Inside the exhibition hall at IGNCA, history is being brought to life — in banners and images, music and artefacts, the “Story of a Rampur Family” invokes the Princely State it was born in, and Rampur’s past, with its value system, culture and tradition, is remembered.
The exhibition itself is an extension of the book “Gold Dust of Begum Sultans”(Rupa), a translation by sisters Zakia Zaheer and Syeda Hameed of the 1989 book, “Sunehri Rait”, written by their maternal uncle’s daughter, Zubeida Sultan. Launched with the exhibition, the book chronicles the saga of a fictional family, which is loosely based on a very real one — their own. Set roughly in the period between the late 19ths and early 20th century, “Gold Dust of Begum Sultans” traces a fast crumbling world, one that slipped away like so many trails of sand.
“Hum wajd mein baithey rahe aur rait ki manind,
muththi se sarakti rahi,
taqdeer hamari”
(I sat in a trance, and in trails of sand, from my fist trailed away, my destiny)
These lines are printed on a banner that finds its place at the beginning of the exhibition. In total, the entire exhibition is made up of 77 banners, supplemented by seven cases filled with preserved artefacts like dolls, clothes and books from the family’s collection, and audio-visual clips selected and designed by Iffat Fatima. The place is alive with music, and every section has its own background score, contributing to the ambience— Begum Akhtar’s Humare ghar ayo Rajaji, Kajjan Bai’s Dil Dhoondta hai Sahara, Salamat Ali’s Miyan ki Malhar and Wahid Khan’s Raga Bihag among them.
Ranesh Ray, who has curated and conceptualised the exhibition, wanted to ensure that the show didn’t cut and break up the book. “When I read the book, I realised that this was a complex story. It was a story of a system really, and a family within that system. I knew we couldn’t extract bits and pieces from the book. So instead, I’ve made the exhibition a journey through the book.” With extracts from the book printed on the banners, illustrated by images painted by an artist from Srinagar as well as scanned photographs from the sisters’ personal collection, the exhibition is definitely text heavy, but not overwhelmingly so.
Maintaining the chronological progress of the book in the exhibition too, Ray has divided the expansive open space within the IGNCA hall into sections, and arrows guide you in a way that mimics the passage of time; the experience is a bit like walking through a story, or for that matter, a book. Before it begins though, Ray gives us all the basic information, culled out from the book itself — the story of how Rampur was established in 1774, after the Rohilla war between the Rohillas and the Nawab of Awadh, which drove the defeated Rohillas to Rampur; the list of names in the fictional story with the corresponding names of the real people they are based on, and finally, a detailed family tree. With all the players in place, the story begins.
It is the family of Akbar Ali Khan, based on Mustafa Ali Khan, whose life the book chronicles. In a feudal Mohammadpur (based on Rampur), Akbar Ali Khan is forced to flee after he refuses to do what the Nawab of Mohammadpur asks of him. His imminent death now ensured, he escapes to Nainital with his family — his wife Qamar Zamani and his young daughter Jahannara, who is married to Ammar Ali Khan. After his family is safely ensconced in Nainital, the patriarch returns to Mohammadpur, summoned by the Nawab. The news of his death is the beginning of the family’s matriarchal traditions, and Qamar Zamani takes the reigns of the household in her hands.
The fortunes of the family rise and fall as the story moves ahead. The exhibition illustrates birth and marriages and deaths, threads entangled in so many ways and so many times over that it is impossible to pull them apart. Three women, Qamar Zamani, her daughter Jahannara, and Shehzadi, Jahannara’s son Mansoor’s wife, struggle for power and control, and the house becomes, for a while, a battle ground with lines drawn and territories divided.
Interlaced with words are images and objects, sounds and songs, with which Ray endeavours to make the journey into Rampur’s past a rounded one, so that even as you read about Shehzadi and Mansoor’s wedding and look at a copy of their nikahnama, you hear the recreation of the songs sung at the celebrations. There are dolls, still in their wedding attire, from Mansoor’s younger sister Mumtaz’s dolls’ marriage, and there is the Fatmi Jahez (clay pots, chakki (Millstone), Mashk (water carrier), spindle, Quransharif on Rehal) from Mumtaz’s own marriage to Shahab, an Aligarh Muslim University student.
It’s easy to see changing fortunes and emptying coffers, as the world around this particular Rampur family changes. “The text on the banners is all from the books, but I’ve edited it, not just to fit the space, but also to extract just the essence of the story.” Ray gives you glimpses of this world, and includes all the significant events and occurrences with a single banner or two, so that the result is neither rushed not painstakingly long, but just right.
Like the book, the exhibition ensures that you get a panoramic view of Rampur and its heritage, so while the family’s story takes centre stage, around them Ray weaves snippets of a more general nature, and as an aside, includes banners on the period’s approach to food, music, movies, reading and more, giving us a wider perspective of the times. The last part of the exhibition includes a video of Hameed and Zaheer in conversation, ending the story where its telling first began.
On till May 10, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
