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Living with the dead in Delhi
A TOMB in every house -- that's Naib Karim near the Walled City of Delhi. You leave behind the chaotic traffic of Paharganj and walk through winding gullies to reach the place and find that it is still a shadow of the past. You might as well close your eyes and imagine yourself to be in some 19th Century locality where the King's writ still ran, for nothing much has changed since then here, though it is listed as New Delhi. Yes, some houses do have TV antennas on their roofs but there is little else by way of modernity to distinguish them from medieval structures. And the people who live in them too have not kept pace with the times as far as their daily life is concerned.
Naib Karim is an old mohalla of Delhi. About 100 years ago it marked the end of the city limits, for after it was the hill of Jhandewalan with its temple, which few visited for fear of being waylaid by vagabonds. It is no more so because the Capital has expanded beyond the hill, which was cut down to make the road to Karol Bagh. Still Nabi Karim retains its old character. The tomb around which is inhabitants dwell, are not those of famous people, though there might be a few of the great buried there. One of them was Lal Shah, a pir below whose grave now a drain flows.
One wonders why people live in these surroundings? There are cots spread atop tombs and somebody plays a transistor, which dangles from a headstone, unmindful of disturbing the sanctity of the place. Women cook their evening meals on stoves or old chulhas, the smoke filling up the abode of the dead and the living. A child plays near a grave and cats, dogs, goats and sheep jump over tombstones as though making a mockery of death.
Perhaps things were not always so. After 1947, when the population started increasing by leaps and bounds, the poor people who live in Nabi Karim found it difficult to find houses for themselves and decided to live among the graves. There are too many of them to be scared of the lingering ghosts and kindered spirits of this erstwhile cemetery. And there are enough lights for the children to frolic at night too. Perhaps the fact that they have grow up amidst the tombs had banished all fear from their hearts, though a curious passer-by may feel a chill down his spine. But then doesn't familiarity breed contempt?
Nabi Karim was the area where that doyen of Urdu poetry, Sheikh Ibrahim Zauq lived. It was from here that he rode, or was carried in a palanquin, to the Red Fort where he whet the poetic compositions of the Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. Many of Zafar's ghazals bear the impress of his mentor.
Zauq was buried in this locality but his grave is not traceable. The reason is most foul. A public latrine was built on top of the last resting place of the Badshah's ustad -- the one who bandied couplets with Ghalib and came out with that prophetic gem - "Kaun jaye Zauq Dilli ki galian chor kar'' -- who, oh Zauq would dare desert the lanes of Delhi. One need not be a poet to understand the relevance of it even in our own prosaic times.
Like Naib Karim, Qadam Sharif, near Qutab Road, New Delhi, strikes one as something unusual, and this despite the fact that it is situated in a locality constructed cheek-by-jowl, where dogs bark at each other and at people passing by. Still the monument that dominates the area is fascinating, for in it rests Fateh Khan, eldest son of the Emperor Firoz Tughlak. History, architecture, gardening, irrigation and hunting were the passions of Firoz's life. He was the one who repaired the Qutab Minar and other buildings of that time when there was no Archaeological Survey, and for their upkeep earmarked funds which were utilised on an annual basis.
Now Firoz was also a deeply religious man who dreamt of having the closest possible ties with Mecca. One of these was Makhdoom Jehan Gasht, a saint, who went on the Haj pilgrimage with instruction to bring back the robe of the prophet. Makhdoom did not succeed in his mission but he brought backward that there were several other relics relating to Hazrat Mohammad with which the Khalifa did not like to part. So Firoz sent him back with presents and the saint was ultimately able to get some of the relics, one of which was a slab of stone with the Prophet's foot print.
The Emperor's joy knew no bounds and he decided that when he died the stone would be placed on his grave. But fate willed it otherwise. It was his eldest and best loved son who died before him. And on his deathbed, the prince made Firoz promise that the Qadam Sharif would rest on his grave. A fond father kept the promise and built a befitting tomb for his son.
But Naib Karim doesn't have any such exalted grave. Most of them are of inconsequential people. Naib Karim, which means merciful prophet, at least in name bears a relationship with Qadam Sharif as both are associated with the Prophet.
People may have come to dwell in this graveyard because of shortage of houses. They couldn't have buried their near and dear ones in their own homes. What they probably did was to build houses without demolishing the old graves. This can be one explanation as to how the living and the dead share the same abode.
The area, however, is almost always in the news, either because of religious functions, processions or ghastly crimes. After the partition, when refugees came to Delhi, some settled down in Multani Danda and some here. So it's not only a mohalla of the minority community.
That Zauq lived in Nabi Karim goes to show that once this place must have been home to many other influential people. It was only after the upheaval of 1857 that it began to lose importance and the riots of 1947 made it a virtual graveyard.
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