Chalte Chalte

Wheels of Verse

2009-03-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

Couplet Express

by Nirupama Dutt

THE romance of a train journey is hard to get over and it is an experience that I just cannot resist and the longer the distance the better it is. So I was not intimidated by the 48 hours the train would take from Nizamuddin to Madurai. I had to make this north-to- south journey to fetch my daughter home from her school near Kodaikanal in the Palni hills.
The ticket counter man looks up the computer and books me into a train that leaves Nizamuddin every Saturday. The train is called Thirukkural Express and I get into it early morning.
The plan is to get off at Madurai, see the Meenakshi Temple, spend a night there and head the next day by bus to Kodaikanal. In the train I get talking to a professor of English from Chennai. He advises me that instead of Madurai, I should get the ticket extended to Kanniyakumari. “If you have not been there then take the journey. The last halt of the train is Kanniyakumari,” he says. While I am still wondering if I should do so or not, it suddenly occurs to me that If Kanniyakumari is the last halt, then why is it called Thirukkural? The professor satiates my curiosity and tells me that “Thirukkural” is a two-line verse or couplet.
The journey suddenly takes a poetic turn and it feels very good to be a traveller of the Couplet Express. And then I learn that Thirukkural maxims were the work of the great Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar who is believed to have lived some time between 300 and 600 A.D. And it was his statue that was installed at Kanniyakumari in January 2000 by Dr. Mu. Karunanithi, the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Well, the same statue that caused some ripples for it had been done with parochial sentiments to have something southern juxtaposed against Vivekanand Memorial at the confluence of the three seas. But at that moment I was not thinking of the east-south divide or coming together. The magic of verse had been cast.
Poetry has its own ways of getting round one. Once it lays its snare, there is no getting away. So the ticket was extended to Kanniyakumari and six hours more from Madurai so it was to be 58 hours in the Couplet Express.
As the train moves on to reach the land’s end, it starts emptying out. There are a few passengers left and pantry car staff that had served delicious chilli bhaji, spicy chicken curry and masala vada during the long journey. One of the more friendly waiters tells me that they will spend the night at Nagercoil which is one stop before Kanniyakumari and Tuesday afternoon they will start their journey back to Delhi’s Nizamuddin. And I find myself humming my favourite train song, vintage Kanan Devi: Yeh duniya, yeh duniya Toofan Mail…
But once at Kanniyakumari, the mad race of life comes to a halt as does the rough and tumble of the journey. Just a handful of passengers, railway staff and the vendors who had got in at Tirunelveli to vend neatly-packed halwa by the kilogram are greeted at the beautiful railway station by the fresh sea breeze. Into an autorickshaw and then in a spic and span room of an inexpensive seaside lodge. I remain indoors only for a quick bath and a cup of coffee, and then I am out to experience the beautiful coming together of the three seas.
Waiting for the boat jetty, I see the horizontal and aesthetic contours of the Vivekanand Memorial and by its side the monumental statue, all of 95 feet, of poet Thiruvalluvar. Well, the detractors of this installation were right in that it alters the skyline and intrudes somewhat with what must have been the secluded serenity of the historical memorial. But a statue has been put at a pride of place. And then I suddenly get parochial too. What about our great poets back home? Punjab has a tradition of poets. The greatest of them all is perhaps Guru Nanak but now we know him more as the first sage of a religion well institutionalised. But the two Punjabs, on either side of the barbed wire, are linked by many other minstrels. The great Sufi poets: Waris Shah, Sultan Bahu, Bulle Shah and others who wrote verses that we call kaafi. And I wonder if one day I will travel to Lahore in a train called the Kaafi Express!

Farewell To Shillong

2009-02-23T04:13:00.000-08:00

By Nirupama Dutt

SHILLONG has always been a very special place to me. Its waterfalls, the silent lake, long walks, busy bazaars and shabby cinema halls continued to haunt my thoughts long after I had left the place in the first flush of youth.
I would never tire of telling my friends of this hilly splendour. The notes of music coming from crowded fetes, the colourful overalls of the petite Khasi women, white lace curtains on the tiny windows of the villas and the blind beggar strumming his guitar in the dirty Bara Bazar. These were the images of Shillong and of course tales of schoolgirl crushes and those two good-looking boys forever chased by girls, made bold by the matriarchal status of the Meghalaya Hills. Well, the nostalgia had to linger, for it was a city of those lovely growing-up years. So much had been discovered then.
Then after more than a decade, I made it back. While on a holiday, at my brother’s tea-garden in upper Assam, I determinedly took a night-bus to Gauhati, and then to Shillong.
I checked into a hotel, for hardly any of the old schoolgirls were there except one who was still unmarried and working on a thesis. I wanted to surprise her, coming as a phantom of our silvery youth.
A nice breakfast and a change and I started off for my friend’s house, carrying the gifts I had brought her. I took the route of the old days, some four kilometres of sharp descent and climb. I forgot I was many hears older and many pounds heavier. Panting, I reached the house! A happy sight, indeed, but the happiness was short-lived. A stranger opened the door. My friend, I learnt, was now teaching in Arunachal.
So I returned to the hotel in a taxi, stopping briefly at my school. A concrete structure had replaced our lovely wood hall. The old hall had been burnt down. I found a nun of my days – Sister Christopher. I had been one of her favourites – but now she couldn’t place me!
Back in the hotel I planned out a busy evening, for I was feeling much like a lost lonely spinster. I would go to the ramshackle cinema hall and then have a plate of noodles at the restaurant, where we had celebrated our I.S.C. first divisions. But the short afternoon nap turned into sleep courtesy the long walk, so it was a plate of noodles in bed, because the hotel dining hall was under repair.
Next morning, a pretty young Khasi maid came to dust the room. Packing my bag, I forced some of my memories on her and she listened with patient disinterest. I rewarded her for her patience with the lipstick and purse, meant for my friends. She happily carried my bat to the taxi and as it started, she shouted: Khub Le! Khub Le is a curious Khasi phrase for a greeting and a farewell. This time, it was farewell to Shillong!
~ ~ ~

The Killing Fields

2009-02-17T00:43:00.000-08:00

Peasant suicides were unheard of. The peasant had the strength to bear famine and floods. If he lost his land, he would migrate and work as a labourer in the city. But he would never think of taking his life. These suicides are a part of life after the Green Revolution. The graph of the peasant's life has gone from poverty to some prosperity and then on to death, says Nirupama Dutt from Punjab

The conversation keeps reverting to the Neem tree. No, we are not in one of the Uttar Pradesh villages that Nida Fazli sings of. We are in the heart of the country's breadbasket –Punjab, of Green Revolution fame. We are in the home of Balkar Singh, a middle-class farmer and peasant leader, in Dakaonda village in Patiala district. ``The neem tree stood proudly in the middle of the compound, somewhere near the gate which now leads to my brother's house,'' says Balkar. It is difficult to visualize it now. The old house has been divided up by the brothers. New cemented paths, new gates and new rooms have been added by each of the three families. It's cement and concrete all the way in Punjab's villages these days, without, of course, benefit of an urban planner, architect or even an overseer.
``In the summer months, the women of the villag3e would come and sit under the neem and spin with my mother and grandmother. He women would talk and share their stories as they spun yarn,'' recalls Balkar. This was called Trimjan—an occasion for womenfolk to get together and spin. And in the centre of the village there was a big
peepul tree under which the village elders sat to talk and share jokes. Their conclave was known as Sathh. The old men would call out to younger passersby, and everyone kept in touch. The deep social ties which once held village society together have been wiped out. The joint family, too, is history. Punjab's villages have gone the way of the towns, touched by the despondency of urban life without, of course, the opportunities and advantages that towns and cities offer. Balkar's mother, who once ruled the big house, now walks with the help of her stick from the house of one son to that of another, not quite sure where she actually belongs.
``Peasant suicides were unheard of. The peasant had the strength to bear famine and floods. If he lost his land, he would migrate and work as a labourer in the city. But he would never think of taking his life,'' says Balkar. ``These suicides are a part of life after the Green Revolution. The graph of the peasant's life has gone from poverty to some prosperity and then on to death.'' Suicides in this state of plenty and prosperity are indeed difficult to accept. Surely no one could be hungry here? People in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka or even in Maharashtra could be hungry. But no one can ever be hungry in Punjab.If anyone is, then they only have to go to the nearest gurdwara to eat their fill of dal, roti, vegetables and even halwa, then have a cup of tea. Such fare is freely given in langars that are held twice a day.
But the path from the unlit stove at home to the humiliation of charity is paved with suicide. Suicides by farmers in Punjab have assumed alarming proportions. `Seeds of Suicide: The Ecological and Human Costs of Globalisation of Agriculture', is a study by Vandana Shiva, Afsar H. Jafri, Ashok Emani and Manish Pande, published by the Research Foundation for scoence, Technology and ecology, New Delhi. The writers came to Punjab via Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, and they were taken aback -- ``Punjab, the biggest contributor of grain to the national pool, now has the notorious distinction of having the highest rate of farmers' suicides among all the stares.'' The farmers' suicides among all the states.'' The farmers' suicides started in the 1990s. I recall visiting a small village in Sangrur district in 1993 where 26 men had committed suicide by consuming pesticides. By 1997-98, the number of suicides had risen alarmingly. Today, Punjab has overtaken the suicide rate of Andhra Pradesh.

