Pilgrimage to poetry
Nirupama Dutt
The big city was suggested by Albert Camus as a remedy to life in society. He called it ‘the only desert within our means’. But deserts have oasis. And Delhi too is not without them. Here they exist in the lanes and the by-lanes. These may be to an outsider unfit to live. But to a Dehlvi these have been the very source of life: The very reason for existence. Remember the famous couplet by Ustad Zauq written at a time when Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was in exile, the decline of the old city had started and no patronage was available to the poets, who had started migrating to Deccan for sheer survival:
In dinon garche Dakhan meinHai badhi Qadr-e-sukhan,
Par kaun jaye Zauq par Dilli ki Galiyan chhodh kar
So to a sacred gali, which is not a part of the old walled city, but has its very special significance. It is the crowded lane which leads to the dargah of sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. One chanced upon it in the late 70s when a painter friend took me there one evening with her for she wanted to say a prayer for a friend who was admitted to a hospital in a precarious state following an accident. So we walked past the naan-kabab joints and shops selling incense sticks, Khuss and sandal perfumes in small glass bottles, and offerings of flat baskets strung with Indian pink roses. The prayer was said. The ailing friend died a few days later. It is the act of the prayer that counts and not the fact that it is answered or not.
The gali and the dargah stayed with one as it would with a resident of Chandigarh, a too new and planned a city to have by-lanes dating back into history or culture. Yet another reason was being adderessed as `Begum Sahiba’, never mind one’s shabby clothes and worn-out walking shoes, by the shopkeepers hawking out their wares. So one returned many a time for this pilgrimage, which is a pilgrimage to poetry.
For in close proximity in this area are the tombs of different poets of different ages. Close to the mazar of the Auliya is the mazar of his dear disciple Amir Khuro, who is hailed as the first poet of Hindi. While Khusro was proficient in Persian and Arabic, he yet chose to write a body of verse in Khadhi boli, language of the people here. It is said that once happy with Khusro, Hazrat Nizamuddin said: “Ask for what you wish and it will be granted.’’
And Khusro asked for `melody and intensity’ in his verse. That is perhaps the greatest boon any writer would wish for. For Khusro of `Chhap-tilak taj deenhi re tose naina mila ke’ fame, the boon sure was granted and his verses have stood the test of time. Nearby are also the tombs of Khan Khanan and Jehanara. And by the side of the lane near the Ghalib Akademi is the mazar of Ghalib, one of the best loved of the poets of the land.
The lane also has many a sad scene to show. To the dargah of the `Gharibnawaz’, who gives out of boons and alms even without the asking, the poor and the suffering come in large numbers. The overcrowed, shabby lane also represents the fading away of an era and the ghettoisation of a culture and people. Yet spirit and the mood of the people soars above the situation as does the crescendo of the Qawali every Thursday:`Ab mori naya paar karoji…,
Walk to the mazar late evening and the durbans of `Karim’s’, a popular Mughalai restaurant, stand in their maroon sherwanis and white turbans at the beginning the the street. Their job is to flash torches and guide cars to find parking space. A little before the mazar, the auditorium of the Ghalib Akademi is all lit up. A mushaira is in progress. The theme is Dilli again with Urdu poet Astraaar Jaamayee addressing Badshah Zafar whose greatest misfortune was that he could not be buried here. Telling him of what the city has turned into with crowding, pollution, inflation and what not he has his little dig saying that here two yards of land will now cost 70 grand:
Keh do Zafar se Dilli ke us Kooh-e-yaar mein
Do gazzamin milti hai ab satahar hazar mein.
The big city was suggested by Albert Camus as a remedy to life in society. He called it ‘the only desert within our means’. But deserts have oasis. And Delhi too is not without them. Here they exist in the lanes and the by-lanes. These may be to an outsider unfit to live. But to a Dehlvi these have been the very source of life: The very reason for existence. Remember the famous couplet by Ustad Zauq written at a time when Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was in exile, the decline of the old city had started and no patronage was available to the poets, who had started migrating to Deccan for sheer survival:
In dinon garche Dakhan meinHai badhi Qadr-e-sukhan,
Par kaun jaye Zauq par Dilli ki Galiyan chhodh kar
So to a sacred gali, which is not a part of the old walled city, but has its very special significance. It is the crowded lane which leads to the dargah of sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. One chanced upon it in the late 70s when a painter friend took me there one evening with her for she wanted to say a prayer for a friend who was admitted to a hospital in a precarious state following an accident. So we walked past the naan-kabab joints and shops selling incense sticks, Khuss and sandal perfumes in small glass bottles, and offerings of flat baskets strung with Indian pink roses. The prayer was said. The ailing friend died a few days later. It is the act of the prayer that counts and not the fact that it is answered or not.
