Who hasn’t heard of Sheikh Chilli? He has been the butt of many a joke in Delhi over the centuries and like Mirza Poiya has come to symbolise a person weak in body and mind. But there was a difference between the two-while one was silly, the other was a dandy who wouldn’t lift a pail of water for fear of straining his wrist. Mirza Poiya is still a favourite figure of speech in homes where he has come to personify a sissy. But to get back to Sheikh Chilli, he was the Indian version of Don Quixote, though not entirely, for he did have much in common with the foolish Hans of the fairy tales.
Earning a living
He is often confused with Sufi saint Sheikh Chehli, whose medieval tomb is situated in Thanesar on the Delhi-Karnal road. For some, who can’t separate history from hearsay, it imparts reality to a fictional hero as if one were to go by tradition, Sheikh Chilli should be in the company of a tailor or barber. And sure enough there is a Durzion (tailors’) mosque near this tomb!
Once Sheikh Chilli was rebuked by his mother for not earning a paisa to keep the home fires burning. So he felt ashamed and was up the next morning, insisting he would go to work: “But where?” asked his poor mother. “Don’t bother about that”, said he, “Just make me three chappatis.” The old woman did so and Sheikh Chilli set off from home.
His way lay through a jungle and hungry and tired after a long trek, he sat down near a well and opened the packet his mother had given him. True enough there were three chappatis in it. Sheikh Chilli counted them one by one and then remarked, “Should I eat one, two or all three?” Not pleased with his voice (he couldn’t have heard another for many hours) he repeated what he had said. And, lo there was a rustling in the well and out came three fairies pleading with him not to eat them.
Emboldened by their entreaties, Sheikh Chilli insisted he would eat all three (meaning the rotis) but the fairies mistook him again. They promised to give him a treasure if he spared the three. Sheikh Chilli skipped lunch and made his way home loaded with gold and silver. Needless to say, he and his mother lived happily ever after.
How Sheikh Chilli decided to get married and almost messed up the affair is another story. But the tale of the treasure and the fairies is not just kid stuff. It throws light on the social conditions of the times in which Sheikh Chilli lived. Probably, he belonged to the period when the Delhi Sultanate had begun to break up, the spoilt son of a nobleman who had left very little for his widow and heir to survive on in Mehrauli. The son, instead of finding a job, stumbled on a treasure hidden in those unruly times by someone on the run.
Tale-carrier’s grave
But there is a hitch. Was he the same Sheikh Chilli who gifted his trousers to his shadow? Or is that another Sheikh Chilli’s tale? There is another intriguing monument on the Etawah-Kanpur Road near Datoli in U.P., which is known as Chugghalchi-ka-Mazar (tale-carrier’s grave). This too is a medieval monument with an imposing façade. Visitors to the mazar are required to take off a shoe and, after spitting on the sole, strike it on the grave. It is said that the man who lies buried in it was sentenced to death by a ruler of Delhi as punishment for his habit of spying and back biting at the court. Some identify him as Bhola Sayed who betrayed the trust of his master after Mohammad Ghori’s invasion (1192).
However, this explanation for the shoe-beating (some do it with a vengeance and some lightly) does not gel. A more plausible reason could be that the man wished to repent for his sins and as penance wanted visitors to shoe-beat his grave.
Some say that Chugghalchi was actually a nobleman who had led a life of intrigue and sin during the slave period. When he became old and death approached, he told his heirs to build his tomb but stipulated that whoever visited it should strike his footwear five times on it so that years of such chastisement would move God to forgive him his misdeeds.
But those who carry out Chugghalchi’s wish themselves come back humbled and chastened. After all, the grave has taken intermittent beating over the centuries – and more is to come. What a fate!
As for Sheikh Chilli, every foolish act evokes his memory and the poor man must be squirming in his grave for being remembered only for the mistakes committed during his green-horn days before he finally made it good and managed to win the hand of a prosperous wife. A virtual Kabul-ki-Mughlani who lulled her children to sleep in a sandalwood cradle with “resham-ki-dor” (silken string)!