The government refused to acknowledge these suicides, and the glossies relentlessly featured rich farmers who live in plush farmhouses, holiday in Europe, send their children to exclusive schools in the hills and grow strawberries, broccoli and flowers. However, the media – especially the Punjab newspapers and correspondents of national newspapers in Punjab –have played a significant role in bringing these suicides to light. In nearly all the cases, it is reported, the farmers were heavily in dept and had daughters to marry off. The mechanization of agriculture, rising costs of production and growing consumerism, which has increased dowry demands, all contributed to their deaths.
The government has chosen to cover up the issue. Punjab's chief minister is a peasant leader and the Akalis came to power with the overwhelming support of the peasants. It is interesting to refer to a news story in The Hindu of April 21, 1998, that reads: ``About 80 cases of suicides by farmers and agricultural labourers, reported from five villages in Sangrur district in the last four or five years, could be only the tip of the iceberg. Death stalks the rural areas of the Lehra and Andana blocks in this otherwise prosperous district. According to former sarpanch Jarnail Singh and jathedar Mastan Singh, about 33 persons were driven to suicide in Balaran village, while the figure was zero in the official records since 1994.''
However, farmers' groups, non-governmental organizations and mediapersons have achieved little even after proving the official records to be wrong. Inderjit Singh Jaijee, convenor of the Forum against State Repression, has been keeping up the pressure on the authorities with a mail campaign. His letters have not been acknowledged, but the forum scored when the Union Department of Agriculture and the Reserve Bank of India conducted a survey of the unprecedented suicides. However, Jaijee says, ``Although the report was written out and submitted, no relief of any kind has been given to the farmers, who are weighed down by bank loans.''

Times have changed. Traditionally, farmers have organized cattle fairs. Today, they have tractor fairs. They take loans to buy tractors, but are forced to sell them to deal with financial crises in their homes. There is also a parallel fair of Maruti 800 and Zen cars that are given as dowry, and are sold just like the tractors. A maruti car is an essential element of a girl's dowry, even among small farmers. And farmers who have no way of raising money for a Maruti for their daughter's wedding are killing themselves with pesticides. It is difficult to break this vicious cycle. The farmer has his back to the wall, facing more demands than he can possibly fulfil.
The first year of the 21st century had ended in a winter of discontent, with the agrarian crisis at its height. There was a paddy crisis in 2000, when the crop could not fetch support prices. And then farmers were forced to spill their potato harvest on the roads because there were no takers. There's an interesting example here. When Pepsi came to India, the farmers of the Punjab Doaba hoped that their potatoes would be bought by the company for the potato-chip factories. But this year, the company told them that their potatoes were of poor quality. And now, the sons of the soil are being asked to compete in the international market, exposed to the impersonal forces of the WTO. An unreasonable demand, when their own government does not even wish to acknowledge their plight.
Gurdial Singh, the Jnanpith award-winning writer whose novels are set in the backdrop of agrarian society, lives in Zira Mandi, a small agricultural market town. ``It is no longer a secret that farmers come to the labour chowks of small towns in search of work,'' he says. ``They walk or cycle some `5 kilometers to get there. They often return home empty-handed.;;

Punjab's Green Revolution has greyed and the nation has long forgotten the slogan of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan. We live in the time of scams in the purchase of coffins for war heroes, and farmers who must take their own lives. In essence, we are saying, after the manner of Marie Antoinette, if the potatoes are not doing well, let them grow strawberries.
Not long ago, a harvest song of Asa Singh Mastana was particularly popular in Punjab – Meri khet-kidhi bahar, kurhe (my fields are blossoming, my girl). Today, these are no songs on the lips of the people and Bhangra, the harvest dance, has been appropriated by MTV.
Back in Balkar Singh's home, where the neem tree that the women gathered under was chopped down many years ago, I see all the urban trappings: a telephone, a television set, a refrigerator, a sofa, a dining table, box beds and some gaudy prints of the Sikh Gurus on the walls. And he is telling the story of Paramjit Singh, a small but successful grower of chillies for a decade and a half. Over the years, the cost of production increased and in recent times, the yield had fallen. ``What did not decrease were the electricity bills, the hand-pump charges, children's school fees and the dowry for the daughter. Some moneylenders got him to sign blank papers when they gave him a loan. He lost his land and finally committed suicide. So you may say there is no hunger in Punjab, but there is death,'' says Balkar. A leader of the Ekta group of the Bharati Kisan Union, Balkar and his comrades are trying to keep farmers away from moneylenders. But it isn't easy.
I recall my young niece and nephew, who were at a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Seventies. Home for the holidays in a tea garden in Assam, they had asked their parents which state they were from. Punjab, they were told, and my nephew, who was in Class III, said ``I have read in my school books that people from Punjab are farmers and that they are very hardworking.'' And traveling through Punjab for so many years, very often on journalistic assignments, I was often reminded of Richard Llewellyn's book, How Green Was My Valley. But the image I brought back with me this summer from yet another journey through Punjab was of blazing fields, as farmers set fire to the stubble of the harvested wheat crop to quickly prepare for the paddy season, without regard for what it does to the soil. This is what the sons of the soil have come to. The earth is no longer their mother.

Punjab as a state of Mind

2009-02-07T01:10:00.000-08:00

I am an echoing sky just the size of an umbrella
I am a strange tree
Translating the rustling of the wind
Into Punjabi
--Surjit Pattar
These lines are from the sixth River of Punjab – the river of poetry. Into this river flow the love-legends of the Sufi poets, the verses of the Gurus and the anonymous folk songs. This river runs deep. Deeper even than the five rivers which traverse this land: the Sutlej, the Ravi, the Beas , the Chenab and the Jhelum. No water disputes here. No duping the census with linguistic untruths. For in these waters flow verses in Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi and at times, even Pinglish. No geographical boundaries here and no barbed-wire borders. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Jogi needs no visa and jagjit singh's Kagaz ki Kishti is free to float where it will.
So, it is with two lines snatched out of context of a long poem that I begin my billet doux to Punjab. My Punjab. These lines by a contemporary are dear to me for in them he is a tree translating for me even the rustling of the wind into Punjabi. Where is this Punjab of mine? Where I a student of geography, I would promptly answer that this Punjab is a small state, covering only 1.6 per cent of India's land area.

Well, even if I were a student of geography, this answer would simply not do. Even though it is quite true. My Punjab with its pride, prejudice and fabled prosperity spreads for and wide. Something like the billowing skirt of some unknown woman sho sang: Mainu ambar the ghaghra suva de, Utte dharat di laon lava de (Get me a skirt stitched of the sky; and have it trimmed with the earth.) Ah, don't read territorial and space ambitions here! It is just the state of mind.
Now that you are reading this open letter of love. I might as well tell you that this too is in line with the Punjabi tradition. For us to love in secrecy is to not love at all. There is an exhibitionist even in the best among us. If you've got it, flaunt it. This may be the truth for others. But for the Punjabis, it is a case of even if you don't have it, flaunt it. This would range from the bank balance to the jewel box, from harmony at home to talent at work. Such show-offs these Punjabis! If that's what you are exclaiming, I can't quite discredit it for we are forever in a race to keep us with the Junejas or the Jakhars. But this trait has also meant survival even in the worst of times.
Call me prejudiced if you must in favour of my own land and people. Here is a little story told to me by a Maharashtrian mathematician about the folks back home, dating back to the saddest of years in the passing century:1947. It was related to him by a colleague of his at Panjab University whose family had to migrate from their home in West Punjab, leaving their property and business behind. No time was to be lost and business had to be started. The only thing that the family had somehow brought along was a sewing machine. So, some money was invested and a big tailor's board put outside the house. The man took upon himself the task of taking measurements. And the wife was to do the sewing. The very first day, they got an order for tailoring a shirt. In the excitement, they forget to take the measurement. When the customer returned the next day to give measurements, the shirt was ready. He tried it on and it fitted well. How was this done? The woman asked her husband what size was the customer and his reply was that around his size. This was the beginning of a roaring tailoring business. ``Such is the entrepreneurial spirit of the Punjabis,'' the Maharashtrian said in awe. ``But we lose out on thought,'' I mumbled. ``Well, you can't have it all!'' was his reply. But, that's what it is about us. We would certainly like to have it all. And if we know we cannot have it, then we choose not to even acknowledge it. Of course, the refrain of our land being the bread basket and on the border facing aggression is heard common enough, when our people from states with a geographical situation more protected mock at us and say, ``The only culture in Punjab is agriculture.''

The mobility and adaptability of the Punjabis is only too well known: from Toronto to New York; from Singapore to Melbourne; from Paris to Amsterdam. And UK is our very own vilait with Balle Balle Birmingham and Saada sohna Southall. Let folks mock at the Punjabis' lack of culture but wherever these people from the land of the five rivers have gone, they have managed to popularize their dress, food, song and dance. The salwar kameez has made it to the international fashion scene.
Want to knowa little more about Punjab, then just eavesdrop on what they are singing or laughing about. Soe time ago at a Sanatani Kirtan in a Chandigarh home, Isaw joyful women playing the dholak and joyously singing. Their song was: Assee Krishan diyan salian, Assee sithnian devan aayian; Assee vekhea tera Sudama, Jihda Phatea hoyea Pajama, Oh! Kahana wah-wah terian yaarian ( we're your sisters-in-law, Lord Krishna, we are here to tease you; Haven't we seen your Sudama! With his torn pyjama; O'Krishna what kind of friends you have!). ``Just like the Punjabis to dress Sudama in a pyjama even though needle and thread were unknown to the Krishna times,'' the News Editor from the Hindi heartland blurted out. What he did not say was that in this entire myth full of love and bonding, what struck the Punjabis were the shabby clothes of Sudama, Clothes maketh the man or the woman more in Punjab than anywhere else. The more flashy and gaudy, the better. This holds true for jewellery, interiors or what have you. And it is this consumerism which has spread from the towns to the villages, leading to epidemics like suicide and bride-burning. But Punjabis take death in their stride for the state has faced many invasions and strife. The dark days of terrorism took a heavy toll on human life. But the song that Punjab burst into soon after and had the whole world tapping its feet was :
Ho gayi teri Balle Balle; Ho jayegi Balle Balle.
Call this forgetfulness but it is this which makes the people of this land bounce back with a bang. Punjabi pragmatism can turn a disadvantage into advantage and a catastrophe into enterprise. If the finer sensibilities suffer, it can't be helped. Our friends in Kerala and Bengal know that we have always responded to any call for change they have made. Be it the revolutionary movement against Imperial rule which was echoed in Punjab with supreme sacrifice coming with the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru or the Spring Thunder of 1967.
When the call is for romance, adventure, sacrifice or martyrdom, Punjab has never been a-lacking. For such are the calls that the Punjabi heart responds to in a big way. When it is a matter of the heart, there will be mistakes. But a Punjabi knows how to admit that it was a mistake and even laugh it away. Theirs is a rare to laugh, sometimes at others but mostly at themselves. So laughing, sometimes through tears, Punjab and Punabis move with their pride, prejudices and prosperity to the next millennium: Jee aayean nu

