Last week, Phoolwalon-ki-Sair or the flower festival in memory of a Mughal prince was held at Mehrauli. It was organised, as always, by the great-great-great grandchildren of those who took part in the first festival over 200 years ago. Among the organisers of the Sair-e-Gulfaroshan (walk of the flowers) is S. Kumar, successor of the late Yogeshwar Dayal on whose initiative the festival was revived.
The story behind it
This festival, unique to Delhi, owes its origin to an incident in the Red Fort in the second decade of the 19th century.
Mirza Jahangir, the favourite son of Akbar Shah II, was denied the right to be his successor in preference for his older brother Abul Zafar (who was later known as Bahadur Shah Zafar).
One day, when the British Resident at the court went to meet Akbar Shah, the topic of succession came up again, but the Resident (Charles Seton) stated the East India Company’s known position in favour of Zafar firmly. Angered, Mirza Jahangir fired at Seton just as he was leaving, but missed. Seton turned his horse back and asked the prince to apologise, but he refused and taunted him instead.
The Resident then went back and returned with a whole posse of British troops, bent on avenging the insult. The prince was arrested and exiled in Allahabad in 1812.
His mother, Queen Mumtaz Mahal II, vowed that if he were to return she would offer a chadar (sacred cloth) and floral pankha (fan) at the shrine of Hazrat Qutubuddin Bakhtiar Kaki and a canopy at the Yogmaya Mandir close by. As things turned out, her wish actually came true.
Mirza Jahangir was sent back to Delhi after the British relented and there were grand celebrations. Since then, the festival has been observed as a symbol of communal harmony, except for brief periods during and after the revolt of 1857, and then again in the 1940s, right up to the Partition. Jawaharlal Nehru revived the festival at the instance of philanthropist Yogeshwar Dayal in 1961, and so it continues, with many states taking part. Interestingly, the first pankha made by the women of the salatin (lesser quarters), in the Red Fort, was kept in the Diwani-i-Khas as the queen wished.
Mirza Jahangir’s behaviour on his return to Delhi worsened, and Akbar Shah agreed with the British (after he tried to poison his older brother twice) that he be sent back to Allahabad. There he whiled away his time drinking Hoffmann’s cherry brandy and making merry with nautch girls.
Lord Hastings described him as wearing a Tartar dress, a crimson robe, blue vest, lined with fur and a high conical cap ornamented with fur and jewels, though it was the peak of summer. He had long hair, a handsome young man gone astray. The prince died in 1821, long before his parents, and was buried in a beautiful tomb in Delhi.
The festival today
Phoolwalon-ki-Sair wends its way through Mehrauli to the fountain (Jharna) led by shehnai players in brocade sherwanis and then to the ship-shaped Jahaz Mahal. Bahadur Shah Zafar, who was considered gay by his father and so supposedly unworthy to be his successor, presided over the festival with great aplomb until 1856.
Despite all the fanfare surrounding the festival, one thing that seems like a forgetful omission is that no one makes any public offerings at the grave of Mirza Jahangir, whose exile started the tradition.
Dayal, almost resembling Nehru in dress, height and features, once disclosed that he had heard from his ancestors that at the first Phoolwalon-ki-Sair the roses were brought from the Taj gardens and the Chameli flowers from Fatehpur Sikri.
Later flowers were also picked from the Hayat Baksh garden in the Red Fort and used for making the chadar for the tomb of Hazrat Qutubuddin Bhakhtiar Kaki and the canopy offered at the Yog Maya temple in Mehrauli.
The plan to get roses from Ispahan could, however, not materialize but the royal envoy managed to get some from the garden in Iran where Omar Khayyam is buried as the poet was a favourite of the romantic Mirza Jahangir.
The writer is a veteran chronicler of Delhi
