Al Haqeeqa
Circa 2014
It was rather late on a working day in Delhi. But, an evening off during a busy schedule is a blessing that I did not want to squander in a hotel room. I stepped out to see Chandni Chowk, the older part of Delhi, where they say time has stopped a few centuries ago.
Though I had been to Delhi several times in the past, my introduction to Chandni Chowk has been through movies. Girls in beautifully embroidered shararas walking demurely through the narrow snaking lanes, young boys on street corners reciting snatches of Urdu Shayari to anyone who cared to listen. A line from a long-forgotten song coming through the balcony of a house, as your steps automatically slow down in response to the music. And food that looked so inviting, even in a scratched print of a black and white movie. I simply had to see Chandni Chowk.
Phone calls were made, plans drawn up and the famous Delhi metro was taken from Connaught Place to Chandni Chowk. As we got down from the station and began to wonder what we wanted to do first, my friend asked. “Do you want to see Ghalib Ki Haweli?”
Time stopped.
Ghalib Ki Haweli? There was just one another question which would have come close. “Do you want to see Stadford Upon Avon? Some questions don’t merit a discussion, they are just acted upon. We hired a cycle rickshaw (I don’t even remember when I had last seen a cycle rickshaw, but it seemed to be the perfect mode of transport for these narrow lanes) and went off in the direction of Ballimaran.
Circa 1860
Ballimaran ki peecheda deleelon si tang galiyan…
Inhi be-noor galiyon me ek gali, Gali Qasim Jaan….
Ek tarteeb chiragon kee shuru hoti hai.
Ek quran-e-sukhan ka safa khulta hai.
Asadallah Khan Ghalib ka pata milta hai.
A child of the tumultuous 1800’s, Mirza Asadallah Khan Ghalib was a war orphan, who lived his entire life under the shadow of change, transformation, destruction and death. The end of the glorious Mughal empire, the beginnings of an alien and hither-to unseen culture and the accompanying turbulence — all found its place in Ghalib’s poetry. The difficult times were vetted by a pen dipped in grace, love, humour, despair and satire and immortalized in his shers, ghazals and nazms.
The house, however, does not betray any such grandiose notions. We almost miss it. It is late, the doors are shut. We call out to the caretaker and request him to open it for us.
Ug rahaa hai dar o-deewaar se sabzah, G̱ẖālib!
Ham bayaabaaṉ meṉ haiṉ, aur ghar meṉ bahaar aayee hai.”
(Greenery is growing out of the doors and walls ‘Ghalib’
I am in wilderness and spring has arrived at my house.)
The restored haveli is a small room and a small open verandah/courtyard. One wall has a portrait of the poet, while some of his most famous couplets are framed and hung on the side walls. A small glass enclosure has some of the manuscripts written by the poet himself. The page, poignantly, is opened at:
Tere- vaade par jiye hain, tu yeh jaan jhooth jaana
Ke khushi se mar na jaate, agar aitabaar hota.
(It’s false I live in hope of promises made by you;
For would not I die of joy if I thought them to be true)
This is the place where the king of poets, walked through. The cobbled floor of the outer portion of the house, where masterpieces were composed and recited, probably mended and presented with great delight to fellow poets and friends:
Yun toh duniya mein hain sukhanwar bahut acchche,
kahte hain ke Ghalib ka hai andaaz-e-bayaan aur.
(The world has seen a lot of good poets
But there is something to be said about Ghalib’s style of expression)
An agnostic in the land of believers, a man who religiously enjoyed his ‘jaam’ in the company of the oh-so-holy teetotallers, a philosopher in the assembly of mere poets. And yet, one who could laugh it all away in a few lines of poetry.
Ye masaail-e-tasawuff, yeh tera bayaan Ghalib,
tujhe hum wali samajhte jo na badakhwar hota…
(These matters of the soul; and your profound words Ghalib,
We would pronounce you a saint, were you not such a drunk)
We spend about half an hour in the small rooms. There is nothing much to see. But if you cared to listen and read the inscriptions on the walls, you could hear a thousand desires speak their mind…
Hazaaro kwahishein aisi, ke har kwahish pe dum nikle…
Bahut nikley mere armaan; lekin phir bhi kam nikle
(A thousand desires: each one worth dying for …
So many fulfilled, and yet still I yearn for more!)
And then, all of a sudden, it is time to leave. The caretaker wants to close up the place. The food of Chandni Chowk calls out to the hungry stomachs and with the air of one who had lived a dream, I turn back and go out into the narrow streets of Chandni Chowk.
Though I repeatedly said, how happy I was to be here and how it would not matter if I did not see anything else in Delhi ever again, this experience was nowhere near enough. This was not a place to visit, but a place to stay in, to live, to breathe and soak in the brilliance of a man who lived a century and a half ago, and who captured the unrest of the times in a skein of magic.
And no one could have described, my thoughts on leaving the place better than the poet himself:
Koi mere dil se pooche, tere teer-e-neem kash ko;
yeh khalish kahan se hoti, jo jigar ke paar hota.
(Ask my heart about your half-drawn bow,
This anguish would not arise had the arrow passed through).