The Cancer Train

2009-01-01T12:10:00.000-08:00

Passage to Life

The Abohar-Bathinda Passenger ferries a large number of cancer patients from the cotton belt of Punjab to Bikaner, a 350-km overnight journey, for specialised treatment. Nirupama Dutt journeys from darkness to light on the wheels of hope

Indians love train journeys. Well, who wouldn’t in a land so vast and with a population as large with very meagre means? So if you want to catch a slice of true Indian life at the very grassroots, the best place would be a 24-hour journey in an unreserved coach of a train in any direction that may catch one’s fancy. I have known journalists who do this arduous task during election time and come back with sparkling stories about what the people are saying and which way the wind is blowing.A train journey any day or night, and one has had a fair share of it when required and sometimes even when it was not even required, but one had not thought that one would shiver through a journey of ten long hours in the coldest February in the past 35 years, in a passenger train from Bathinda to Bikaner. For someone living in Chandigarh, Bathinda is remote enough as it is on the Rajasthan border of Punjab and Bikaner is even more remote. But this train has earned quite a reputation for itself and not for the happiest reasons and has also been given the nomenclature of the ‘Cancer Train’ back home in Punjab. The cotton belt of Punjab in the Malwa region has an abnormally high rate of cancer. The excessive use of pesticides and ground water contamination are the suspected culprits. The specialised institute for cancer treatment and research in the government-run Prince Bijay Singh Memorial Hospital has come to the rescue of the lower middle class and poor people of Punjab because it gives quality treatment at very low rates.Never mind the name the train has earned for itself; one is still sceptical about finding cancer patients on the journey because after all cancer is no epidemic so there cannot be patients travelling everyday. But the Bathindawalas assure you that there will be many. They prove true and hours before the train arrives, patients and their attendants start trooping into the station. There are old men, women and even children who have come from villages close to Bathinda but there are others who have come from places as far as Raikot near Ludhiana. As we sit on a bench sipping hot cardamom tea to keep the chill at bay because the train is an hour and fifteen minutes late, Sukhbir, a 24-year-old woman of Alluwala village on the Punjab-Sirsa border, joins us. Her husband and an elderly neighbour from the village are accompanying her. She is suffering from breast cancer that was discovered recently and is going to the Bikaner hospital for the first time. Balvinder Singh, the older man in the group, says: “My wife had breast cancer but she overcame it with medicine from the Bikaner hospital.”Gurpreet Singh, a resident of Mansa, tells us: “Cancer has become so common in our parts that now people talk of it as they would of influenza and the only hope is medicine and treatment from Bikaner.” Non governmental organisations and the media have been raising the cancer alarm for quite some time but the Punjab government has been apathetic to it. The cotton-growing Malwa region comprising the southwestern districts of Bathinda, Muktsar, Faridkot and Mansa has shown a high incidence of various kinds of cancer. This is also the region that consumes three-fourths of all pesticides used in Punjab. However, there has been no systematic study of cancer and pesticides.

Dr. D.P. Punia, director of the regional cancer institute in the Bikaner hospital, says: “We do not have any scientific study that can link the use of pesticides with cancer. However, a large number of patients come from the cotton belt of Punjab. On an average 30-plus patients are from that region. The hospital, besides the state of Rajasthan, caters to Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Its standing has improved steadily over the years on the back of the quality, yet inexpensive, service that it has been providing.The mood in this passenger train is, quite understandably, sombre and compassionate. Gauri Shankar, the ticket checker, goes around from compartment to compartment making sure the windows are shut and no one catches cold from the draught. “This train is primarily for the sick and the ailing. We try our best to make the journey easy for those who are in so much of pain.” The night’s journey done, the train crawls into Bikaner Junction and anyone in the Punjabi rural attire is plagued by crowds of auto-rickshawalas wanting to be the first to bag all the people heading for the ‘Cancer Hospital’. Kartar Singh, a patient who has come from Faridkot, says: “The train is cheap and it reaches us in time for the hospital. The out patients get themselves examined, take the prescribed medicine and return home by the same train in the night.” There are several dharamshalas around the hospital and attendants can board and lodge there for Rs 20 to 40. The ticket of the train is just Rs 50 from Bathinda. The hospital is well-equipped.However, what strikes one the most is the very humane attitude of the hospital staff. There is no waiting time and treatment is started at once. The sight of a small child receiving radiation can be unnerving but Dr. V.K. Gupta, who is showing us the hospital, smiles and says: “With the treatment the child is going to be completely all right and live a normal life.” Even when the staff is short, patients are treated well and allowed their dignity in the hour of pain. The statistics reveal that a tremendous job is being done at the Institute. In 2007, 6516 new patients received treatment, 51,676 was the number of follow-up patients and the indoor patients were 184,64. As many as 10,961 patients were given chemotherapy in the wards and 15, 753 patients in the outdoor wards and cottages. The day’s job has been done. The patients who had to take the night train back are already there by evening, well before the scheduled departure time. But the train is late as always but sick men and women huddled on benches with blankets covering them wait as they would for a truant child because this train is their partner in the journey of hope from Bathinda Junction to Bikaner Junction.

At the Wagah-Atari Border

2009-01-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

Smuggled Salaams At Wagah

Nirupama Dutt

Till 50 years ago, Wagah was just another village in the Majah region of Punjab, located between the historic cities of Amritsar and Lahore. Today, the very mention of Wagah conjures up a different image. The image is one of locked gates, barbed wire and armed guards. It spells the finality of a parting. For, it is here that the ceremonial India-Pakistan border is situated. The two iron gates stand firmly on either side of the narrow stretch of the no-man's land. It was on this stretch of land that Saadat Hasan Manto's Bishan Singh breathed his his last looking for his village called Tobah Tek Singh. The act of dying on the no-man's land was the refusal to accept the Radeliffe Line, which cut one country into Hindustan and Pakistan.

But Wagah still has its share of stories, some written and many others unwritten. Only some days ago, an 85-year-old woman approached the border. Security Force (BSF) jawans with the request that she be allowed to meet her sister who was left behind in Pakistan in 1947 and had been traced only recently. The sister met the Pakistan Rangers with a similar request. Both sides granted the request and the two sisters, one a Hindu woman and the other a Muslim, met for four minutes. Recalling the meeting, BSF Commandant H S Rai says: ``Of those four minutes, the two old ladies spent over a minute just weeping, and in the rest they exchanged a few worlds.''

That's Wagah for you, the last border village of Pakistan. The village this side is called Atari. For some time it was called the Wagah-Atari border. But Wagah was closer to the border than Atari. So why name the divide after two villages? Wagah alone would do. And there is a very interesting side of Wagah. It is not just relatives who reach here to meet. Nor the messiahs of peace and brotherhood bearing torches and candles, and led by Kuldip Nayar and other secular Punjabis as was done last year on August 14, the day of Pakistan's independence – and is being done again this year with an equal participation from across the fence unlike last year.

Nor just the tribe of writers and poets who chose to go sentimental here on the night of December 31 last year. The venue was chosen for the Raja Porus Mela. Yes, the same Porus of Sikandar ne Porus se ki hi ladai fame. Well, Porus was defeated a second time, thanks to the lack of coordination among the Indian hosts, so the Pakistani delegation reached a bit too soon and moved into Calcutta.

Neverthless, the result of the one-sided Mela was the setting up of a memorial, still half-built, which comprises a large marble slab inscribed with two celebrated Partition poems. On one side, there's Amrita Pritam calling out to Waris Shah, the Sufi poet who put in verse the story of Heer, one of Punajb's greatest love legends,in ``Ajj akhan waris shah nu kite kabran vichon bol'' ( I call out to Waris Shah to speak from the grave); on the other, it's Faiz Ahmad Faiz speaking on those who died on the road to history in ``Hum jo tarik rahon mein mare gaye''.

What makes Wagah special is that every evening at sunset there assemble thousands of anonymous Indians and Pakistanis on both sides of the border to watch the beating retreat ceremonials, which for the past many decades, but for the unhappy times of war, are held jointly, in complete harmony, right from the march past, the blowing of the bugle and lowering of the two respective flags. The ceremony over, people on both sides are allowed to stand at the gates and simply look at each other.

It is for the glimpse of the other that people come with children in their arms and stand there looking at each other in silence and smiles. For, if anyone tries to wave or speak, the guards cry out, ``No waving, no talking. Just stand and look at each other.'' BSF officials explain: ``Smugglers use the waving of hands for a code indicating whether their goods are reaching or not. So, we do not allow the gesture.'' Incidentally, Amristar is known for its smuggled goods market. Pakistani dupattas and scarves, which are particularly popular here, are supplied all over Punjab.

The crowds start gathering there much before sunset and the time is spent over a cold drink and coffee listening to patriotic songs being piped on our side. A popular number that BSF officials like to play is Mohammad Iqbal's Saare jahan se achha Hindustan hamara. One wonders if the other side is playing a latter-day composition of Iqbal's: Cheen-o-Arab hamara.

On a recent visit to Wagah, though, I came across another kind of music. No longer the patriotic songs. The popular numbers in this the golden jubilee year of the parting are Pardesi, pardesi, jaana nahin from the blockbuster Raja Hindustani and Chappa chappa charkha chale from Gulzar's Maachis. But what's behind the popularity of this speck on India's map? To this query, Commandant Rai answers with a smile: ``For one thing, Wagah is included in the Punjab Tourism package. We have at least one honeymoon couple a day. The other reason is the curiosity the people of the two countries have for each other.''

