Delhi:Unknown Tales of a City

By R.V. Smith

Ronald Vivian Smith is an author of personal experiences – a rare breed to find in a time when even journalists hesitate to put pen to paper without scanning through the internet. A definitive voice when it comes to some known and unknown tales and an inspiration to a new generation of city-scribes, Smith is a master-chronicler of Delhi’s myriad realities. Among the capital’s most ardent lovers, Smith believes in the power of observation and interaction. His travels across Delhi, most often in a DTC bus, examine the big and small curiosities – seamlessly juxtaposing the past with the present. Be it the pride he encounters in the hutments of one of Chandni Chowk’s age-old beggar families, or his ambling walks around Delhi’s now-dilapidated cemeteries, Smith paints with his words a city full of magic and history. This anthology features short essays on the Indian sultanate, its fall after the British Raj, and its resurrection to become what it is today – the National Capital Territory of Delhi.
‘No amount of bookish knowledge can compete with the sort of insights and real, lived memories he [Smith] has.’ —Rakshanda Jalil, LiveMint
‘… When it comes to writing on monuments of Delhi – known, little known or unknown – no one does a better job than R.V. Smith.’ —Khushwant Singh, Hindustan Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roli Books
• Release date: May 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9789351940968

Book preview

1

A Memorable Halloween

some_text alloween is observed in Delhi in the Diplomatic Enclave. Some hotels have also started observing the eve of the feast of the All Hallows or All Saints.

On that night, it is believed that the spirits of the dead pay a visit to their erstwhile habitat. Since it is hard to find spirits, people dress up as wizards and witches – and some even put on pumpkin heads, complete with cut-out features of what a ghost would look like. Some children go even further and dress in black, and wear masks depicting a skeleton’s face. There have been instances in the U.S. and Britain too, when immigrants from the Orient, particularly women and kids, have gotten hysterical on answering the doorbell and seeing Halloween revelers grinning at them with ghoulish glee. A girl from Lebanon nearly died after one such encounter in New York last year.

In India, few people know about this strange observance, but some embassy staff of Western countries get together to put up a Halloween show in Chanakyapuri. This scribe attended one such show at a time when Peter Hazelhurst was a representative of the Times, London in New Delhi. Hazelhurst had just dropped in for a short while, but the AP man had come all decked up like a wizard and was among those group of people – including a few women – who seemed to be enjoying the early 1970s evening the most, with groans and screams and whistles building up a ghostly atmosphere in the dimly-lit room.

A diplomat called Smallfoot sat in a corner, regaling guests with a story he had heard from a former Times man, Neville Maxwell – or so he claimed. Maxwell, incidentally, was an Oxford don who went back to university after his stint as a newsman. And the story went like this.

In the days when Sir Thomas Metcalfe was the British Resident in Delhi (1836-1853), he would hold a Halloween’s function at the Metcalfe House. That was a few months before he was poisoned by Queen Zeenat Mahal. As the night progressed, Sir Thomas suggested that scary tales be told to create the right ambience.

Among the invitees was a morose doctor who was picked by the lot to tell the first tale. The man seemed to be least inclined to do so, but the guests were adamant and the ladies at their coaxing best. So the short, fat Dr Hamilton cleared his throat and related this yarn based on that period in the nineteenth century when the ‘Vampire plague’ was sweeping Europe and elsewhere too.

When the doctor was attached to a civil surgeon in Delhi, he was summoned by his senior one day and asked to proceed to Mehrauli to examine a Thakur whose case, he was told, was most unusual. The doctor declined at first, but seeing that his boss was put off by the refusal, agreed to travel to the tehsil on horseback.

Dr Hamilton was greeted at the gate by a durban, who informed him that Thakur Beni Singh’s life had undergone two changes within the span of a few years. The first one, following the death of his wife and daughter from consumption, was that he took to the life of a gay lothario frequenting courtesans. And the second change came about when he bought an old chess set during an auction.

He stopped going out after that and spent his evenings playing chess all alone. That was collaborated by Thakur. The doctor found him looking thin and rundown. He confided that he was not suffering from an illness but anxiety – the anxiety to meet his ‘Begum’ on moonlit nights. His reference was to the Queen – the prized chess piece – which, he claimed, came alive on bright nights and lent him her company and much more.

The doctor was not amused and guessed that this man was suffering from consumption too. So he prescribed him medicines and beat a hasty retreat from the eerie haveli of the aristocratic chess player. The Thakur had told him that the ‘Rani’ would come for the last and final time the next moonlit fortnight and take him with her.

Sure enough after a fortnight, the civil surgeon was informed by the durban that his master had died during the night under mysterious circumstances. So the civil surgeon, Dr Hamilton and the magistrate galloped to the Mehrauli haveli on their horses and what they found unnerved them too.

