Chalte Chalte

Thursday, January 1, 2009

The Cancer Train

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

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.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Heera Mandi of Lahore

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.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Storm over Jallianwala Bagh

The renovation of the Jallianwala Bagh is drawing a lot of flak from veteran patriots, but the old order is yielding place to the new, reports Nirupama Dutt

Just Imagine the grandson of a Jallianwala Bagh veteran visiting the site where hundreds of Indian patriots had lost their lives to British brutality at Amritsar, Punjab, during the freedom struggle. Imagine the plight of a grandson who has heard from his grandfather what was there in the monument to the historic event, that turned the tide of the Indian freedom struggle. Imagine yourself, as one such grandson, almost hearing the fading, aged voice of your grandfather, and then keen to come and see if what he had said was there, but you could not find it: Reason? Government renovation of those of others like him. Damned, the beloved country’s governance!Jallianwala Bagh is not just another recreational spot for tourists, but a ‘sacred’ place today. This public park, close to the Golden Temple of Amritsar, witnessed a massacre on April 13, 1919. It was meant to be a peaceful public meeting for the Baisakhi festival, to assert the right of people to assemble and protest, which was curbed by the martial law imposed by the then Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, Michael O’ Dwyer. Many in the assembly were just people who had come to say morning prayers at the Golden Temple. Soon after the meeting started, Brigadier-General Dyer opened fire on an unarmed gathering of 25,000 men, women and children. The firing lasted about 10 minutes and 1650 rounds were fired, or 33 rounds per soldier and hundreds were killed by the bullets while others fell into the well trying to escape and many were hurt in the stampede.The renovations are fraught with problems, even as the work is in full progress. The reason for protests by historians and freedom fighters is that some of the important historical relics are being lost in the process. Terming the renovation of historical lanes of Jallianwala Bagh as defacement and destruction of the historical monument, president of Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall Committee 101-year-old Ghadri Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga has sought the intervention of the Prime Minister in the case. “The two already demolished historical lanes of Jallianwala Bagh should be reconstructed, and the third one should not be razed in the name of widening the entry point for VVIPs’ vehicles,” says a vocal critic.However, most of these protests have fallen on deaf ears. A public interest litigation filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in September 2008 was dismissed, and the initial stay given on the petition was vacated. The order of dismissal signed by Chief Justice TS Thakur and judge Surya Kant says: “If the Government, the Trust and the Managing Committee have put their heads together and conceived a plan intended to revitalise and preserve the Memorial (sic)for the future generations, we see no reason why the petitioner should find fault with the same, particularly in exercise of the extraordinary public interest writ jurisdiction of the court.”

The background goes like this. In 1923, the trust purchased land for the project from the Jallewala Sardars at a hiked-up price of Rs 5.65 lakh. The money was gathered by an international appeal for a memorial issued by Mahatma Gandhi. The British Government in India was keen to turn the Jallianwala Bagh into a cloth market so that all traces of the incident were wiped out. Nationalist leaders, however, formed a committee headed by Madan Mohan Malviya. The land was purchased from the Jallewala Sardars at a hiked up price of Rs 5.65 lakh. The money was gathered by an international appeal for a memorial issued by Mahatma Gandhi. The upkeep of Jallianwala has been with a Mukherjee family of Bengal. S.C. Mukherjee, an associate of Malviya, was appointed the first secretary of the Trust. It subsequently went to his son and now to his grandson S. Mukherjee. A memorial designed by American architect Benjamin Polk was built on the site and inaugurated by the then-President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, on 13 April 1961, in the presence of Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders. A flame was later added to the site. However, the past few decades have seen the monument in neglect and decay with only a fraction of the people who come to the splendorous Golden Temple next doors visiting it. Interestingly, the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Committee is headed by the Prime Minister of the country. But in spite of the high profile management, the memorial suffered complete neglect during the past many decades. Defending the renovation work, trustee S. Mukherjee says; “We are not destroying any historical site. In fact we are preserving and renovating the memorial so that more people can relate to it. Otherwise the old building would have crumbled.” However, one of the lanes demolished was the one in which patriot Udham Singh, who was later to kill General Dyer in England, had helped the injured and the dying. A new wall is being constructed at the main gate for a light and sound show that is to be introduced here. However, ITDC engineer maintains that the bullet marks on the walls are being preserved carefully and red sandstone is being used to give the monument a heritage look.The ambitious project was proposed by Maninderjit Singh Bitta, former president of the Indian Youth Congress to late Prime Minister P.V. Narsimha Rao. However, the project could see the light of the day only after a high-level meeting of the board of trustees was held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The project also include making of videos and CDs of the proposed light and sound show and distribute it throughout the country as part of an awareness campaign. The next question is about an entry fee. “All the historical monuments in the country have an entry fee, the only exception being the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial entry for which is free for visitors," says Mukherjee. Baba Bilga says: “The government should not convert the historical monument into a tourist place.” But no one is listening, as the old order changeth, indeed, yielding place to the new.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Dilli ki Gallian

