Wordsworth said poetry was recollection of emotion in tranquillity. So is nostalgia, especially when you look back at past events. There are many havelis or mansions in Delhi, among them the ones built by Hakim Ahsan Ullah Khan (nicknamed Ganga Ram Yahudi by his opponents) at whose advice Bahadur Shah surrendered after the 1857 war. Then there is Namak Haram-ki-Haveli in Chandni Chowk constructed by the once Maratha chieftain, Bhavani Shankar while the haveli of nobleman Sada Sadur stands in Matia Mahal street. Ghalib’s haveli is well known and so is the one of Azam Khan, besides the recently renovated haveli in Kashmiri Gate. However, the Purani haveli of Kutcha Tihar has almost vanished (like the Haksar haveli).
It was said to belong to Rajender Singh of Jat-ka-Nagla and hence he was also known as the Thakur of Jat. While his feudal estate was in that UP village, he preferred to spend most of his time in the Delhi haveli. Jat-ka-Nagla came into world spotlight because of Parusram, the wolf-boy who was carried away as an infant by a she-wolf and reared by it. The boy was rescued after three years by some shikaris. I saw him when I accompanied father (T. Smith) to the Nagla in response to a telegram from The London Times representative, Neville Maxwell, who later wrote the controversial book “India’s China War”. Parusram was wolfing his meal while being chained to a cot as he tended to get violent.
Now for the Thakur, who had died two years before the Parusram incident of 1960-61. Visiting the Purani haveli in Kutcha Tihar, south-west Delhi, now cluttered up cheek by jowl with haphazardly build houses, one is reminded of old-timers’ tales when, except for it and a few nomadic Meos, the area was almost deserted. One of the tales concerned a property dispute in World War II days between the Thakur of Jat Rajendra Singh and his sister, Rajni Sadhashiv — as related in the 1950s by a close relative, Padam Singh, in an article in a Hindi newspaper Dehati, once circulated in the rural areas of western UP. The following is a free translation with some discreet cuts:
Maya’s tale
The Thakur of Jat stood gun-in-hand. It was a moonless night but one could see the silhouette of the old house and the trees in the distance. The last chapter of his family history was about to be written the next day. He knew very well what it would be. But it could be changed if he could make it to the ancestral residence of the Sadhashivs. Twenty miles as the crow flies, and it seldom flies crooked. By jeep, it wouldn’t take him long to reach there. He knew that Hari Singh and his wife Rajni would be sleeping in the outer room. He could stealthily open a window and put the nuisance to an end. His Hornet .303 would see to that. “No,” he suddenly said with a shake of the head. “I will take the pistol and the silencer my father brought from World War I. Then we’ll see how the haveli case goes the next day.”
So Thakur Rajendra Singh soliloquized that dark night. The bottle had stood him good company for long hours because his nerves were on edge and he was thinking about the outcome of the court case. As he spoke, a hand gently tapped on his shoulder. It was Maya, the haveli retainer’s daughter. “What, you here! When did you come, and how dare you stand in front of the house at this time of the night?” said Rajendra Singh. “I came yesterday, Thakur Sahib,” she replied. “Sometime back I saw a light in your room and tiptoed here. For the past half an hour you have been talking to yourself. Why are you so disturbed Sahib and why are you holding a gun in your hand? It scares me. You heard what I was saying?” “No it was too indistinct, but I could only make out the name of Rajniji”. “It’s time I taught her and her husband a lesson. They will both have to pay for what they have done”. “No Thakur, Sahib, no,” said Maya, holding his hand. Past association had made her bold. “Come inside. You may catch a chill in your present state,” she said gently pushing him. He did not resist and once they were in the room Maya was even more persuasive. “There was murder in his mind. Luckily, I came in the nick of time,” Maya thought. “I’ll have to keep an eye on him tomorrow too.” She then fell asleep.
Padam Singh died in 1980, long after the Thakur and his sister, while Maya, who had become the Thakur’s live-in companion and bore him a daughter, survived to a grand old age. The haveli was thereafter sold to become a rabbit warren of a habitation. Whenever one passes by it on the way to the Nahari shop near the Badi Masjid of Kutcha Tihar, the article by Padam Singh in the weekly Dehati which ceased publication in the 1990s, comes to mind. Wonder whether there are still descendants of Thakur Rajendra Singh and his sister.
