Khanan and Jehanara. And by the side of the lane near the Ghalib Akademi is the mazar of Ghalib, one of the best loved of the poets of the land.
The lane also has many a sad scene to show. To the dargah of the `Gharibnawaz’, who gives out of boons and alms even without the asking, the poor and the suffering come in large numbers. The overcrowed, shabby lane also represents the fading away of an era and the ghettoisation of a culture and people. Yet spirit and the mood of the people soars above the situation as does the crescendo of the Qawali every Thursday:`Ab mori naya paar karoji…,
Walk to the mazar late evening and the durbans of `Karim’s’, a popular Mughalai restaurant, stand in their maroon sherwanis and white turbans at the beginning the the street. Their job is to flash torches and guide cars to find parking space. A little before the mazar, the auditorium of the Ghalib Akademi is all lit up. A mushaira is in progress. The theme is Dilli again with Urdu poet Astraaar Jaamayee addressing Badshah Zafar whose greatest misfortune was that he could not be buried here. Telling him of what the city has turned into with crowding, pollution, inflation and what not he has his little dig saying that here two yards of land will now cost 70 grand:
Keh do Zafar se Dilli ke us Kooh-e-yaar mein
Do gazzamin milti hai ab satahar hazar mein.
Ghalib then and now
Ghalib
The narrow streets wind like
Arguments in the
Mohalla of Ballimaran…
And in the dark gloomy street
Known as Gali Kasim
A row of lamps is lit
The Quran of words opens
At a luminous page
On which is written
the address of
Asadullah Khan Ghalib.’
-Gulzar
This poem to Ghalib was penned long years back by yet another poet of Delhi. The one who was nurtured in the Sabzi Mandi and years later recalled his mohalla in a lovely children’s song: Ghodha thha ghamandi, pahuncha Subzi Mandi.
Pilgrimage to Ghalib’s abode or tomb was a must for many. More so far this poet who not only took off from a couplet of Ghalib to write one of his most famous songs, Dil dhoondta hai, but also gave a tribute to the poets’ poet in a tele-serial with Nasseruddin shah playing the Mirza.
Mirza Ghalib’s home and tomb were much in news some years ago with Friends for Education going to court with a plea that the haveli of Ghalib be turned into a memorial and the tomb maintained properly. When Gulzar visited Ghalib’s home in Gali Kasim, walking past doors with tattered sacks for curtains and spindly bleating goats on a smoky evening, it was a coal depot.
With progress in time, it now houses at STD-ISD booth, a paper godown and the office of some International Islamic Centre. Many admirers of the poet are pained by it. But the poet would have only been amused for often he referred to his Khana kharab and dream of a home without walls and doors: be daro deevar sa ik ghar banana chahiye.
Time to time Ghalib memorial functions are held in the country. Seminars, articles, musharias and so on take place. But the accent is more on the biographical details of the poet or the physical aspects like a home or a tomb. Amidst all this is a legendary figure who drank and loved a dancing girl and provided couplets for the coming generations of weak-hearted lovers. But what is lost is the real essence of his poetry. For Ghalib was a poet of social protest challenging the state, the fundamentalists, the money-lenders and upheld the status of the creative artist: They want to know who Ghalib is?/Pray, tell me what do I tell them?
It would be not unfit to say that he was a poet for all times for such was his sensitivity in probing the layers of human existence. He felt that he was ahead of his times, as litterateur Gopi Chand narang remarked at a seminar, ``Ghalib was born in the 18th century, he composed his verses in the 19th century, he was understood in the 20th century and he will reach his zenith in the 21st century.’
’
But what needs to be noted is how the 20th century has put him into stereotypes. Says theatre activist Shamsul Islam, ``The popular image of Ghalib is one of a filmi hero. He was turned into a Devdas.’’ Well, Ghalib was no Devdas. He drank, but it was obviously in moderation for he lived to a ripe old age. He must have loved. We all do. But linking it to a dancing girl is our doing. The 20th century imagination was trapped by images of the singing girl Sorab Modi created for his Mirza Ghalib to fit in Suraiya, who rendered his ghazals beautifully in the film. But Bharat Bushan turned him into a Devdas of sorts.
