Dinpanah, or what is today called
the Old Fort, is among the last of the ‘lost Delhis’. What followed after that
was another phase of reviving Delhi’s resplendence – political, economic and
cultural. In 1648, Shahjahan inaugurated the new Mughal capital at
Shahjahanabad, moving upwards from where Dinpanah was, along the banks of
Yamuna. The city of Shahjahanabad was unprecedented in terms of scale, opulence
and architectural refinement, befitting the grandeur of the Mughal Empire.
Shahjahanabad takes Delhi’s story ahead and deserves to be talked about at
length, as it still exists – robust and thriving – but a mere shadow of its
original self. Having survived many attacks and invasions and, more recently
the mutiny of 1857, it continues to stand tall, eager to share what it has been
through if only the passer-by has the patience to halt and listen. And paying
attention to it will make much sense. Shahjahanabad, or more widely known as
Purani Dilli – the old city of Delhi – is arguably the immediate predecessor of
Modern Delhi and getting acquainted to it will, thus, take us many steps closer
to understanding the Delhi of the twenty first century.
Shahjahanabad was built to look
grand enough to represent the magnificence of the Mughals. Shahjahan was born
with an uncanny flair for architecture, developed a refined aesthetic
sensibility and inherited a huge treasury. This made it possible for him to
realize the dream of building a city that the world would talk about. Shahjahanabad
was rich and beautiful and attracted the most accomplished artists, who made it
into a cultural hub. While the wealth faded with the decline of the Mughals, the
cultural refinement stayed and still lingers. With the mutiny, the city received
a shattering blow. Most of its residents fled to save their lives and only
about one-third managed to return and reclaim their property. Delhi, once
again, lost a large chunk of its original population. The partition in 1947 was
another turning point that saw mass exodus of Shajahanabad’s population, including
the city’s literary elites, to the newly formed Pakistan. Hundreds of families
chose to migrate, risking their lives and surviving a horrifying journey, in
the hope of recreating in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar what they had left
behind in Delhi. Their havelis were bought or taken on rent by the newly
arriving Punjabi refugees from the other side of the border. Many of these
properties were also occupied by those Hindus who had the luxury of staying
back. Many elegant structures were converted into workshops and warehouses in
the bargain.
Shahjahanabad became Old Delhi
because the British shifted their capital to Delhi in 1931, building a newer
city to the south of the old one. Shahjahanabad once had a wall around it, with
fourteen gates, and hence the sobriquet ‘the walled city’. Today, only four
gates survive and the wall exists as a kilometer long stretch. It was razed
because land was at a premium in the capital city of the newly independent
India. Population had swollen up to several millions in a matter of months and the
wall became a casualty to the manic pace of urbanization that the city
witnessed. The walled city looks squalid and badly organized today. The
congestion is daunting. The administration, indeed, leaves much to be desired,
but it also has to do with the fact that the space originally meant to cater to
a few thousand families is now being shared by lacs of people. Every entity in
the walled city seems to be struggling for space. But the squalor isn’t emblematic
of any destitution. The average resident of the walled city isn’t struggling for
livelihood. It has a commercial ecosystem, made up of small-scale industries
and wholesale markets, which is unique to it and attracts buyers from all over Delhi.
The walled city has its own intelligentsia, comprising doctors, lawyers,
journalists and university professors – people who grew up in the area, hailed
from well-to-do families, had access to the best education available and yet
chose to stay put and not move out in search of a home in the swankier colonies
of New Delhi, unlike many others in their extended family.
And yet, the name ‘Purani Dilli’
evokes the image of a traditional Muslim household, with its members speaking
chaste Urdu, pulling off a God-fearing existence, their roots going back to
those of Shahjahanabad itself. They assiduously observe the rozas all through Ramzan,
assemble at the Jama Masjid every evening of the holy month, with friends and
family, to end their fast with the iftaar and invite you to share sewaiyyan on
Eid. Their women go to Khari Baoli, sheathed in a burka, to buy the spices that
make their food smell so heavenly and know the perfect recipe for Biryani like
the back of their hand. They represent the Delhi the way it originally was,
before it was forced to assume the role of a megapolis, due to socio-political compulsions.
They represent one of the most enduring images of a Dilliwallah.
Hashmat Begum is somewhere in her late sixties and doesn’t remember
having lived anywhere but in Purani Dilli. The Delhi of her childhood was a much
easier place to live in. Everything was cheap and running a house wasn’t such a
challenge for the common man. Her earliest childhood memory is of travelling to
Mehrauli with her family. They would make the trip every month by bus for
picnics that would last a few days. She remembers climbing up the Qutb and
sleeping on the terrace of the Auliya Mosque in the same area. She lives in a
mohalla called Farrashkhana, near the Lahori Gate area – named so because it
was originally the colony of the ‘Farrash’ or masons who had built the Red
Fort. Her mother passed away when she was very young and was raised by her
relatives. Raising children was not such a task in those days, she maintains.
They used to be obedient and less demanding. People managed to fend for a large
family because the commodities, in her view, were more affordable unlike today.
At the time of partition, many
Muslims in the area left for Pakistan. You weren’t required to have a passport.
You could just pack your bags and catch a train. But the journey was very
dangerous. She doesn’t remember anybody who returned. Many people they knew, in
fact, died. The madness of the partition days affected her family too. She
remembers how her relatives had packed their bags and were ready to catch a train
to Pakistan but dropped the plan when her father, who was the patriarch of the
family, talked them out of it, enumerating the many horrors that lay along the
way. She is glad they stayed. She doesn’t want to leave Delhi because there is
a lot of love here and the next place she wants to move to is the house of
Allah. Her idea of Delhi doesn’t take into account what lies beyond the walled
city. She hasn’t travelled much and her heart is understandably in
Farrashkhana. The larger city of Delhi doesn’t interest her and she hasn’t seen
much of it either.
Hashmat Begum grew up in the same
mohalla, a few lanes away from her in-laws’ house. Her daughter, too, was
married into a family settled in Farrashkhana. Her husband runs a workshop that
makes steel and aluminum wares. Everything they need is available here and it’s
only for weddings and other similar reasons that they go to shop at the nearby
Fatehpuri market or Chandni Chowk. But making the purchases isn’t as fun
anymore because of the rising prices. This has taken away from the enthusiastic
preparations made for festive occasions.
Delhi, she agrees, has changed a
lot since her childhood. The earliest sign of change that she remembers
noticing was the influx of refugee population from Punjab. Many of them had
found lodgings in the walled city but her mohalla wasn’t affected much. The
greenery, too, has been lost. All that was jungle and fields – Mehrauli and
surrounding areas – has now given way to new colonies. Much of it was sold
around partition for as less as fifty paise per square feet. But a few changes
have been for the better. Every house in her mohalla is now electrified and
they no longer need to use lanterns and oil lamps. Cooking gas has replaced the
‘angithi’ and there is regular water supply in every house, unlike the old days
when water was sourced either from the mashakwalla, the nearest municipality tap
or hand pumps. She owns a passport but has never used it. She has many
relatives living in Pakistan and she’d tried to get some of their daughters to marry
into her family but the plans couldn’t materialize. She wants to go for Haj
though, and then die peacefully.
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