Regular visitors to the border say the atmosphere is very relaxed and the vibes friendly. Says writer Prem Avtar Raina: ``It has to be. The berlin Wall has crumbled and the barbed wire too will melt. The whole world is moving into an era of ethnic states. And it is good that there is a Punjabi for a prime minister here, and there.'' There are others, too, who like to do such wishful thinking. Gurdip Singh, an aged farmer from Bhullar village, stands there muttering: ``It was one Punjab which was cut into two. People on either side speak the same language.''

As the ceremony is taking place, one hears cries of Pakistan Payamdabad from the other side and soon enough people this side cry out, Bharat Mata Ki Jai, with an occasional Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal thrown in. But these are not war cries of death and destruction as they were in 1947, but a hail-fellow-well-met kind of exchange.

``Ladies and children first,'' cry the guards soon after the beating retreat ceremonials. Women and children run to the gates on both sides to stand and just gaze at each other. ``Look at the Pakistani children, they're just like us,'' cries a child from our side.

Standing in the midst of the crowd my eyes meet those of a young Pakistani woman. I smile and she returns the smile, raising her hand in a salam. I too raise my hand in the return greeting of wahlekum salam. The guards do not notice and the thrill is of having smuggled a salam there on the border. Until the barbed wire sprouts folwers, as a Punjabi poet hopes, it will have to be a salam smuggled across the Wagah border.

The border outpost of Wagah today is a honeymoon destination, its greatest attraction being the daily beating retreat ceremonials watched by thousands from both sides of the divide. Swept by the bonhomie. Nirupama Dutt wonders whether Partition was worth the bloodshed.

``ladies and children first,'' cry the guards soon after the beating retreat ceremonials. Women and children run to the gates on both sides. ``Look at the Pakistani children, they're just like us,'' cries a child from our side.

Heera Mandi of Lahore

2008-12-23T12:07:00.000-08:00

Paintings by Iqbal Husain of the famous bazaar

Diamonds that were not forever

Nirupama Dutt

Come evening and they would be out in their balconies in the finest of silks and jewels. Their eyes would be lined with kohl and their lops red with dandasa, bark of the walnut thre and the most fragrant of eastern perfumes or itars would fill the air. They were known as diamonds and such was their glitter that the whole street would seem studded with stars. These were the courte sans of Heera Mandi of Lahore in the years before Partition in 1947.

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.

Storm over Jallianwala Bagh

2008-12-14T14:15:00.000-08:00

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.

Dilli ki Gallian

2008-12-02T01:11:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

Global Gurgaon

2008-10-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

The old peepul tree painted by Roopchand and a view of a Mall

Old order Changeth

The new takes over the old way of life in what was once a sleepy little town in the Bajra belt, writes Nirupama Dutt, as she travels from the national highway to the memory bylanes

An old joke of Gurgaon says that tents all set up and mats spread on the ground lured a Jat to a congregation. Like the others, he took off his shoes and went in. Bored with the mystical musings, he soon came out and found his shoes gone. Nodding his head knowingly, he said, "I know it all, this was no mela but a pilan to rob me of my shoes."
Seeing their sleepy old Gurgaon town, the original inhabitants of the place seems to be nodding like the Jat in the joke and saying that this big-bang development in their home town is part of the pilan (that’s how plan is pronounced in the Mewati dialect) to rob them of their identity.
Hip, hot and happening. That is the profile of Gurgaon today. Skyscrapers and new age shopping malls make up the skyline of the city. After a hard day’s work, young executives go dancing and drinking all night at the discotheques. It is the outsourcing destination of the country. Name the group and it is here — from GE to Convergys, from Vertex to American Express. Other multinationals like Coke, Pepsi, Nestle, Hitachi and Gillette too are here in full force. Thousands of professionals have bought homes in the new colonies with fancy names like Beverly Hills, Malibu Towne, Laburnum, Mayfield Gardens, Rose Wood, Princeton and even Nirvana.
If a place has got a complete makeover in a very short time, it is here. In fact, the old is no longer in a position to fight the new, which has taken over as the ‘finest address south of Delhi.’ Ask Ankur Sultania, a young executive in the American Express, what it is to live here and he says, "Gurgaon is the place to be in. So much is happening here. Last night my wife and I danced at the Odyssey till three in the morning and then we drove straight down to my parents’ home to fetch our son to celebrate his first birthday in our South City flat." In contrast, a Gurgaon-born and bred businessman dealing in export of garments says, "Development cannot be stopped but with this one-point development pattern followed in our country, the original inhabitants of Gurgaon are feeling that they have lost their identity completely."
The new is very visible here and one has to hunt for the old. It is a long journey indeed from the mythical Guru ka Gram.
The hot ‘n’ rocking Gurgaon is changing rapidly. — Photos by Mukesh Aggarwal
This is the place where Dronacharya taught archery to the Kaurava and Pandava princes and the village along with some surrounding areas is said to have been gifted to him by Yudhishthira.
Wind through the overcrowded lanes of the old city to reach the new railway road and a tank still exists there in the memory of the Guru. This is the only relic said to date back to the times of the Mahabharata.
After Independence, a crudely made Dronacharya temple too was built but for some reason it is shut. Children play cricket in the compound as it is time for the game all over the country. There is also a college called Dronacharya Government College. There is nothing, however, in the memory of Eklavya who gave the Guru the greatest dakshina of all.
Pass the resort at the 32nd milestone, turn left at a point and one is on the Jharsa road. Much of the land of this large village has been taken over by private builders and the road leading to the village is lined with shops selling just about everything from groceries to light cane furniture.
In the village, a Jat farmer, Hoshiar Singh, who has seen some 75 years, takes us to some ruins which were once a part of Begum Samru’s fort. Samru was a unique woman of the 18th century. A singing girl married to a European mercenary, she acquired sizeable property and owned Badshahpur and Jharsa along with a lot of other property in and around Delhi. Her cantonment was in Jharsa and the British moved to this area to keep an eye on her army. "No one comes to see these ruins. Everyone is busy buying and selling land which is as much as Rs 10,000 a yard," says the old farmer.
The villages which constituted the Gurgaon area also offered resistance to the British at the time of the First War of Independence in 1857. People of the region had to pay a heavy price for allying with the ‘mutineers’ and many of them were hanged to death when Delhi fell into the hands of the British. But all this is history and now it is a race to keep up with the lifestyle that the multinationals have forced on the good old Gurgaon.
Neelima Sharma, a theatre actress of Delhi, who is building her home on the Sohna road says, "We moved to Gurgaon because Delhi was overcrowded and we could afford a little more space here. But the new American culture is somewhat unsettling. My husband, a left-wing activist, and I have decided to paint across our balcony the portraits of Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and Ashfaqullah, who laid down their lives during the freedom struggle."
Such emotion and holding onto the past is a rarity in the new life around Gurgaon. The mood is jet-set even as one drives down the Mehrauli- Gurgaon road with its plush farm houses, designer outlets and eateries. It is lasagne and pizza at Village Shop in Sikanderpur, Thai cuisine at Red Hot Curry and drink and dance at The Buzz. Even the dhabas on the National Highway have been given a makeover. Come late evening and the boys and girls from call centres are seen partying along the road with beer bottles in hand. Anita Singh, a young homemaker who is on the party circuit of Gurgaon, says: "Things are changing everywhere. And Gurgaon is no exception to the rule. In fact the local people here are so backward that they find the good life strange."
The landscape is altered and so is the lifestyle with an influx of a large population from outside. The mood is upbeat as young boys wizz past the old Sadar Bazar and girls in hipster jeans and short tops move around Sector 14, developed some two decades ago by HUDA. The most coveted places are the malls providing the great shopping experience along with movies seen in exclusive cinema halls and lounges.
Pawan Kumar, a real estate agent, says: "The National Highway is the dividing line between two different Gurgaons. On the one side is the old Gurgaon, on the other the new and upcoming Gurgaon. It is a greater privilege to be on the other side and, of course, the property too is more costly there." Such is the rush to Gurgaon even with the expressway only half done and the metro still a few years away. So the millennium city moves on no matter what be the pilan.

Mulberries, guavas and the old peepul tree

"There was an old peepul tree in the heart of our village. A platform was built around it for the village elders to sit on. We would often play there and eat the tiny yellow peepli fruits. How we loved that tree!"

So says Roop Chand, a seasoned artist from Dundahera village, who was born to a land-owing peasant Brahmin of the Jangehra clan with a lineage of idol-makers. If memory fights forgetting, it is at his studio-home where the millet fields of his father once stood. Sitting in the artistically built square home, which also serves as an art centre founded by him here some three decades ago, choked between workshops making Maruti parts in Gurgaon’s Udyog Vihar, he recalls: "We would bleed the kikkar trees for gum and make ink of it. And there was the game of kai danka that we played among the lashurha trees. The den could not catch anyone who climbed the tree."

In the small garden round his place with sloping roofs is a wild mulberry tree. "Mulberries and guavas grew aplenty in this region. My father grew bajra, jowar and vegetables. We had two workers and my mother and five of us boys helped him in the fields," says the 70-plus artist. He recalls going to the old mosque in Sadar Bazaar with his father, who used get bullock carts made there. "There was a tank by the mosque and I would drink water from it. Once I was doing so and a man said ‘See a Hindu child is drinking water from a Muslim tank.’ My father chided him saying that I was too small to know the religion of water."
"I studied in Coronation Government School in Gurgaon. Some parts of its beautiful Victorian architecture are still there. The most unhappy time was that of the Partition when I saw trucks full of corpses and people fleeing," recalls this chronicler of Gurgaon. "But the elders of our village saved our rangraenj (dyer) Dalmira. His son still lives in the village." With a chuckle, he tells of the 1857 stories handed down by his ancestors, "The villagers caught hold of the British officials here and turned them into farmhands for a few days before Delhi fell. They did not prove to be good workers and when bajre ke roti and onion were served to them, they thought that the roti was a plate."
Roop Chand, who graduated from the J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1958, still paints the landscape as it was in the days of his youth from memory. Taking a swig of German beer, he says: "Much has changed. Prosperity has come. People who could barely eat two meals by tilling their small patches of land now have cars and bungalows. There has been development but we have lost our green fields and fresh air." — N.D.