2

Afghan Amir’s Gateway

some_text he collapse of a portion of the Sher Shah Gate opposite the Purana Qila, known as the Lal Darwaza, brings to mind the visit of Amir Habibullah from Afghanistan to Delhi in the first decade of the twentieth century. Amir, who was assassinated in Kabul in 1919, not long after he went back to his faction-ridden country, had come to Delhi for a talk with the viceroy of British India, and also utilized this time to survey medieval monuments, especially those built by Afghan rulers. Among these were monuments constructed by Sher Shah Suri, who had ousted Humayun and restored Afghan rule for fifteen years. Amir, having seen the tank which provided water to the namazis for ‘wazu’ or the ceremonial washing of face, hands, and feet before prayers at the Khair-ul-Minazil mosque and noticing the deplorable state in which it was, had it repaired at his own expense. This mosque was built during the reign of Akbar near the Sher Shah Gate by the Mughal emperor’s wet nurse Maham Anga in 1561, while Sher Shah’s mosque came up in 1545, along with his gate around the same time. On Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg is the Kabuli Darwaza, a sort of twin of the Lal Darwaza.

Within the boundaries of the Old Fort, Sher Shah built the Quila Khuna Masjid, a gem of an example of Afghan architecture, which was repaired by Lord Curzon during his viceroyship. Sher Shah’s architectural technique is said to have been followed by Akbar when he constructed several buildings of the same style in Agra. Lal Darwaza, damaged by the August rains, was one of the gates built by Sher Shah in his new city of Delhi, besides the Kabuli Darwaza, which probably got its name because of the caravans which would pass it on their way to Kabul. It is now known as Khooni Darwaza, just opposite Maulana Azad Medical College, where a young medico was raped some years ago. The Khooni Darwaza got its name after Bahadur Shah Zafar’s sons and grandson were shot dead there by Lt. Hodson in 1857, when the British forces had recaptured Delhi and the Last Emperor had taken refuge in Humayun’s Tomb. There are other stories too about its nomenclature as reminders of its bloody past. One of them is of criminals who would be hanged till death there, and another is related to the capture and execution of Dara Shikoh by Aurangzeb, his younger brother.

However, most accounts say that Dara was paraded through the streets of Shahjahanabad before being taken for execution. His body is said to have been buried in the vault at Humayun’s Tomb, where several other Mughal princes are also buried. But what happened to his head, nobody knows. One story is that it was thrown near the Khooni Darwaza to be eaten by hyenas and wolves, which prowled about there. But there is no historical evidence of this. Another story about this Darwaza would have us believe that a colony of Kabuli Afghans was situated nearby (hence its name), but this too is not mentioned in the pages of history. Amir Habibullah’s interest in the Delhi monuments stemmed from his love for Afghan history and its glorious days when Afghans reigned over Hindustan. He wanted to bring back those palmy days in his country which, like India, had been subjugated by the British. While repairing the tank in Khair-ul-Minazil Masjid, he turned his attention to other monuments also, among them was the Sher Shah Gate, part of which is believed to have been repaired by the Indian masons employed by him. One of the overseers of these workers was a nephew of Ahmed Sayeed Khan, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Jodhpur State, who had been unemployed for a long time and was drafted for supervisory duty on his uncle’s recommendation that he belonged to an old Afghan family.

Masood Mian used to relate the story of the Amir’s visit with great relish. He later migrated to Karachi, where he died, but his reminiscences of Amir’s visit survive in Old Delhi gossip. Masood Mian one day sought an interview with Amir Habibullah and gave him a tawiz (amulet), blessed at Nizamuddin Dargah, saying that he should wear it for his personal safety. After the Amir’s assassination, Masood Mian remarked that he had probably thrown it away as he was a Wahabi (member of an orthodox section of Islam that does not believe in talismans). The collapse of the Lal Darwaza brought back this anecdote to mind. How strange that a little incident of rain havoc in a way is linked to the visit of a twentieth-century Afghan ruler.

3

Armenian Seer

some_text he Tughlaqabad railway rest house is a special place of interest for those nostalgic about times past. One may doubt the story of the Bhawal Sanyasi having visited it in the course of his wanderings for justice, which he eventually achieved when Sir Dingle Foot of the Queen’s Counsel, proved before the Privy Council, London that he was indeed the Kumar of Bhawal State (now in Bangladesh). He had been poisoned by his rani (the wife of his elder brother, whom he had married as per custom after his death). But as fate would have it, his funeral pyre was doused by a sudden thunderstorm and a group of sadhus passing by, seeing signs of life, rescued him. The grateful prince accompanied the sadhus through jungles and towns for twelve years, until he was in a position to stake his claim in the Calcutta High Court and provide proof of his royal identity to the Privy Council.

Why he came to Tughlaqabad is not known but, according to the grapevine, he had come to seek the blessings of an Armenian seer in his quest for justice. The holy man had once been a Railway employee, but a dream and a meeting with a wizard made him adopt the monastic life. But why did the Armenian seer decide to make his home in that suburb of Delhi? There are no clear answers available, though it was once believed that some Armenians had settled down in that place after the massacre of Armenians in 1739 during the invasion of Nadir Shah.

