The Seventh City

Shop in by-lane of Chandni Chowk

Living in ‘New Delhi’, the old city always fascinated me. Before I explored it, Old Delhi seemed like a different city with different rules and different languages, tucked away in the folds of the capital. In some ways, I had been right about Purani Dilli.

The avenues, streets, lanes, all breathed collectively with the crowds. The language here seemed novel to my untrained ears. The consonants fell softer from tongues. The vowels lingered on the lips of the speaker. The songs, wafting in the breeze, smelled like earth. Amidst the jostle of the crowds and the trampling of toes, the language could become harsh in an instant, only for that harshness to evaporate and be lost amidst the sweat and swell of the mass. This city, three centuries old though she may be, is still alive.

We explored Old Delhi without much care for history. We explored for old books, for stories, for a quick taste of phirni. Once, on a quest to find ittar, a friend and I spent the whole afternoon wandering the maze-like lanes of Meena Bazaar, amidst the scurrying people hurrying through. It was hours later that we remembered why we came there, only to realize that the ittar we had been looking for had been right under our noses – we were just too enamoured to see it.

Bus Service along the main avenue of Chandni Chowk, 2009. This service was started with the aim of reducing congestion in the area.

While our aimless explorations were contemporary, the history of the city began in 1639 with the laying of the foundation of Shahjanabad. It would go on to become the seventh city of Delhi, serving as the capital of the Mughal Empire till its decline. The remnants of this city – the gates, the walls, the mosques, the memories of the rulers who built them – make up this vibrant part of Delhi.

Shabab-ud-din Muhammad Khurram was born in 1592 in Lahore, to Prince Salim, who wasn’t the Emperor Jahangir we know him as just yet, and the Rajput princess Jagat Gosaini. Akbar fondly gave his grandson the name Khurram – Persian for ‘joyous’. He grew up under the care of Empress Ruqaiya Sultan Begum, who had aspirations of raising a Mughal Emperor.

Upon Akbar’s death, Salim ascended the throne as Nur-ud-din Muhammad Jahangir Badshah Ghazi, and immediately had to quell the onslaught on the throne. In 1608, now in control of his empire, Jahangir passed the fiefdom of the sarkar of Hissar-Firoza to Khurram, thus cementing his position as heir-apparent.

In 1611, Jahangir married Nur Jahan. Over the years, as Jahangir became more clouded with wine and opium, Nur Jahan along with her brother Asaf Khan claimed larger shares in Jahangir’s court. Nur Jahan would go on to play an important role in the writing of Mughal history, and shaping the princely aspirations of Prince Khurram. The marriage of Asaf Khan’s daughter, Arujumand, to Khurram consolidated the power of the court in his hand too.

Nur Jahan played her cards well by having her daughter from her first marriage, marry Khurram’s half-brother, Shahzada Shahryar. This led to further splintering in the fragile Mughal court of Jahangir. Khurram resented both Nur Jahan, for polluting his father’s ear, and being usurped by his half-brother Shahzada Shahryar who was Nur Jahan’s favourite.

Mosque Minaret, Chandni Chowk

Upon the death of Jahangir in 1627, Asaf Khan became the instrument of Khurram’s ascension to power. He forestalled Nur Jahan’s plans of placing Shahzada Shahryar on the throne by putting her in close confinement and seizing control of Khurram’s three sons under her care. Prince Khurram was crowned Emperor on 19 January, 1628 as Abu ud-Muzaffar Shihab ud-Din Mohammad Sahib ud-Quiran ud-Thani Shah Jahan Padshah Ghazi.

He ordered the executions of his chief rivals and arrested Nur Jahan. Shahryar, his own half-brother and Nur Jahan’s favourite, was put to death as one of Shah Jahan’s first acts as Emperor. With these rivals out of the way, Shah Jahan’s rule was absolute.

By 1638, Shah Jahan began to feel constricted in the cramped city of Agra. A new plan for a new city along the Yamuna was envisioned, and the building of Shahjahanabad commenced. The city was built through 1649 with the Red Fort, Jama Masjid and Chandni Chowk becoming the iconic landmarks.

With the later Mughal Emperors ruling from Lal Qila, a number of markets and settlements mushroomed within the city. Shahjahanabad became a flourishing capital that saw the Mughal Empire through to its decline in 1857, when the British forces took over the controls of the country.

By-lane of Chandni Chowk

One of the most iconic British constructions is the Delhi Town Hall of Chandni Chowk. Since its completion, it has seen many uses by the British and Indian administration – known as Lawrence Institute during which it housed the Delhi College of Higher Studies; later it housed a library and a European club, and was the seat of the Municipal Corporation. Parts of the building are still used as government offices.