Pilgrimage to poetry

Nirupama Dutt

The big city was suggested by Albert Camus as a remedy to life in society. He called it ‘the only desert within our means’. But deserts have oasis. And Delhi too is not without them. Here they exist in the lanes and the by-lanes. These may be to an outsider unfit to live. But to a Dehlvi these have been the very source of life: The very reason for existence. Remember the famous couplet by Ustad Zauq written at a time when Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was in exile, the decline of the old city had started and no patronage was available to the poets, who had started migrating to Deccan for sheer survival:

In dinon garche Dakhan meinHai badhi Qadr-e-sukhan,
Par kaun jaye Zauq par Dilli ki Galiyan chhodh kar

So to a sacred gali, which is not a part of the old walled city, but has its very special significance. It is the crowded lane which leads to the dargah of sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. One chanced upon it in the late 70s when a painter friend took me there one evening with her for she wanted to say a prayer for a friend who was admitted to a hospital in a precarious state following an accident. So we walked past the naan-kabab joints and shops selling incense sticks, Khuss and sandal perfumes in small glass bottles, and offerings of flat baskets strung with Indian pink roses. The prayer was said. The ailing friend died a few days later. It is the act of the prayer that counts and not the fact that it is answered or not.

The gali and the dargah stayed with one as it would with a resident of Chandigarh, a too new and planned a city to have by-lanes dating back into history or culture. Yet another reason was being adderessed as `Begum Sahiba’, never mind one’s shabby clothes and worn-out walking shoes, by the shopkeepers hawking out their wares. So one returned many a time for this pilgrimage, which is a pilgrimage to poetry.

For in close proximity in this area are the tombs of different poets of different ages. Close to the mazar of the Auliya is the mazar of his dear disciple Amir Khuro, who is hailed as the first poet of Hindi. While Khusro was proficient in Persian and Arabic, he yet chose to write a body of verse in Khadhi boli, language of the people here. It is said that once happy with Khusro, Hazrat Nizamuddin said: “Ask for what you wish and it will be granted.’’

And Khusro asked for `melody and intensity’ in his verse. That is perhaps the greatest boon any writer would wish for. For Khusro of `Chhap-tilak taj deenhi re tose naina mila ke’ fame, the boon sure was granted and his verses have stood the test of time. Nearby are also the tombs of Khan Khanan and Jehanara. And by the side of the lane near the Ghalib Akademi is the mazar of Ghalib, one of the best loved of the poets of the land.

The lane also has many a sad scene to show. To the dargah of the `Gharibnawaz’, who gives out of boons and alms even without the asking, the poor and the suffering come in large numbers. The overcrowed, shabby lane also represents the fading away of an era and the ghettoisation of a culture and people. Yet spirit and the mood of the people soars above the situation as does the crescendo of the Qawali every Thursday:`Ab mori naya paar karoji…,

Walk to the mazar late evening and the durbans of `Karim’s’, a popular Mughalai restaurant, stand in their maroon sherwanis and white turbans at the beginning the the street. Their job is to flash torches and guide cars to find parking space. A little before the mazar, the auditorium of the Ghalib Akademi is all lit up. A mushaira is in progress. The theme is Dilli again with Urdu poet Astraaar Jaamayee addressing Badshah Zafar whose greatest misfortune was that he could not be buried here. Telling him of what the city has turned into with crowding, pollution, inflation and what not he has his little dig saying that here two yards of land will now cost 70 grand:

Keh do Zafar se Dilli ke us Kooh-e-yaar mein
Do gazzamin milti hai ab satahar hazar mein.

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.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Global Gurgaon

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.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

The Past in Wazirabad's Present

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