Kishanganj, between Old Delhi and Sarai Rohilla stations, has a cemetery where some notable Armenians and Dutch members of the royal court at the Red Fort are buried. Like the Bourbons, these Armenians also bid goodbye to Delhi during the reign of Mohammad Shah Rangila. The Bourbons were worried about their women being forced by the pleasure-loving emperor to join his harem. They found refuge with the Raja of Narwar, but one night, several of them were murdered by his men for reasons unknown in 1778. The rest escaped to Bhopal where they earned the patronage of the Nawab, who made them his courtiers and one of them, Salvadore even became Prime Minister and his wife came to be known as Madame Dulhan. The Armenians did not find a godfather after their ousting from Delhi.

Whether you believe the story of the Armenian seer and the Bhawal Sanyasi is a moot point. He may have travelled this far, certainly not on foot but by train, for Tughlaqabad has always been an important railway link.

One would have to make a night stop there a long time ago when a passenger train to Delhi from Agra Cantonment would be stalled for several hours because of disruption on the track. A friendly off duty train driver, who was to stay at the Tughlaqabad rest house before getting charge of a down train, took off for the rest house and the remainder of the night was spent in drinking endless cups of tea and listening to yarns, like the one about the Bhawal Sanyasi and the Armenian connection.

The Armenians came to India during the reign of Akbar and settled down mostly in Delhi and Agra. They held high posts at the court, and one of them, Abdul Hayee, even became Chief Justice. Notwithstanding their names, they were all Christians, some prefixing their names with the honorific Khwaja or Khoja. In course of time the Armenian community dwindled in North India. Many of them found a new home in Kolkata, where the Armenian Church and Armenian Street are famous landmarks. The Armenians merged with the Anglo-Indians and became big names like the enterprising Arathoons. Mrs Gandhi during her first term as Prime Minister visited Yeravan, in Armenia, to review old links. One such link in India was the Ceastan family. The name was derived from Siestan, a region of Armenia. The death of Aubrey Ceastan recently opened floodgates of memory. His father was a big, burly mustached man, who resembled Dr Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories and retired as a driver of the Mail and Express trains. His uncle was an absented-minded, soft-spoken man, who looked like Robinson Crusoe and could speak impeccable Urdu with the grace that actor Tom Alter does now. Aubrey, a fine athlete and good boxer, also joined the Railways as a Guard and retired eighteen years ago. His major achievement was volunteering to take an essential supplies’ train for the army to the northern border during the second conflict with Pakistan, necessitated by the Bangladesh War. Imagine the train moving on endangered tracks with bomber planes flying around while Ceastan held his nerve, as if in the boxing ring. One heard a graphic account of his odyssey while once traveling with him to Delhi.

One’s last meeting with him was two years ago. He had come up from Tughlaqabad and was waiting for a bus at Shankar Road enroute to R.K. Puram. Ceastan was proud that his son had become a teacher in the same school where he and his father had studied. It too had once been an Armenian institution and thus an old link survives.

4

Basai Darapur and its Namesake

some_text ld Bundu Khan long occupied a room in the Taj Hotel, Jama Masjid, Delhi and celebrated Christmas and New Year’s with the same enthusiasm as Id and Bakr Id. However, one New Year’s Eve Khan Sahib was missing, but he did turn up at Kothi No. 8 at Civil Lines, the next day to usher in Naya Saal, with a rose in the buttonhole of his favourite gray suit. After a couple of drinks the colourful man, who looked like a thinner version of Clark Gable, warmed up and revealed that a friend had taken him on a romantic rendezvous to Basai Darapur, beyond Rajouri Garden, which is now better known for the ESI Hospital than for the Nawab who once owned the place and surrounding areas. His bagh was famous in the nineteenth century as also the haveli he owned. When the Nawab lost his lands to the local government, a band of gypsies settled down there. They had fallen on bad times and people started exploiting them for their pretty girls. A clandestine flesh trade flourished for some time until the police got wind of it and the gypsies went away to another Basai, which was in Agra, close to the Taj.

Khan Sahib knew the history of both Basais. He remembered that when Basai Darapur temporarily became gypsy-land, people started arriving while the evening was still young. They came in tongas, cars, rickshaws, and some even on bicycles, ringing the bell to get some old gypsy dancing girl out of the way. The girls peeped out at the visitors from behind half-closed doors and their vigil was rewarded when a host of customers descended on them.

The girls were so zealous about attracting customers that they would attack each other for the possession of a man who was still trying to make up his mind. Things would get worse after midnight when brawls would break out, but the gypsies managed to patch up their quarrels before law enforcers arrived. Activity ended at early dawn, and when the sun came out they were fast asleep after a hectic night of love.

The Basai in Agra, disclosed Khan Sahib, is perhaps the oldest village of dancing girls. As the sun sets over the Taj, the long night of love begins at Basai, to the beat of the tabla and the jingle of ankle bells.

Among the girls of the village who gained great notoriety was Hasina, just as pretty as her name, declared Bundu Khan and this is the tale he narrated about her.

‘Hasina, the bandit queen of the Badlands is no more. She met her end fighting the UP Police, along with her lover, Khilawan Singh. After three broken marriages she found love at last in the arms of Khilawan, her trusted lieutenant. She was also expecting to be a mother. But fate willed it otherwise, for both she and the child in her womb died in a hail of bullets near Thiriyaghat on the UP-MP border.’

‘The wayward beauty who at one time led