John Keats died in his twenties; so did Gordon Sanderson, on whom an exhibition at India International Centre ended last week. Like Keats, Sanderson too left a lasting impression, not on poetry but on architecture, by his contribution to the preservation of Mughal monuments in Delhi and Agra. His designation — Superintendent, Muhammadan and British Monuments, Northern Circle, Agra, is evidence of it.
Sanderson was born in 1887 and died on Oct 13, 1915, in Northern France, soon after relinquishing his assignment with the ASI. He had enlisted for World War I and died unlamented and unsung. While his assistant, the remarkable Maulvi Zafar Hasan survived him many years. Incidentally, Sanderson was a lightly-built man for a European, with a longish face and a moustache that made him look older than he actually was. He wore a sola topi, like Jim Corbett, and was fond of cigars (because of a smoking habit probably picked up in student days). A self-sketch of him with a cigar done in 1909 was part of the exhibition arranged by Prof Deborah Sutton of Lancaster University’s Department of History, which should have elicited a better response.
The pen-and-ink sketches done by Sanderson of historical buildings like the Purana Quila, the Pearl Mosque of the Red Fort, the Qutb Minar, the Golden Temple of Amritsar and the Jodhpur Fort are really outstanding because, besides fine artistry, they convey his sense of humour too. Who else would have depicted the Qutb emitting smoke like the brick-kiln chimneys one sees on the Delhi-Agra Road? Surprisingly no notable sketch of the Taj Mahal was in evidence. But he was fond of the monument alright as he was in Agra very often, once staying not at his official quarters but with Nawab Ismail Khan at Ghatia Azam Khan, from where the Taj is just two km away. It was probably there that he was introduced to magistrate Ball’s daughter, a local beauty and much-applauded dancer who lived in a ‘fairy castle’ above a hill facing the rear wall of Agra Central Prison. Miss Ball and her father later migrated to South Africa.
Isn’t it strange that some British who made their mark in Delhi and Agra were from Scotland — the Metcalfes, William Fraser, to whom William Dalrymple’s wife Olivia is related, and of course, Gordon Sanderson to name a few. One wonders if Sanderson was enamoured of the spot where his compatriots, the Gordon Highlanders killed at the Battle of Badli-ki-Sarai lie buried in Delhi. Surely now the neglected place, with dung cakes plastered all over, must have been cleaner and better maintained during the first decades of the 20th century. The Highlanders (one must grudgingly admit) were among the best fighters during John Company’s ruthless campaign in the war of 1857.
Sanderson was glad to obtain the services of Maulvi Zafar Hasan and acknowledged it in the preface he wrote for Volume I of the Maulvi’s painstaking four-volume work. He goes on to observe that besides the edifices of the Slave kings, the more refined work of the Khalji dynasty is seen at the Alai Darwaza (of Sultan Alauddin) at the Qutb while the Tughlak dynasty of Ghiasuddin raised his city of Tughlakabad in four years.
“Examples of Afghan architecture are seen in the Lodi tombs at Khairpur, the Moti Masjid and the fortress of Purana Quila (Indraprasth) with the mosque it contains. The period of early Mughal architecture may be confined to the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir at Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, the only important examples at Delhi being the tombs of Humayun and Tagah (Atgah) Khan and the garden tomb of the “Barber” in the former building. The Middle Mughal style may be said to include all the work of that ‘most magnificent of monarchs’. Shah Jahan, the Delhi Fort and its palaces and the Jami and Fatehpuri mosques being the best examples. The work of Aurangzeb may be included in the same category and is illustrated by the Moti Masjid in the Fort and the Zinat-ul-Majid. Of the late Mughal style, the principal buildings are the tomb of Safdar Jang… the three Sunheri Masjids and the Moti Masjid of Mehrauli”.
Sanderson has defined Indo-Muhammadan architecture as the Ghazni, Turki, Khalji, Tughlak Afghan, Early Mughal, Middle Mughal and Late Mughal monuments. The Emperors of Delhi were 56 in all (with Humanyun being counted twice), starting with Mohd Ghori and ending with Bahadur Shah Zafar. What a fascinating list! Like R. L. Stevenson, one can say of Sanderson too, “the style was the man”, allotted a life-span of just 28 summers.