March 19, 2005, The Sunday Tribune.

The Past in Wazirabad's Present

2008-10-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

In Kumar Vikal's city

Pictures of Palkhu Nala, Guru da Kotha and Hafiz Khilji by Wazirabadi Akram Varraich

On a visit to Pakistan, Nirupama Dutt is impressed by the effort to maintain the composite culture at Wazirabad

AN hour and a half drive from Lahore reaches us to Wazirabad, a city on the banks of the Chenab River where the picturesque Palkhu Nala, a snow stream from the Himalayas joins the big river. It is Id-ul-Zuha and we are to spend it in the home of an artist couple Huma Safdar and Akram Varraich. The first thing that strikes us as yet another Wazirabadi, Sharjeel Anzar, drives us into the old city, is a beautiful old building. We are told that it is an old dak chowki (mail station) built by Sher Shah Suri in 1542 A.D. "It has now been declared a protected monument and the Department of Planning is going to restore it," Anzar tells us.
The day and a half that we spend in this city bring us to many monuments, stories and memories. Old cities have a way with them. Their past is always encased in their present. So it is with Wazirabad, a city that was founded in 1645 AD by Wazir Hakim Illmmudiddin, an amir of Shah Jahan. The town saw a decline in its population at the beginning of the Sikh rule but Sardar Gurbaksh Singh Varraich and his son Jodh Singh restored its glory. During the rule of Maharja Ranjit Singh, General Avitabile was appointed as the nazim of the city. He beautified it and added new structures.
Our enthusiastic hosts after filling our stomachs with choicest of mutton delicacies take us for rounds of old Hindu and Sikh monuments. The most impressive monument is a forlorn gurdwara known as Guru da Kotha. Ranjit Singh ordered the construction of this building in memory of Guru Har Gobind, the sixth of the Sikh Gurus(1595-1640), for he stayed at Wazirabad during his long travels preaching through Punjab and Kashmir. The spherical, segmented dome of the Guru da Kotha rises in splendour above the skyline of the city and is balanced off by four domes at the corners. The old brick structure is very attractive but as one comes closer, the building is decaying. Akram Varaich tells us, "At one time it was the centre for a large annual congregation. But now it stands as a forgotten monument. People have added rooms to it. We wish to preserve these buildings for these represent the common culture of united Punjab."
We are also taken to the old Hindu mohallas including the big haveli of Diwan Badri Das and a Shish Mahal. The residents of the city, proud of their heritage, founded the Apna Wazirabad Bachao society some three years ago. The society has video and book library in the heart of the city as well as a gallery and an auditorium. Hanging proudly among the photographs of famous writers is a portrait of the celebrated writer of Urdu, Krishan Chander. The next addition is to be a portrait of our very own Kumar Vikal, who spent the last three decades of his life in Chandigarh and is remembered as poet of the city, was also born at Wazirabad. Anzar who is the moving spirit behind Wazirabad Bachao, says: "Multi-religious and multi-ethnic societies of Punjab gave the land its colourful culture. All that has been lost in the monopoly settlement. Our effort is at least to document the monuments that still exist in photographs and videos."
We also visit the ancient Shamshan mandir and the mandir in the bazar. The bazar has pictures of Indian film stars like Aishwarya Rai, Kajol and Madhuri Dixit displayed in all splendour. Indian TV soaps are very popular here. A resident tells us that the train used to go all the way to Jammu before the Partition but now it terminates at Sialkot. The city has two artists, painter Akram Varraich and wood sculptor Shaadi Khan. Both have recurring images of the temples and gurdwaras. "It is our way of making amends for those who had to leave their homes. At least, composite culture should be present in art." And they hope that life may imitate art for once.

He saved the Mandir

HAFEEZ KHILJI is a Wazirabadi political activist.Since he does not believe in compromises, he offered resistance and saved the temple in Wazirabad when mobs of the Jamait-e-Islami came to demolish it. This was the period after the demolition of the Babri Masjid here at Ayodhaya. "Hundreds of temples were demolished all over Pakistan but not in our city," the Wazirabadis tell us proudly. Khilji stood outside the temple with a stick in hand and told the mobs, "I will break the legs of any man who tries to come here to destroy the temple."The mobs retreated because they knew that Khilji has the support of the whole city. Chairman of the Union Council and the first man from the lower middle class to have been elected to the post. He defeated the candidate of the aristocracy by a large margin. He belongs to Bhutto’s People’s Party but is critical of the compromises made by Benazir Bhutto.
Khilji writes some poetry, sings very well and reads the poetry of Sufi poet Mohammad Mir. We could do with more political activists of his breed. The last memory of Wazirabad is listening to a song by West Punjabi progressive poet Najm Syed Husain on the banks of the Chenab river.

April 11, 2004, The Sunday Tribune

Jallianwala Bagh

2008-10-25T05:33:00.000-07:00

Dying they raised slogans for change

Nirupama Dutt

Popular patriotic singer Pradeep sang to the refrain of Vande Matram showing children the famous sites of the country's freedom movement. At Amritsar in Punjab, the song soared with: ``Jallianwala Bagh yeh dekho, Yahan chali thhi goliyan, Marane waale bol rahe thhe, Inquilab ki boliyan. (Look here is Jallianwala Bagh where bullets rained; Dying, the people raised slogans for change).''
An outsider may just miss the spot in Amritsar, located close to the Golden Temple, for the narrow entrance is sandwiched between tall commercial buildings. Down the narrow lane is a sign saying this was the passage through which General Dyer led his troops and the guns.
It was on the sacred day of the Baisakhi festival, April 13, 1919, that some 25,000 men, women and children gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh, then a debris-littered compound.
The occasion was a peaceful public meeting held to assert the right of the people to assemble and protest which was curbed by the martial law imposed by then Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, Michael O' Dwyer. Many just came in after offering their prayers at the Golden Temple.
Soon after the meeting started, General Dyer and his troops arrived with the guns. As the machine guns started raining bullets, the dead piled upon the dead. There were tall buildings on four sides of the enclosure and the only exit was blocked by guns. The result was a stampede.
Women and children were crushed under the feet of those trying to escape the firing. Many jumped into the well and a few sought shelter behind the small temple in the enclosure. As many as 379 people were killed on the spot and three times more wounded to die later. As many as 120 bodies were recovered from the well into which people jumped to escape the bullets.
General Dyer in his report to the General Staff Division on August 25, 1919, stated: ``I fired and continued to fire till the crowd dispersed...if more troops had been at hand the casualties would have been greater in proportion. It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of producing a sufficient moral effect....''
This was not all. Amritsar was put under curfew. The water and electricity supplies were cut off. People were flogged in public and made to crawl at the spot where two British women had been assaulted during the uprising against the Rowlatt Act.
The events which led to the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh began with the imposition of the repressive Rowlatt Act. The Act pronounced all trials in camera and consideration of evidence was not admissible. The provincial governments were delegated extraordinary powers to search, arrest and demand security among other things.
Mahatma Gandhi who had assumed the leadership of the Congress Party drafted a pledge asking the people to resort to civil disobedience of these laws. He called for a hartal throughout the country on April 6, 1919. The complete success of the hartal in Lahore and Amritsar unnerved O' Dwyer.
The movement in Amritsar was led by Dr Saiffudin Kitchlew and Dr Satya Pal. They were arrested and deported, Gandhi who was on the way to Punjab was also arrested. Infuriated the people of Amritsar came out on the streets and clashed with military pickets. On April 11, O'Dwyer issued a proclamation prohibiting meetings and processions in the town.
The city was handed over to General Dyer. An article in The Tribune recorded how the tide turned against the British following this: ``The holocaust at Jallianwala Bagh showed off the Britishers at their worst.
They made us crawl on our bellies and shot us down as wild pariah dogs. That incidentally put a nail in the coffin of the British Empire in India. We had indeed come to the parting of ways.''
The whole world was shocked by this massacre of innocent people. Renouncing his knighthood, Rabindranath Tagore stated in a letter of protest to the Viceroy on May 31, 1919: ``The time has come when the the badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those my countrymen who, for their so-called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings...''
The result of the bloodbath was soon evident. Horrified by the presentation of a siropa (robe of honour) to General Dyer by the priest of the Golden Temple, the Akalis launched the Gurdwara Reform Movement to guard the sanctity of the religious places.
The Bharat Naujawan Sabha which was to produce revolutionary patriots like Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh was also launched then. And Gandhi was accepted as a leader by all Indians. Percinol Landol writing for The Daily Telegraph of London put it very succinctly: ``It must not be forgotten that when at Amritsar General Dyer crushed a rebellion, he paved the way for the undisputed supremacy of Gandhi.''
Dyer was unrepentant when strictures were passed against him by the British Parliament, but he died a lonely man in 1928. Revenge was to come some 21 years later when Micheal O' Dwyer who had imposed the martial law in Punjab was shot dead in Caxton Hall in London by Udham Singh.
At the time of the holocaust Udham Singh was 20. Udham Singh came under the influence of the Ghadar movement and on March 13, 1940, under the assumed name of Mohammad Singh Azad shot dead O' Dwyer. Udham Singh was sentenced to death and executed on July 31, 1940.
The Martyrs' Gallery at Jallianwala Bagh displays with honour a portrait of Udham Singh with his famous lines from the trial in England: ``What greater honour can be bestowed on me than death for the sake of my motherland?'' The outrage which was felt by every Indian was thus expressed by Udham Singh whose assumed name suggested that he was representing the secular tradition.
Freedom struggle revisited
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 1919 Jallianwala Bagh is the worst memory of the British rule. Almost eight decades after it shocked the world, Nirupama Dutt travels to the spot to reconstruct the massacre which mirrored British brutality and the undying spirit of freedom.
From the files
*The Congress boycotted the Inquiry Committee appointed by the Government. It set up its own committee comprising Mahatma Gandhi, M.R.Jayakar, C.R.Das and Abbas Tyabji. The findings showed that there was no conspiracy to overthrow the government in Punjab, no reasonable cause to justify the imposition of the martial law and the Jallianwala massacre was a calculated piece of inhumanity towards innocent and unarmed people.
* 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 very 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. ``It is a close emotional bond. We belong to this place,'' says Mukherjee.
Indian Express, April 1997