Town Hall, Chandni Chowk

Stairs leading up to the Town Hall

The yellow walls merged smoothly with the overcast skies of the day. The white trims on the walls shone bright as we made our way through the high-ceilinged façade. A painting of Mahatma Gandhi hung in the entrance hall and from within, we could hear the hum of air conditioners working in the offices. Towards the center of the building, surrounded by high walls in yellow and white, was a well-maintained garden with tall trees and large leaves. The cool air and the quiet that surrounded us was a respite from the humidity and the bustle of the city that lay just beyond the walls.

Town Hall Entrance

Towards the north of the Town Hall is the Mahatma Gandhi Park, where a towering statue of Mahatma Gandhi stands. A pathway encircles it, and eight pillars of red sandstone with lamps surround the statue.

At the south end of the Town Hall stands a statue of Swami Sraddhanand. He was an educationist and Arya Samaj missionary. He founded the Gurukul Kangri University, Haridwar. He was a keen follower of Dayanand Saraswati. He was assassinated on 23rd December, 1926.

Mahatma Gandhi Park

Swami Sraddhanand Statue

This area, the Southern end of the Town Hall, is still referred to as Ghantaghar. In 1870, a clock-tower termed Northbrook Clocktower was built at this location. It became an iconic landmark, with its Gothic architecture, four faces and chime of five bells. It was named after the Viceroy of India from 1872 to 1876, Thomas Northbrook. The tower collapsed partially in 1950, following which it was dismantled over the years.

Where the town hall now stands, there stood a Caravanserai built by Jahanara Begum, Shah Jahan’s daughter and the designer of Chandni Chowk. Jahanara Begum was the daughter of Mumtaz Mahal, and Shah Jahan, and is frequently called Shah Jahan’s favourite daughter. Ascending to the post of Padshah Begum upon her mother’s death, she became one of the most powerful women of the Mughal times. Jahanara Begum was seventeen at the time of her ascension. She was a supporter of Dara Shikoh during Shah Jahan’s lifetime and during the war of ascension between Shah Jahan’s sons. When Aurangzeb placed Shah Jahan under arrest at the Agra Fort, she joined him and took care of him until his death in 1666. Jahanara died in the year 1681 and was buried at the Nizamuddin Dargah complex.

Jahanara’s Chandni Chowk has grown and evolved over the years, witness to many important landmarks of history. Lanes have become congested, streets bursting at its seams. Yet there is a taste of the halcyon days amidst the impatient honks of the cars, the tinkle of rickshaw bells in meek protest against the traffic, the betel-stained walls. The avenue is still telling its stories through the voices that haggle, the footsteps that stomp through the lanes, the sizzle of frying tikkis and aloo chaat. These stories still beat with the collective thump of Old Delhi’s heart.

~

“Say ‘Cheese’!”

I hated antique shops. I hated the concept, the idea, of owning something that was previously someone else’s. Almost as though it was an encroachment on their private lives, and their memories from such a long time ago. Anyway, I’ve never had an eye for antiques, and paying to buy old grimy black things that stand out ostensibly somehow didn’t seem to be for me.

Even so, when Carla told me that she wanted to go to the antique store down the street, I couldn’t refuse. Partly because, in the few weeks that I had spent in America, Carla had been my only friend. And in those few weeks, we had fallen madly in love with each other. I knew going with her to the antique store would make her smile, and so I went with her.

Carla had a way with things like that – old letters, old furniture, old books, old photographs. In her life, memories were the most powerful component, and although I didn’t quite understand the importance those memories had for her, somehow, I knew they were important to her, and made her just the person who she was. She was a romantic, a young passionate woman with a raging and wild imagination, and she loved weaving stories around the little things that she found in her favourite antique stores and flea markets and pawn shops she always seemed to know about. We never really knew if any of her stories were even close to the truth, but it was fun nonetheless. “Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose,” she used to say, and even though it was just a cheesy line from an old TV show, I thought I knew just what she meant.

Now that Carla and I aren’t together, I understand what she meant about memories. It’s also one of the reasons why, out of all the forays into the local antique store, there’s only one that stays persistently on my mind. It was a usual drizzly day, and we hadn’t really planned to go and check out the antique store, at least not for another week or so. Still, there was nothing better to do as we were caught in the drizzle, and somehow the thought of dancing in the rain didn’t quite seem very alluring in that moment. So, Carla dragged me into her favourite little store, and I followed silently.

The shop didn’t really look very different, and as always, I felt like I was in a strict library, not allowed to speak one word. “You’re in the company of memories now,” Carla told me. And then we spent the rest of the evening in silence, lost in the past of the strangers who had left their possessions there, in the company of second-hand memories.

