Settling down in Delhi 60 years ago wasn’t a very good experience. Agra’s kharbuzas (watermelons) were sweeter and so were the phalsa fruit (a berry) which one could munch on hot afternoons with salt masala. Slowly my perception of the city changed. While doing night duty there was plenty of time for a bachelor to spend the day cycling from Ludlow Castle Road to explore the city. The Red Fort naturally came first on the list of monuments. Entering it through the Lahori Gate and proceeding to the Naqqar Khana, one sought a meeting with the Custodian of the fort, Asghar Ali Khan. He had a fund of stories to relate after the initial hesitation of meeting a stranger.
“Lal Qila”, he said, “has many secrets hidden from the casual visitor. There are palaces which brood in the day and come alive at night with paranormal activity. I have seen kings, princes and princesses on my midnight rounds, especially on Thursday. After that a photographer of a Delhi newspaper spent a whole night at the fort in the 1960s photographing paranormal activity. His photos showed blobs of light and skeletons dancing around. They were published alright and caused a lot of excitement. But the Army, which occupied a large part of the fort, came out in denial. The photographer, however, stood by his exclusive pictures as proof.
Outside the fort one day I entered the shrine of Bhure Mian and found a queue of burqa-clad women. They had come for cures effected by the caretaker, Pir Yasin Beg, who distributed amulets (taviz) and medicines for all sorts of ailments, “particularly for those possessed by djinns”. Pir Yasin emphatically declared that every Jumairat (Thursday) a procession led by Bahadur Shah Zafar went around the fort after midnight. Again, the photographer tried but couldn’t get a photo of the weird happening.
Naaz Hotel, behind the Jama Masjid, whose earlier occupant had been the painter M.F. Husain, was a good residence. From this room one could get a bird’s-eye view of the whole area right up to the Red Fort.
Near Naaz was Azad Hind Hotel, whose proprietor was an Urdu poet with seven wives and 28 children. Afzal Sahib had declared himself an atheist, saying since he had become one he had prospered.
At Azad Hind, all sorts of characters found accommodation, from classical artiste Ustad Latafat Husain Khan of the Agra Gharana to Firoze Kanchwala, the glass-eyed singer; to dancers Shanta Rani and vivacious Naseem Bano who had entertained President Najibullah in Kabul; to Khan Abdul Haye Khan, an expert angler; and Tyagiji, Hindi translator in foreign embassies.
From there, Haji Hotel, in front of the southern gate of the Jama Masjid, was a good meeting point. Present at the hotel were Alamgir Sahib, ex-wrestler; Ustad Zahooro, chain-smoker; Mohd Mian Akbar and the versatile Master Sahib, besides this scribe.
They talked of the great revolt of 1857 as though it was a yesterday event. No wonder too as their grandfathers had played a part. Hajiji related the story of how his maternal grandfather, Maulvi Rajab Ali, and father, Munshi Turab Ali had caught the thieves who stole the shoes of namazis during Friday prayers. Two or three men used a fishing line to do so and the Maulvi and the Munshi had to miss namaz that Friday to catch the juta-chors (shoe stealers).
Tales over, Haji’s servant Nazir used to bring a big tiffin carrier from his house in Kucha Mir Ashiq and everybody joined in the meal before dispersing. You could taste the best shammi kebabs at this gathering before walking down to Karim Paanwallah’s shop, which had an engraved verse decorating its facade : “Paan kehta hai sookh kar mar jaoonga mein/Ai Labh-e-yaar gar moonh na lagaya tu ne” (The paan says I will dry up and die, if lips, my friend, you do not taste me). After a paan here people usually strolled to Parantha Gali where a milkman’s shop sold the best milk. His grandfather had fought in 1857 and the old man’s lathi was preserved in the shop.
Now things have changed but the old milieu still exists in nooks and corners if you care to enter them in an attempt to feel the hidden, but ever quivering pulse of the Walled City, so ardently monitored now by Faiyazuddin, the Haji’s son. He sits in the hotel’s balcony, missing the presence of the servant Nazir, who migrated to Karachi after his marriage, and the old gali lamplighter Battiyonwala Baba.
The writer is a veteran chronicler of Delhi