Funjabi Festival

2008-10-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

Two pictures from Damdama Sahib by Dev Inder

Baisakhi - A Very Funjabi Festival

Baisakhi has evolved from a harvest festival embodying religious fervour to a global celebration of Punjabi exuberance. Nirupama Dutt captures the flavour of Baisakhi from Damdama Sahib to Trafalgar Square

"So you have come for the Baisakhi Mela?" The rickshawala asks in his earthy Punjabi and before waiting for an answer asks another question, "Why haven’t you brought your children?" ‘Children’ in Punjabi parlance includes the spouse. Not wanting to perplex this friendly Talwandi Sabo man, I reply tactfully, "You see the children are having their exams." It is not the done thing for a single woman to be heading for a Baisakhi mela at Damdama Sahib. People go to melas with families, friends and sometimes the entire village neighbourhood. As he drops me at a house by the famous gurdwara, he adds, "Next time do bring the children."
Well, there is always a next time for a mela in Punjab for the folks are as ‘funjabi’ as they can be. But the Baisakhi mela is celebrated with a heightened sense of jubilation. Baisakhi or Vaisakhi derives its name from the month of Vaisakh and marks the new year of the Indian calendar just a little short of mid-April. It is usually the 13th day of the month and some times spilling over to the 14th. It has been a time for celebration since ages and for the Punjabis it was the harvest festival to be ushered in with the shout of Jatta aayi Vaisakhi.
In 1699, the festival got an added dimension as the 10th Guru of the Sikhs founded the Khalsa panth this day at Anandpur Sahib. Soon after followed the Guru’s battles with the Mughals. After the pain and sorrow of war, including losing his four sons, Guru Gobind Singh came to rest on a sandy mound at Talwandi Sabo. It was here that the Guru and his armies celebrated Baisakhi once more.

Fun and fair time in Punjab means going to the Maghi mela in Muktsar in January, Hola Mohalla at Anandpur Sahib in March and Baisakhi at Damdama Sahib.
But of late Baisakhi, like much else, is not just Punjabi fare but a global festival of sorts with the Sikhs scattered all over the world. Since 2003, Vaisakhi is being celebrated with gusto in Trafalgar Square in London with other communities joining the song and dance. Farther away in Toronto it is time for a gala banquet with dinner, dance and entertainment available at $ 150 per person and a discount for students. Last year concerts by ghazal singer Jagjit Singh were a sell-out at Baisakhi time in New York and New Jersey. Not just that, for the first time last year the festival was celebrated in New Jersey State House with Governor James E. Mcgreevy speaking of "our common humanity" to the Sikh community and adding: "Together we can create a better world, a better nation."
So the festival of simple peasant folks has now come with a bang on the international scene. The multinationals too have owned this article with greeting cards, wallpaper and other knickknacks. Celebrations abroad have angel dancers and ‘Funjabi’ pop singers. A long way from the old soft tones of yesteryear Punjabi song in Asa Singh Mastana’s sombre tone speaking of ripe wheat stalks, plenty to eat and spend on and the simple pleasure of the village fair. And now gourmets are offering exotic Baisakhi cuisine, which perhaps would humble the rustic jalebis and pakodas fried in oil as of old.
Although Baisakhi was primarily a harvest festival in which all Punjabis participated, irrespective of what religion they belonged to yet it did a vanishing trick from West Punjab after the Partition. In fact, it had gained identity as a Sikh festival with the establishing of the Khalsa on this day. That was the time when the Sikh Gurus were waging battles against the Mughals. However, at the village level people of all faiths participated in it. Pakistani diplomat Munnawar Bhatti, who comes from the farming stock near Sialkot, says, "In my childhood, well after the creation Pakistan, I recall going to the Baisakhi melas and seeing villagers do the bhangra. But then over the years the practice stopped. It was during the dictatorial regime of Zia-ul-Haq that all multi-faith celebrations with song and dance came to a stop in Pakistan. Painter Akram Varraich, a Muslim Jat of Wazirabad, says: "Old habits die hard and the people of Wazirabad and Amenabad still continue with the practice of taking a dip in the Chenab river on this day."
The traditional significance of Baisakhi is that it marks the completion of a cycle in time and the beginning of new ones. Thus the day is counted most auspicious. Painter Malkit Singh recalling the harvest days in Lande village near Moga, says, "We would cut the crops moving on our haunches. The most haunting image I have of my youth is of the drumbeater. He would beat the dhol to buck us up. Thus we would cut the wheat daylong and wait for lunch, as it would bring rest. Harvest time we would get a special treat of shakkar and ghee to energise us." Gulzar Singh Sandhu, born of peasant stock in Doaba, says, "It is basically a crop festival. This would be a time when the crops would be harvested and money would come home. So it would be time for new clothes and weddings for the eligible." Eating drinking and making merry are the traditional Punjabi traits and Sandhu recalls that on Baisakhi in his Sunni village, the people would pool in to buy the fattest goat and share the meat. He recounts an interesting festival-time anecdote, "I would help my father in the harvest as a boy and those days we cut the crops manually. One Baisakhi my father and uncle went off to the fields to feast on mutton and country-brew and I with my friends. We drank from pitchers buried in the ground and drank so much that neither my father nor I could get up early next morning. We went to the fields nevertheless with sickles in hand. I was hardly able to cut the wheat. My father told me to go home and rest. Later I learnt that the moment I left he too went off to sleep in the fields. Such was our Baisakhi hangover."
And so people get ready to celebrate the big day in a big urban way all over the world and the village folk plan a pilgrimage to the neighbouring gurdwaras and with Guru di kirpa to Damdama Sahib. And my old rickshawala friend will be greeting an odd visitor or two saying, "So you have come to the Vaisakhi mela but why haven’t you brought your children. Do bring them next time!" And there is always a next time, a next Baisakhi and a new beginning.

April 4, 2005, The Tribune

Shah Husain and Madho Lal

2008-10-22T15:43:00.001-07:00

A photograph by Imran Mani

The Cult of Co-existence

Nirupama Dutt visits a unique Sufi tradition in Lahore

Shah Hussain (1538 to 1599) is one of the most quoted and loved poets of the Punjabi Sufi poetry. He lived during the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar and was born the same year in which Guru Nanak passed away. Grandson of a converted weaver he belonged to the Dhuda clan of Rajputs. The other great weaver poet, Kabir, was his forerunner and died some four decades before the birth of Shah Hussain. This son of the weavers chose scholarship as his path and as a young man he became a disciple of Behlol Daryaee of the Qaadri tradition of Sufism which lay emphasis on devotion or bhakti, a concept taken from the Bhagwad Gita. He was the pioneer of the Sufi Kaafi, a genre that is somewhat akin to the sonnet and ranges from four to ten lines in length.
He is the pir-faqir or patron saint of Lahore city and his shrine lies on the side of the famed Shalamar Gardens of Lahore, developed by Mughal emperor Shahjahan. A visit to the city is not considered complete if one has not paid obeisance to the poet-saint at his mazar. However, what comes as a surprise is that unlike the the Punjabis in India, the Punjabis in Pakistan refer to him as Madho Lal Hussain. “Why does one call Shah Husain Madho Lal? Wasn’t Madho Lal the friend and disciple of the great Sufi poet?” These are the obvious questions that come to the lips. Poet and painter Akram Varraich says: “He took the name of his young friend so that his name would be immortalised. A parallel can be found in the Radha-Krishan tradition where the name of the beloved precedes the person’s name.”
Indeed, Shah Hussain's love for a Brahmin Madho Lal is famous, and they are often referred to as a single person with the composite name of Madho Laal Hussain. Madho's tomb lies next to Hussain's in the shrine. The shrine is situated in the Baghbaan colony where once the gardeners who took care of the Shalamar Gardens lived. Outside the shrine one finds small shops selling stoles, scarves and pottery. Pigeons abound the little temple to composite culture. The transistor is playing popular Hindi film songs of the melody era and Lata’s voice reaches the ears: Main piya teri tu maane ya na maane…
Appropriate lyrics indeed at the mazaar of the rebel poet who believed in love, who chose to break away from the rigid tenets of Islam. It is said that at the age of 36, he turned away from the Quran, put on red clothes and started singing and dancing in the streets of old Lahore. He had a considerable following in Lahore and Kasur. While green is the colour of Islam and mazaars but festivity time followers of this Sufi poet come to the shrine to dance and sing, bedecked in red. Lahore-based theatre director Madeeha Gauhar says: “This is one of the most cherished spots in Lahore and it speaks volumes for the culture of togetherness of old Punjab where different faiths lived together in harmony.”
Before the Partition, this memorial to multi-cultural co-existence was the site for the annual Mela Chiragan or Festival of Lights, that had its roots lay in peasant festivity. In medeival times, peasants would come to light lamps to the memory of their favourite poet. In fact the Mughal, Sikh and British administrators continued to celebrate this popular festival right up to the Partition. During the Sikh period, Maharaja Ranjit Singh used to lead the procession of the devotees from the Lahore Fort. However, with the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan the administration withdrew its support to the festival because such song, dance and abandon was considered un-Islamic.
Yet it is hard to destroy a tradition once established. The festival was nearly lost to time until singers like Hamid Ali Bela and Pathane Khan revived it by singing at the shrine and drawing the crowds. Among the singers who have sung the poet with zest are Pathane Khan, Abida Parveen, Jagjit Kaur, Zubaida Khanum, Wadali Brothers and Puran Shahkoti. The Punjabi activists in Pakistan, who are still struggling to get a rightful status for their language, formed Majlis Shah Husain to revive festivity and also highlight the poetry of the Sufi saint. Shah Husasain’s poetry has found critical acclaim on both sides of the border and Indian writer K.S. Duggal says thus of his poetry: "Shah Hussain wrote in impeccable central Punjab idiom and can claim to be one of those writers who have brought mediaeval Punjabi closest to modern usage." Najm Hosain Syed, a celebrated poet and critic of Punjabi in Pakistan describes the myth thus, “Grandson of a convert weaver, he embarrassed every one by aspiring to the privilege of learning what he revered guardians of traditional knowledge claimed to teach. Then again, fairly late in life, he embarrassed every one by refusing to believe in the knowledge he had received from others, and decided to know for himself. He plucked the forbidden fruit anew. “
So the tradion lives on with just one long interruption during the martial law regime of Zia-ul-Haq. But the followers of the man, who dared to pluck the forbidden fruit found ways even to tackle this.
BOX 1 with the story (with B & W pix)
Caption: Najm Hosain Syed leading the dance at Shah Hosain’s mazaar in the Eighties