The gali and the dargah stayed with one as it would with a resident of Chandigarh, a too new and planned a city to have by-lanes dating back into history or culture. Yet another reason was being adderessed as `Begum Sahiba’, never mind one’s shabby clothes and worn-out walking shoes, by the shopkeepers hawking out their wares. So one returned many a time for this pilgrimage, which is a pilgrimage to poetry.
For in close proximity in this area are the tombs of different poets of different ages. Close to the mazar of the Auliya is the mazar of his dear disciple Amir Khuro, who is hailed as the first poet of Hindi. While Khusro was proficient in Persian and Arabic, he yet chose to write a body of verse in Khadhi boli, language of the people here. It is said that once happy with Khusro, Hazrat Nizamuddin said: “Ask for what you wish and it will be granted.’’
And Khusro asked for `melody and intensity’ in his verse. That is perhaps the greatest boon any writer would wish for. For Khusro of `Chhap-tilak taj deenhi re tose naina mila ke’ fame, the boon sure was granted and his verses have stood the test of time. Nearby are also the tombs of Khan Khanan and Jehanara. And by the side of the lane near the Ghalib Akademi is the mazar of Ghalib, one of the best loved of the poets of the land.
The lane also has many a sad scene to show. To the dargah of the `Gharibnawaz’, who gives out of boons and alms even without the asking, the poor and the suffering come in large numbers. The overcrowed, shabby lane also represents the fading away of an era and the ghettoisation of a culture and people. Yet spirit and the mood of the people soars above the situation as does the crescendo of the Qawali every Thursday:`Ab mori naya paar karoji…,
Walk to the mazar late evening and the durbans of `Karim’s’, a popular Mughalai restaurant, stand in their maroon sherwanis and white turbans at the beginning the the street. Their job is to flash torches and guide cars to find parking space. A little before the mazar, the auditorium of the Ghalib Akademi is all lit up. A mushaira is in progress. The theme is Dilli again with Urdu poet Astraaar Jaamayee addressing Badshah Zafar whose greatest misfortune was that he could not be buried here. Telling him of what the city has turned into with crowding, pollution, inflation and what not he has his little dig saying that here two yards of land will now cost 70 grand:
Keh do Zafar se Dilli ke us Kooh-e-yaar mein
Do gazzamin milti hai ab satahar hazar mein.
Ghalib then and now
Ghalib
The narrow streets wind like
Arguments in the
Mohalla of Ballimaran…
And in the dark gloomy street
Known as Gali Kasim
A row of lamps is lit
The Quran of words opens
At a luminous page
On which is written
the address of
Asadullah Khan Ghalib.’
-Gulzar
This poem to Ghalib was penned long years back by yet another poet of Delhi. The one who was nurtured in the Sabzi Mandi and years later recalled his mohalla in a lovely children’s song: Ghodha thha ghamandi, pahuncha Subzi Mandi.
Pilgrimage to Ghalib’s abode or tomb was a must for many. More so far this poet who not only took off from a couplet of Ghalib to write one of his most famous songs, Dil dhoondta hai, but also gave a tribute to the poets’ poet in a tele-serial with Nasseruddin shah playing the Mirza.
Mirza Ghalib’s home and tomb were much in news some years ago with Friends for Education going to court with a plea that the haveli of Ghalib be turned into a memorial and the tomb maintained properly. When Gulzar visited Ghalib’s home in Gali Kasim, walking past doors with tattered sacks for curtains and spindly bleating goats on a smoky evening, it was a coal depot.
With progress in time, it now houses at STD-ISD booth, a paper godown and the office of some International Islamic Centre. Many admirers of the poet are pained by it. But the poet would have only been amused for often he referred to his Khana kharab and dream of a home without walls and doors: be daro deevar sa ik ghar banana chahiye.
Time to time Ghalib memorial functions are held in the country. Seminars, articles, musharias and so on take place. But the accent is more on the biographical details of the poet or the physical aspects like a home or a tomb. Amidst all this is a legendary figure who drank and loved a dancing girl and provided couplets for the coming generations of weak-hearted lovers. But what is lost is the real essence of his poetry. For Ghalib was a poet of social protest challenging the state, the fundamentalists, the money-lenders and upheld the status of the creative artist: They want to know who Ghalib is?/Pray, tell me what do I tell them?
It would be not unfit to say that he was a poet for all times for such was his sensitivity in probing the layers of human existence. He felt that he was ahead of his times, as litterateur Gopi Chand narang remarked at a seminar, ``Ghalib was born in the 18th century, he composed his verses in the 19th century, he was understood in the 20th century and he will reach his zenith in the 21st century.’
