Tuesday, February 23, 2016
The old man who lost his way home
I have been
accused of many vices in my time, but never have I been known to have mistaken
the lane leading up to my own door! Yet that is what must have happened—
Granted
that my modest home is tucked within a particularly serpentine alley off the
street of Ballimaran, and granted that I’m an old soul long past my expiry
date—and yet I seem to have completely missed the dark and twisted Gali Qasim Jaan,
as dank and dreary as a mud-spattered crow on a rainy day…. Oh for the monsoons
of Dilli! The kohl-lined, pregnant clouds, the urgent peacock calls, and the
earthen cups of steaming chai and jalebis at Mehboob Mian’s hole-in-the-wall
establishment…but I digress. Forgive the meandering mind of an old man, dear
reader.
MENTAL NOTE TO SELF
·
Addicted to good wine, preferably
procured from Mehrauli: CHECK
·
Unabashedly living on credit and lavish
debts from moneylenders: CHECK
·
Gambling at dice dens dotting Chandni
Chowk: CHECK
·
Refraining from visiting masjids or
keeping roza: CHECK
·
Persistently penning couplets and
ghazals in the face of constant discouragement: CHECK
·
NEW addition: Forgetful of way back
home: CHECK
I’m quite mystified by this new ability of mine, forgetting the way to my own hearth and home. I need to reason this out logically. My navigation skills continue to be fairly adequate, in my own estimates, so let me begin by counting out all that I do remember of my way back to the secure bosom of my household.
I know that I
live on Gali Qasim Jaan off Ballimaran, which is a street closer to the
Fatehpuri Masjid-end of Chandni Chowk than to the Lal Qila-end of it. That
established, I also know that Ballimaran is closer to the fragrant spice market
of Khari Baoli than to its more glamorous cousin, Dariba Kalan. Lastly, and
very importantly, I know that I live in Dilli. Although the streets of Agra
were mine too, when they called me “Asad”, but not anymore—today my heart is
enamoured of Dilli, as my good friend, Zouk, would have appreciated just as
well. Aah! The bitter-sweet ties that bound us to each other…. Even though I
felt closer in spirit to Mir, who came before my time, it was with Zouk that I
shared the evening lamp at Dilli’s last mushaira—and an old man digresses
again.
So tell me,
dear reader, if I’ve managed to remember all this correctly, how is it that I’m
unmindful of the well-trodden path to my own door? Is it that I’m mistaken or
is it that my alley and home have become unrecognizable? That the trick being
played here is not that of my memory or even of my intentions of returning, but
that of a different time with different manners? It is not then that I do not
remember, dear reader, but that I cannot recognize…anything anymore.
To begin with:
oh the unbearable crowd! This part of town was never expansive, and neither
were these streets ever luxuriously wide, but never did it swamp me out either.
Never was I constantly jostled and tossed about like flotsam and jetsam by men
and machine alike! And then these endless shoe shops, lined up all next to each
other in unending similarity.
What exactly
are they doing on my street? Chappals, jootis, Angrezi boots for men, women and
children, for all seasons and occasions—when did these mushroom along
Ballimaran? A single ittar shop is all that my Persian inheritance of a nose can
sniff out. Of my beloved bookstore, not a sign do I detect. Tell me, did they
all have to emigrate to Nai Sarak en masse? Neither Mehboob Mian or any of his
progeny can I find; although truth be told, a local baker still seems to be
around, along with an old kebabwala or two.
In a nutshell
then, my beloved Ballimaran stands blemished and scarred by more than Company
cannon balls from 1857. These ravages appear harsher still. Time has been an
acid test that melted all the sweet charm out of everything that I once held
dear. I can hardly recognize a brick down my street, except maybe for the odd
archways. Crumbling and derelict structures with their column bases coated
thick with darkly vermillion paan stains and the dust of ages.
I finally decide
to leave it to my old pair of patent leather jootis to trudge down their old
familiar route to our very own alley—yes, the Gali Qasim Jaan.
But wait a minute.
What a crowd has gathered about the place, moving as if in procession with fat,
ugly green candles and masses of marigold garlands towards my doors, or what
used to be them. Ya Allah, did we lack for more crowds here, weren’t there
enough already? Whatever happened to the elegant oil lamps with their
intricately carved crystal shades? And marigold? Is that all they could manage?
Have all the mogra, juhi, chameli and gulaab withered from the gardens of
Dilli?
From their
urgent conversations I can make out that the procession is headed by ministers
of some sort, by chairmen of sundry associations, director generals and artists
in general. Here to celebrate my birth anniversary in this ridiculously propped
up skeleton of my old house, recently refurbished by these same city
authorities in barely less than half a dozen years ago. When my mortal remains
have lain buried within this city’s soil for the last 150 years. I smirk in
disbelief, and my own verses echo back at me:
“bazicha-e-atfal hai duniya mire aage
hota hai shab o roz tamasha mire aage…”
hota hai shab o roz tamasha mire aage…”
Posted on The Delhi Walla
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