Dance of Defiance
All music and dance at the mazaar of Shah Husain was brought to an end during the dictatorial regime of Zia-ul-Haq. There was no Mela Chiragan. Thursdays heard no crescendo of the qawwali rising from the mazaar. The sound of music was unheard until after some years progressive university students picked up the drums and reached the shrine. The mood was such that the staid and sober writer Najm Hosain Syed joined the dance as others chanted: Madho Lal, Madho Lal, Mehangi roti, mehangi dal, Ho gaye poore sat saal ( Madho Lal, Madho Lal, for seven years we have had costly roti and costly dal). It was a dig at the socio-political conditions of the times. The protest served a purpose. Dance and song returned to the mazaar.

Egg pakodas at Laala Moosa

2008-10-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

The Missing Link

Nirupama Dutt
MEMORIES are recalled through the senses. There are the memories of the seen, the heard, the felt and the touched. There are also the delicious memories of the taste buds. And if it were not for these mouth-watering remembrances, I would never have known the name of some obscure little town in West Punjab called Laala Moosa. The memory came down from my mother who had not really seen the town but had passed it many times by rail during her sojourns from Rawalpindi to Lahore. What made the name of this town stay alive in her mind long years after Partition, migration and much else were the delicious egg pakodas that were sold at the Lala Moosa railway station.“I have never eaten egg pakodas as tasty as those sold at the Laala Moosa railway station!” She would say this and go onto describe in detail how hard-boiled eggs would be slit sideways, stuffed with spices and then dipped in garlic-flavoured besan batter and boiled to a rich golden brown. On an occasional winter Sunday evening she would prepare this delicacy for us and we loved it. But biting into her own share, she would exclaim, “All right! But the Laala Moosa fare was exceptional.”So this time when I got a chance to visit the Punjab of my parents, I would ask people of the various things I had heard from my elders of the land lost to us in an effort to put together some kind of a patchwork quilt of memories. In the process, I discovered many missing links and a lot more information about things that were still vague in my mind. But when I tried asking people in Lahore about Laala Moosa railway station and the egg pakodas that used to be sold there, I always drew a blank. The imperious Lahoris so proud of their own elegant city had little or no time for some God-forsaken Laala Moosa town.On the last day in Lahore, I sat chatting with Basheer Ahmad who owns an antique shop in the Falleti’s Hotel. Asking him about the rugs, doorknobs, silver jewels and much else that was littered about, I casually asked him of the place he belonged to. “I am from Laala Moosa,” he said. I almost jumped up crying Eureka! but stopped myself in time and launched off on the egg pakodas at the station that my mother used to rave about. The old man smiled and said, “Yes, you still get them at the station there. So many vendors sell just that. It is the speciality of our town.” I had found a missing link.

The Original Lahoran

2008-10-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

So she said

Nirupama Dutt

Where do you come from? This is a question we all have to answer onlytoo often. It is the place a person belongs to that decides many things.For the likes of me born after the Partition of the country to parentswho migrated from West Punjab, the problem of roots and identity hasalways been a complex one. My usual answer to this question would be, "Icome from Chandigarh." Now that Chandigarh has completed fifty years ofexistence, the reply is accepted but some two and a half decades ago Iremember the famous Punjabi short story writer Kulwant Singh Virkgetting vexed at this reply and saying, "No one can belong toChandigarh. Tell me where your parents were from?" When I told him thatmy mother was from Rawalpindi, my father from Lahore and I fromChandigarh, he laughed and said, "So you are the daughter of threeCapitals!"My name on the other hand causes more identity crises. The suffix of'Dutt' often raises doubts about my lingual affiliations. With a Bengalisounding first name that my mother took most probably from one of theSarat Chandra novels that she devoured in her youth, and named herchildren Arvind, Vimal, Salil and so on. With my dark looks highlightingmy name, I have often been taken for a Bengali. Well, this has been helpat times and more so in my career as an art critic. A Bengali name getsan easier entry in culture-land where the pragmatic Punjabis are mostoften 'agriculturally' suspect.So very often I let this case of mistaken identity pass but when I breakinto Punjabi verse, I have had surprised bhadralog raising an eyebrow.Other times I have to tell enthusiastic young artists from Kolkatta whoroll the 'a' present twice in my first name into round roshogullas, addDidi and rattle off in Bangla, that I am a Punjabi. "How come?" followsthe surprised query, "Dutts are Bengalis." I tell them that they arePunjabis too and to convince them, I say ,"The Sunil Dutt variety." Heis the most famous among the Punjabi Dutts.However in a sojourn to Lahore this month, I learnt a lot more about theDutts, who belong to a clan popularly known as Hussaini Brahmins. Theirmythical origin is traced to Dronacharya of the Eklavya thumb infamy.But in history they redeemed themselves by denouncing Brahmanicalpractices and becoming warriors and agriculturalists. In 681 A.D. RahabSidh Dutt fought for the sons of Prophet Mohammad in Karbala andsacrificed seven of his sons in battle on the tenth day of the Moharram.Overwhemled by grief Rahab and his kith and kin returned to their rootsin Punjab and settled down in Lahore. The Muslims remained grateful tothem for their sacrifices in Karbala and they were never forced tochange their relgion. The famous saying about them goes thus_"Wah DuttSultan, Hindu ka dharma, Musalman ka iman, Wah Dutt Sultan, Adha Hindu,adha Musalman." Ma jid Sheikh in an article on the The Dutts of MochiGate in The Dawn of January 6, 2004, writes that they lived in largenumbers in Lahore and fled the city only at the time to the Partition.The writer also mentions that Sunil Dutt gifted $ 100, 000 to ShaukatKhanum Cancer Hospital in the memory of his wife, the celebrated actressNargis.Sheikh records with joy the statement of Sunil Dutt that accompanied thedonation. "For Lahore, a Dutt will even give his life." The Dutts hadput up a brave resistance to Mahmood of Ghazni in Lahore. Sheikh says inhis article that the Dutts along with Manjs and Virks were among theoriginal Lahoris. Dutts may have done something for Lahore but it isLahore that his given me the identity of being an original Lahoran

The girl from Rawalpindi

2008-10-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

The way she was

Nirupama Dutt

The road is certainly leading to Lahore. What with the premiers of the two countries only too eager to hitch the inaugural joy ride to and fro. The past fifty and one years, it has been the lure of Lahore which has haunted the nostalgia of the migrants of the partitioned Punjab. Being the cultural capital of the pre-1947 Punjab, it has remained a symbol of togetherness. The oft-quoted lament, Jis Lahore nahi vekhea, Oh janmea nai (He who has not seen Lahore is not born), drew condescending smiles. But those who had to flee this city on the banks of the Ravi are perhaps the only ones who can truly feel the loss. Ask the Bengalis what would have been there lot if Calcutta had gone to the other side, and they understand. Lahore was the Punjabis' Calcutta.
But I happen to know someone who never thought much of Lahore. She was a girl from Raw-alpindi married to a man from Lahore. And what a comedown it was for her. Why? It's linked to anthropological linguistics. Punjab has these broad geographical, cultural andlinguistic divisions. Raw-alpindi falls in the supposedly superior position of being at the foothills in the area known as Pothoar, while Lahore is in the mainland of Majha just as Amritsar is. Never mind Lahore with its Kinnaird College, Panjab University, film studios, theatres, famed Anarkali Bazar and ill-famed Hira Mandi, this our girl from Rawalpindi had many prejudices against Lahore and Lahoris.For one, folks in her part of Punjab were fairer, taller, better-spoken, and more cultured. So she said. While people came all the way from Rawalpindi to shop at Lahore, she preferred Pindi's Moti Bazar. She remained loyal to her dialect of Pothoari and always said, ``Just hear these Lahoris speak, it's like they're hurling stones at you.'' The sari-wearing middle-class women of Lahore put her off. Most of them spent the daytime in just a blouse and petticoat and wrapped around a sari only when it was time for the men to come home from work. She came from parts where it had to be a salwar so wide that itcovered an entire clothes line. When worn it fell in graceful and modest fold upon fold. The Lahorans, according to her, were lazy. They bought fried savouries from hawkers. The Pothoarans were so kitchen-proud, cooking the most delicious dish of saag, curds, gram flour with just half a handful of rice thrown in. And who could beat their tandoor-fresh rotis of yeast-risen flour. They'd just melt in the mouth with white home-made butter.
With so superior a background she queened over the lesser creatures of Lahore who made up her husband's huge family of brothers and sisters, their children and relatives. A dig or two at her for the Pothoari being smooth talkers and much too clever would be made, but she retained her status of the faithful wife, ideal aunt, fond mother, caring sister-in-law. Each role she played out with immense ease. Now to understand the Pothoar girl, one has to go all the way to a poem written by Punjabi poet Mohan Singh. Called Kudhi Pothoar di (Girl from Pothoar) it describes the loveat first sight the poet feels for the tall, well-made lass trying to cross a bubbling brook with a bundle on her head. He goes to her and offers help. She hands him the bundle, holds his hand, smiles. But when she gets to the other end, she takes her bundle and wishes goodbye to the besotted man saying, ``May you live long, my BROTHER.'' Such is the guile, the simpler folks of Lahore never learnt.
The lass in the poem could well be the girl I happen to know. My mother. Now in her mid-eighties, she can no longer speak her sweet dialect. A paralytic stroke left her bed-ridden and bereft of speech. But she still smiles and queens from the bed with her so sure and superior an air. And when I am asked of my origins, I say, ``My father was from Lahore...'' But am quick to add, ``My mother's from Rawalpindi.''

