Dilli of Chandni Chowk and Jama Masjid was ‘The Dilli’

Art scholar and historian Kapila Vatsyayan tells about the Delhi that existed some 80 years ago, of swimming in the clean Yamuna waters, the food, about living through the Partition and the riots, and the “Dilli” of her memories….

November 10, 2014 07:28 am | Updated 08:19 am IST

Eminent art scholar and historian Kapila Vatsyayan at the India International Centre in New Delhi. Photo: Meeta Ahlawat

Eminent art scholar and historian Kapila Vatsyayan at the India International Centre in New Delhi. Photo: Meeta Ahlawat

Dressed in a handloom sari and a sleeveless blouse — her trademark clothes — eminent art scholar and historian Kapila Vatsyayan, walks into room no. 76 at the India International Centre.

It’s late in the evening and the 85-year-old, who has been up since the wee hours of the morning, smiles warmly and brims with energy. Her snow-white hair, as always, is a little unruly.

She announces: “I am perfectly alright, except that I have developed what they call ‘degenerative myopia’. I cannot see you exactly. So it is a constant challenge.”

Her fingers are bandaged. “This is magnet therapy; someone insisted on it…so I gave in,” she laughs adding, “I am fine...My work keeps me agile.”

Being a Delhiite through and through, the city is her favourite subject of discussion.

Purani Dilli ki baat karte hain ... main Hindi main bolungi , tum baad main angrezi main likh lena ...[Let’s talk about Old Delhi. I will speak in Hindi, you can translate it into English later,” says the former lecturer of English at Delhi University.

“The Delhi I will talk about is one that existed 80 years ago. It used to be divided into four parts — First from Lal Qila to Jama Masjid – jo Shahjahan ne banayi ... woh Dilli ka dil tha . Close to Jama Masjid was dippi bara and Kinari Bazaar, and those who used to make varq [beaten silver foil] doing thak-thak all the time. It was also a hub for old jewellers.”

She recalls the Chawri Bazar of those days, with paper merchants on first floor, followed by utensil sellers and tawaifs on the upper floors.

“The second part of Delhi included the areas around the railway station — it used to house elephants. It was a hub for Khatris and Punjabis. It had a school called Khatri Upcharak School, from where India’s first ICS like Deepchand, mathematician and first Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur Professor Bhojraj Seth, who is the father of Spic Macay founder Kiran Seth, came from. I mean some of India’s first generation of educated people studied there,” she said.

“In the name of entertainment, there was only Novelty Cinema.”

The octogenarian pauses before suddenly flashing a smile to recall: “You know what our first meal was those days? Cow’s milk mixed with almonds and pistachio that vendors used to sell in a small earthen matki at 4 a.m. They would call out, ‘ Lo daulat ki chat lo ...’ The people would finish the matkis within minutes. Perhaps it used to cost us eight anas”.

“The rabri wala , ghujia wala and shahtoot [mulberry] wala , who would sell and sing ‘ laga diye sharbati shahtoot ,” Vatsyayan recalls.

Her love for food is evident. “We lived on Bedami daal [pulses cooked on vapour]. When Quality opened at Connaught Place, it was such a good news for us. Soon Gaylord and a couple of other brands followed. Before that we used to make our own ice creams by pouring boiled milk and ice in a matka , then shaped it with the help of a sancha [metal/plastic shaper].”

The third part of Delhi was from Neel Ka Katra till the two famous and most visited libraries — the English Harding Library and Marwari Library, which the people of Delhi constructed and managed, she said.

“This period was the early 20th Century — say from 1920 to 1936. I have swum in the Yamuna that ran under the Dufferin Bridge to Qudsia Ghat. What days those were. The water used to be blue, full of tortoises. On the banks of the Yamuna, would sit a saintly man who would do our tilak after we bathed. From there we would often go to Qudsia Bagh. Oh! How scented it used to be with those beautiful red-pink fragrant flowers..” she takes a deep breath as though she can actually smell the blossoms.

“We used to drape chunnis from home to come here, and take them off in school and then drape them back before reaching home,” she reveals a mischievous, almost toothless smile.

The last portion of Delhi or Civil Lines was inhabited by government loyalists. “They used to live largely on Rajpur Road. Its residents, like one Shivlal, were great promoters of music. There used to be baithaks at his place as there was no institution to promote music those days.”

“Education-wise, we didn’t lag behind. If The Doon School was founded in 1935 at Dehradun, we constructed St. Stephens’ and Hindu College at Kashmere Gate. Until late 1930s, these streets were the business centres. The business of Raisina was far off. So many people didn’t associate places like Chankyapuri, Teen Murti or Rajpath with Delhi. For us, the Dilli of Chandni Chowk and Jama Masjid was ‘the Dilli’,” she adds.

Embassies, says the two-time Rajya Sabha MP, was a turning point for Delhi. “It changed the way people looked at the Capital.”

Then she becomes pensive, recollecting old memories of people dear to her but who left her when she needed them most due to political turmoil of those times. She speaks in a soft voice: “The riots, the pain of losing my old friends like Salim — my truest bosom pal, those who had to leave for Pakistan…never to return, are my loss...”

Her eyes brim with tears and voice shakes even as she adds” “You know, out of the lakhs of Pakistani refugees, 30 to 35 people stayed at my parents’ home in just a couple of rooms. There was no space for them to live elsewhere...”

Then she turns philosophical and throws up a question for the generation next: “Some people in Delhi think that we are in absolute margins. Delhi has become a sight of strangeness. Now we have to ask each other what we are giving to this Capital, especially when we come back from abroad. I have also been abroad, but I returned and stayed grounded. I don’t know if the Gen-next will be able to sustain this continuity of staying here.”

Then in response to our photographer, who said “I do not want to live in Delhi. It is robotic. I can’t trust a soul here...”, the recipient of several awards and a person whose life has been entwined with this Capital city, hugs both of us, and says in a choked voice: “Sorry for giving you this Delhi..”

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