All very well in films and tele-serials but what is painful is to see Ghalib as a doll with a hukka and jaam watching a mujra of yet another doll whose arm is broken over the years. All this just clouds his struggle for existence as a poet in a world hostile to the creative truth. While Naseer gave a memorable performance as Ghalib, Gulzar could not quite set him free of clichés.
Perhaps, one sincere attempt to reinterpret Ghalib was by Surendra Verma in his play Qaid-E-Hayat, directed by Ram Gopal bajaj. Verma depicted his beloved as Qatiba, a contemporary writer. With 200 plus years of Ghalib completed, there is a need for interpretation of his poetry and his struggle in its social context, which is relevant even today.
The narrow streets wind like
Arguments in the
Mohalla of Ballimaran…
And in the dark gloomy street
Known as Gali Kasim
A row of lamps is lit
The Quran of words opens
At a luminous page
On which is written
the address of
Asadullah Khan Ghalib.’
-Gulzar
This poem to Ghalib was penned long years back by yet another poet of Delhi. The one who was nurtured in the Sabzi Mandi and years later recalled his mohalla in a lovely children’s song: Ghodha thha ghamandi, pahuncha Subzi Mandi.
Pilgrimage to Ghalib’s abode or tomb was a must for many. More so far this poet who not only took off from a couplet of Ghalib to write one of his most famous songs, Dil dhoondta hai, but also gave a tribute to the poets’ poet in a tele-serial with Nasseruddin shah playing the Mirza.
Mirza Ghalib’s home and tomb were much in news some years ago with Friends for Education going to court with a plea that the haveli of Ghalib be turned into a memorial and the tomb maintained properly. When Gulzar visited Ghalib’s home in Gali Kasim, walking past doors with tattered sacks for curtains and spindly bleating goats on a smoky evening, it was a coal depot.
With progress in time, it now houses at STD-ISD booth, a paper godown and the office of some International Islamic Centre. Many admirers of the poet are pained by it. But the poet would have only been amused for often he referred to his Khana kharab and dream of a home without walls and doors: be daro deevar sa ik ghar banana chahiye.
Time to time Ghalib memorial functions are held in the country. Seminars, articles, musharias and so on take place. But the accent is more on the biographical details of the poet or the physical aspects like a home or a tomb. Amidst all this is a legendary figure who drank and loved a dancing girl and provided couplets for the coming generations of weak-hearted lovers. But what is lost is the real essence of his poetry. For Ghalib was a poet of social protest challenging the state, the fundamentalists, the money-lenders and upheld the status of the creative artist: They want to know who Ghalib is?/Pray, tell me what do I tell them?
It would be not unfit to say that he was a poet for all times for such was his sensitivity in probing the layers of human existence. He felt that he was ahead of his times, as litterateur Gopi Chand narang remarked at a seminar, ``Ghalib was born in the 18th century, he composed his verses in the 19th century, he was understood in the 20th century and he will reach his zenith in the 21st century.’
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But what needs to be noted is how the 20th century has put him into stereotypes. Says theatre activist Shamsul Islam, ``The popular image of Ghalib is one of a filmi hero. He was turned into a Devdas.’’ Well, Ghalib was no Devdas. He drank, but it was obviously in moderation for he lived to a ripe old age. He must have loved. We all do. But linking it to a dancing girl is our doing. The 20th century imagination was trapped by images of the singing girl Sorab Modi created for his Mirza Ghalib to fit in Suraiya, who rendered his ghazals beautifully in the film. But Bharat Bushan turned him into a Devdas of sorts.
All very well in films and tele-serials but what is painful is to see Ghalib as a doll with a hukka and jaam watching a mujra of yet another doll whose arm is broken over the years. All this just clouds his struggle for existence as a poet in a world hostile to the creative truth. While Naseer gave a memorable performance as Ghalib, Gulzar could not quite set him free of clichés.
Perhaps, one sincere attempt to reinterpret Ghalib was by Surendra Verma in his play Qaid-E-Hayat, directed by Ram Gopal bajaj. Verma depicted his beloved as Qatiba, a contemporary writer. With 200 plus years of Ghalib completed, there is a need for interpretation of his poetry and his struggle in its social context, which is relevant even today.
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