In Anarkali Bazaar

2008-10-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Bano Bazaar Chaat

Nirupama Dutt

The subject in the message of my mailbox was “Bano Bazaar Chaat”. The sender was some Tauheed. What could it be? I could not recall the name Tauheed. Was it some advertisement or some new “chat” group misspelled “chaat”. Curiously, I opened it. It was a fond little note from a pretty middle-aged lady I had encountered at the Bano Bazaar Chaat shop some time ago in Lahore.
Now, Bano Bazaar is the name of a shopping market meant for women in Lahore’s famous Anarkali. Name the thing a woman may need and it can be found in this bazaar. It has rows and rows of charming shops across a maze of lanes and one can never tire of seeing the interesting wares sold here.
There are refreshments available for women who may shop themselves tired. Most famous is a little chaat shop in the heart of the bazaar selling plates of delicious chaat. In a delegation of women poets on their way to recite their poems at a mushaira in Gujranwala, we too partook of the delicacy.
This pretty woman across started chatting. Learning that we were a bunch of bards from India, she was very pleased. “I love literature and wanted to write but that was not to be. Instead, I worked as an accounts officer. My one wish is to see Amrita Pritam,” she gushed.
She did not know that the famed poetess had passed away the previous year. We talked a little and then parted ways with a “Khuda-Hafiz”.
Half an hour later, she traced us at a curio shop and insisted that we came to her place for dinner. We declined because we already had a dinner appointment. However, e-mail addresses were exchanged.
Much later, there was this e-mail with a reminder of the Bano Bazaar Chaat rendezvous. First, she wanted to know where she would be able to get an Amrita Pritam book in Shahmukhi. Then she revealed that she remained single and took care of her parents. But now with both of them gone, especially her mother, she was depressed.
The story seemed familiar and I told her that I went through the same when I lost my mother some years ago but overcame it by writing about her. Why didn’t Miniya, for now we were on a nickname basis, try the same.
Some days later she sent me a poignant poem written in memory of her Ammi: ‘Sham dhale paon se poochhti hoon din ki thakan, Aur soone ghar mein aati hai ammi ki awaz, Aa gayi bitiya…”. So the Bano Bazaar Chaat has the power not only to forge crossborder friendships but also inspire cathartic poetry.

Lahore Any Day

2008-10-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

A Lahore photograph by Akram Varraich

A city that’s a theme for a dream

Lahore di sair can last a lifetime as there is much to see, says Nirupama Dutt

AS the old Punjabi adage goes, the one who has not seen Lahore is yet to be born. This was the phrase used by Asghar Wajahat for his play Jis Lahore Nahi Wekheya O' Janmeya Nahi. Set against the backdrop of the Partition riots, this play was made famous in a production by famed theatre director, Habib Tanvir. With the division of Punjab in 1947, East Punjab lost its capital. The new-grown city of Chandigarh could not quite fill the gap. East Punjab was indeed poorer without Lahore. Can one think of Bengal without Kolkata? The same goes for Punjab and Lahore.
Founded probably between the first and seventh century of the Christian era, Lahore saw the Hindu rule in the beginning, the Mughals, the Sikhs and the British. Now it is the prized city of Pakistan. Way back in the days of the Raj, it used to be called the Paris of Asia. That glamour lingers even in the rather conservative Islamic Pakistan. The Lahoris will proudly say, "Fashion starts from Lahore and then reaches Karachi." For someone like me who had read and heard so much about this city, a visit to Lahore has to it a sense of deja vu. There in the middle of the passing traffic in the heart of the city stands the Lakshmi Mansion where the great storyteller of Urdu, Saadat Hasan Manto, used to stay. The building still boasts of a faded little signboard that says Saadat Hasan Manto Yahan rehate thhe. Go a little further and one sees the board of the Tea House that was a favourite haunt of Manto and other progressive writers. Sadly, it has been closed down.
A popular Punjabi song celebrates the city thus: Mainu Lahore di sair kara de ve, Main na tere ton kujh hore mangadi. The girl pleads to her love that he should take her around Lahore city and she will ask for nothing more. And once one starts Lahore di sair, one realises that the woman who penned this song was no fool. The city is simply enchanting. The first evening in Lahore, with Punjabi writer Zubair Ahmed as guide, starts with some soulful singing of Sufi music at the Lahore Chitarkar Art Centre in Gulberg and then on to the Food Street. Well, the Food Street at Gawalmandi is certainly picturesque and quite Parisian in its concept. The old havelis with arched balconies and bamboo blinds are lit up and the street is closed to traffic in the evenings. The shops lay the tables out in the street and the fare is a gourmet's delight and the gourmand's rhapsody. After a delicious non-vegetarian meal, one can sweeten the mouth with phirni served the Jama Masjid-style in flat earthen bowls. Now it is not Punjabi prejudice, believe me the Gawalmandi phirni is far more tasty. Zubair tells me that the reason for this is that it is made of the pure 'n' rich Punjab milk. Well, he is probably right. In Delhi now nothing is pure, not even the air.
Lahore di sair can last a lifetime for there is so much to see. Now I realise the import of the folk song quoted above in which roaming Lahore is all that the belle asks of her love. Clever girl, she designed it such that they be together a lifetime. Some of my most exciting moments are in the Bano Bazar at Anarkali buying lawn and chikan suits and eating Russian salad sold in small kiosks. The Punjab University ( there the Punjab is spelt with a U) buildings and the Government College buildings stand handsome by the road. The expanse of the Shai Masjid is thrilling and the ceramic tiles that panel the Masjid Wazir Khan are a delight to the eye. The fort and the palace known as Takht Lahore are very dear to the Punjabi psyche for that is where Maharja Ranjit Singh ruled.
The sojourn through the city is not complete unless one has seen the museum and the two famous gardens. Mughal emperor Shahjahan laid out the Shalamar gardens on the Amritsar 1637. The garden has lost much of its original glory and land. The Lawrence Gardens adjoining the Mall are still glorious. Laid out in 1868, it has innumerable species of exotic tropical trees. Many of the trees have seen hundred or more years and stood like sentinels of the sorrows of the people for as the song of the old folks goes— Rukh chandre bhaide na bolade vey dukh tera sab jaanade. (Although the trees cannot speak, thjey know of all your sorrows). The Ravi too sobs on. The smallest of the Punjab rivers, it is further shrunk in the waters' dispute between the two Punjabs that fall in two different countries called Hindustan and Pakistan. When the visa says one can stay no more, one returns full of Lahore. Now it is time to share the experience. I write to my poet friend Amarjit Chandan, who lives in London and has had greater access to Lahore than we have had. He writes back underlining the reason for the lure of Lahore: "There is something magical about Lahore that does every Punjabi proud. Of course, the Ravi has dried up but once the borders are pulled down, the water will flow into it as it did for hundreds of years. Is this wishful or better still ‘Punjabiful’ thinking that celebrated the city thus in song, Ucha burj Lahore da; Heth vage dariya. (Tower of the fort stands tall; Down below the river flows) .

Romancing the Chenab

2008-10-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

Drowning Desire

Nirupama Dutt

THE Chenab is the largest of the five rivers of Punjab and also the most rapid. It is picture pretty with low but open banks that are still well wooded. Perhaps its scenic beauty contributed to the three love-legends of the land that blossomed around it — Mirza-Sahiban, Heer-Ranjha and, of course, Sohni-Mahiwal. The last romance ended in the drowning of Sohni as she went to meet her Mahiwal, swimming across the river with a half-baked earthen pitcher.
It was the Chenab and the Jhelum that were lost to East Punjab as the Radcliff line cut through Punjab. Yet, the Chenab became the most important metaphor of love, longing and pain in the works of writers and painters in our Punjab of two rivers and a half. Amrita Pritam in her famed Partition poem called out to Waris Shah to see the misery of the land and said that the Chenab was full of blood.
In the fifties, Andretta-based Sobha Singh painted Sohni-Mahiwal in ecstasy in the waters of the Chenab. Earlier, an 18th century painter of the Pahari School, Nainsukh Sen, had painted a miniature of Sohni swimming across the Chenab. But it was Sobha Singh’s work that became so popular that its print found its way for many decades into the drawing rooms of middle class Punjabis. In recent years other Punjabi painters like Satish Gujaral, Manjit Bawa and Aparna Caur have re-painted the romance.
During a recent visit to Wazirabad in West Punjab, one got a chance to see the beauty and bounty of this vast old river that keeps rolling on. The people call it Pir the Chenab and as they pass it they throw coins and flowers into its waters.
Across the river from Wazirabad is the area of Gujarat, which according to legend was the home of Sohni. The inevitable question that comes to the lips as one walks through the rushes on the side of the mighty river is that at what place did Sohni cross the river to be at Mahiwal’s hut? This because the enchantment of the Chenab is such that past and present; myth and truth all blend into magic realism.
Sodara, some four miles away from Wazirabad towards the east, is believed to be the place for the midnight rendezvous. But it is in the woods on its banks at Wazirabad that a wood engraver of the town named Shaadi Khan, a migrant from Gurdaspur, has etched out the image of Sohni on a tree. Well, Sohni is the symbol of the collective Punjabi imagination. So reach out and she will be there and here, never mind the Radcliff line!