There were a lot of things in the store that day – an old wooden cupboard, grimy chairs with dirty cushions on them, letter holders stuffed full of old letters that the previous owners hadn’t bothered to throw out. I also found an old diary, one that belonged to a 13 year old boy named Brian McWallace. I wondered if I should read through the diary, contemplating the morality of the issue, but it had been taken care of Brian in his boyhood – he’d never written a word in the diary. The first time when I had wanted to be a little like Carla, and wander into the world of imagination, and making up stories befitting the lives of the former owners of the things we held in our hands, Brain McWallace had thwarted that desire, by leaving the diary entirely blank. I threw it back on to the shelf, surprised to find myself so frustrated for something as insignificant as the inability to think up a story. I wasn’t Carla, and I knew I couldn’t make up a story for the fantastic life of Brian McWallace, so I left the diary back on the dusty shelf and went about looking for her amidst the old junk.

I think back then, I was immature to think that there was no value to old violins and old guitars, and was a bit too quick to judge them based on the amount of grime they had acquired over the years. Maybe if I knew everything I know now, I might have been able to see those old things in the dingy shop in a better light. However, I didn’t know anything about the value inanimate things absorb over the years, which can make them seem priceless to some people, even if they seem worthless to others.

But Carla knew. She knew just what every single one of those grimy little artefacts were worth, because she knew how to calculate something’s worth in more than just monetary terms. I found that the slight bit of allure that I had felt a moment back had faded off, and I was bored. I wanted to sit with Carla again, even if it was just to hear one of her little stories. I picked up the first thing that I passed by – an old, faded violin with just one string – and went to Carla looking for a story.

I knew she would tell me all about the violin’s incredible journey, and the applause it had received (maybe at the Carnegie Hall?), but she didn’t. When I found her, in the back of the little shop, she had already found her treasure for the day, and didn’t really seem too interested in the violin I had so painstakingly picked out for her. Instead, she was looking at an old, faded picture.

It was a normal looking picture, something that can be found in any old family. Three people, looking out of a car. Nothing great in that, right? Sure, they looked happy, but then, isn’t that how most people have their pictures taken? Don’t their faces automatically go into the ‘smile, there’s a camera pointed at you!’ mode the moment they know someone’s clicking their picture? I didn’t know why Carla was looking at that picture, and sitting there waiting for her story to come out, I felt a little bored. And a little stupid, too.

But the story didn’t come that day. For some reason, Carla didn’t want to venture into the lives of the people who made up that picture, and she didn’t want to talk about the travels they may have had in the car with the window rolled down. She didn’t want to know the reason why they looked so happy in the photo. She just sat there, silently, staring at the picture in her hand. So, having nothing else to do, I started looking at the picture, too.

And then, a very interesting thing happened in the dark, dingy shop. From looking at the picture, I went to looking at the people instead. I started wondering where these people were, the two women and the young man, all of them so full of life and laughter and happiness. I found myself wondering if the photographer had said “Cheese!” before pressing the button that bottled their moment of happiness forever, capturing them on that little piece of paper that Carla was holding. I wondered what they were so happy about, and if those dreams, those fantasies, they came true. I wondered if they made any memories that day or not, and how long they were together after that picture was taken, to cherish those memories. I wondered why the photograph, the tangible proof of their intangible memories, and their intangible happiness, lay forgotten in this old Missouri antique shop. And I wondered who these people were. Even then, as I sat there with the girl I was so crazy about, holding a photograph that had neither of us in it, I knew I’d always remember this moment.

“We can ask the store manager who these people are, can’t we?” I asked.

“No,” said Carla. “Let’s not do that.”

“Why not? Maybe he knows these people,” I said.

Carla looked strangely thoughtful, and finally said, “Because life – both ours and theirs – deserves a sense of mystery.”

In the end, we bought just the picture of the three strangers sitting in the car with their happy smiles that day. She said she would want me to keep it. She thought maybe it would help to get me started building some memories (second hand though they were), and start living life the way she did for a change. I never thought it would work, but in a strange way, it did.

Carla and I broke up six months later. It wasn’t a pretty break up, and I returned to India soon after that. In the wake of the fights, and our fallout, I had thrown away all of our pictures. It’s been many years since I last saw her, and I’ve sometimes found myself wondering where she is, and what she’s up to these days. In those moments, I take a look at that picture, the one that we stumbled upon all those years ago in her favourite little antique store. And even though I have nothing else to remind me of her, that old picture is all I’ll ever need – even though it doesn’t have Carla or me in it. Because I understand now what she meant when she talked about memories – how they really are a way of holding on to the things that you have loved in the past, the person that you were in the past, and the things you never thought you would lose, in the past.

~

Inspired from Magpie Tales. They asked for a poem, but I’m no great shakes at that… so, I wrote this one instead.