’
But what needs to be noted is how the 20th century has put him into stereotypes. Says theatre activist Shamsul Islam, ``The popular image of Ghalib is one of a filmi hero. He was turned into a Devdas.’’ Well, Ghalib was no Devdas. He drank, but it was obviously in moderation for he lived to a ripe old age. He must have loved. We all do. But linking it to a dancing girl is our doing. The 20th century imagination was trapped by images of the singing girl Sorab Modi created for his Mirza Ghalib to fit in Suraiya, who rendered his ghazals beautifully in the film. But Bharat Bushan turned him into a Devdas of sorts.
All very well in films and tele-serials but what is painful is to see Ghalib as a doll with a hukka and jaam watching a mujra of yet another doll whose arm is broken over the years. All this just clouds his struggle for existence as a poet in a world hostile to the creative truth. While Naseer gave a memorable performance as Ghalib, Gulzar could not quite set him free of clichés.
Perhaps, one sincere attempt to reinterpret Ghalib was by Surendra Verma in his play Qaid-E-Hayat, directed by Ram Gopal bajaj. Verma depicted his beloved as Qatiba, a contemporary writer. With 200 plus years of Ghalib completed, there is a need for interpretation of his poetry and his struggle in its social context, which is relevant even today.
The narrow streets wind like
Arguments in the
Mohalla of Ballimaran…
And in the dark gloomy street
Known as Gali Kasim
A row of lamps is lit
The Quran of words opens
At a luminous page
On which is written
the address of
Asadullah Khan Ghalib.’
-Gulzar
This poem to Ghalib was penned long years back by yet another poet of Delhi. The one who was nurtured in the Sabzi Mandi and years later recalled his mohalla in a lovely children’s song: Ghodha thha ghamandi, pahuncha Subzi Mandi.
Pilgrimage to Ghalib’s abode or tomb was a must for many. More so far this poet who not only took off from a couplet of Ghalib to write one of his most famous songs, Dil dhoondta hai, but also gave a tribute to the poets’ poet in a tele-serial with Nasseruddin shah playing the Mirza.
Mirza Ghalib’s home and tomb were much in news some years ago with Friends for Education going to court with a plea that the haveli of Ghalib be turned into a memorial and the tomb maintained properly. When Gulzar visited Ghalib’s home in Gali Kasim, walking past doors with tattered sacks for curtains and spindly bleating goats on a smoky evening, it was a coal depot.
With progress in time, it now houses at STD-ISD booth, a paper godown and the office of some International Islamic Centre. Many admirers of the poet are pained by it. But the poet would have only been amused for often he referred to his Khana kharab and dream of a home without walls and doors: be daro deevar sa ik ghar banana chahiye.
Time to time Ghalib memorial functions are held in the country. Seminars, articles, musharias and so on take place. But the accent is more on the biographical details of the poet or the physical aspects like a home or a tomb. Amidst all this is a legendary figure who drank and loved a dancing girl and provided couplets for the coming generations of weak-hearted lovers. But what is lost is the real essence of his poetry. For Ghalib was a poet of social protest challenging the state, the fundamentalists, the money-lenders and upheld the status of the creative artist: They want to know who Ghalib is?/Pray, tell me what do I tell them?
It would be not unfit to say that he was a poet for all times for such was his sensitivity in probing the layers of human existence. He felt that he was ahead of his times, as litterateur Gopi Chand narang remarked at a seminar, ``Ghalib was born in the 18th century, he composed his verses in the 19th century, he was understood in the 20th century and he will reach his zenith in the 21st century.’
’
But what needs to be noted is how the 20th century has put him into stereotypes. Says theatre activist Shamsul Islam, ``The popular image of Ghalib is one of a filmi hero. He was turned into a Devdas.’’ Well, Ghalib was no Devdas. He drank, but it was obviously in moderation for he lived to a ripe old age. He must have loved. We all do. But linking it to a dancing girl is our doing. The 20th century imagination was trapped by images of the singing girl Sorab Modi created for his Mirza Ghalib to fit in Suraiya, who rendered his ghazals beautifully in the film. But Bharat Bushan turned him into a Devdas of sorts.
All very well in films and tele-serials but what is painful is to see Ghalib as a doll with a hukka and jaam watching a mujra of yet another doll whose arm is broken over the years. All this just clouds his struggle for existence as a poet in a world hostile to the creative truth. While Naseer gave a memorable performance as Ghalib, Gulzar could not quite set him free of clichés.
Perhaps, one sincere attempt to reinterpret Ghalib was by Surendra Verma in his play Qaid-E-Hayat, directed by Ram Gopal bajaj. Verma depicted his beloved as Qatiba, a contemporary writer. With 200 plus years of Ghalib completed, there is a need for interpretation of his poetry and his struggle in its social context, which is relevant even today.
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