Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
Some music for the Eternal City
LIKE JERUSALEM, Rome and Athens, Delhi qualifies for the status of Eternal City. So in all fairness, the Greek composer Yanni, who long ago performed near the Taj Mahal, should also consider a concert in the Qutb complex at Mehrauli or in the Purana Quila.
Legend and antiquity have lent to Delhi the halo of mystery. The origins of this imperial city go beyond the pages of history and its hoary past baffles the researcher. How did it come into being and who were the people who first inhabited it? The question remains mostly unanswered.
There is no guide one could refer to except the legendary belief that a Raja Dilli or Killi once ruled the place and lent his name to the city. Later Dilli became associated with the Dil - heart - of Hindustan, and with the advent of the Moghuls, and later the British, took on the name of Dehli or Delhi and the more recent New Delhi of Lutyens.
After the long succession of Hindu kings and the Muslim sultans who followed them to the gaddi of Delhi, came the Moghuls. The founders of the dynasty - Babar and Humayun - continued to rule from the Old Fort, which though definitely a Muslim place of architecture, was certainly built on the site of Yudhishtira's Indraprastha, the Capital of the Pandavas.
Akbar and his son Jehangir moved their centre of administration to Agra and it was only later that Shahjahan returned to Delhi to build a new fort and mosque and give to the beautiful street of Chandni Chowk the likeness of an Eastern Venice.
It was not the Emperor alone who went on a building spree. His nobles were not far behind. Their palaces began to come up opposite the fort and around both the Jama - main - mosque and in Chandni Chowk. It was from Kala Mahal that Shahjahan had supervised the construction of the Red Fort, so the area in which the mahal was situated, Kuccha Chelan, saw the whole crop of havelis coming up, the Nehar Wali Haveli later acquired by President Musharraf's ancestors in Daryaganj and the palaces of Dara Shikoh behind the Jama Masjid and in Kashmere Gate. The British later added their own buildings.
The construction of all these entailed a lot of digging up of the past. The place where the Red Fort now stands was found by the Moghul Emperor to be the site of an old fort of the Afghans, who in turn must have built on an ancient Hindu citadel, for according to an old saying, "a king succeeds a king and a fort replaces a fortress''.
The past is being dug up anew in Delhi because of the large-scale development work and introduction of the Metro. Thus, while laying a park near the Jama Masjid some years ago, engineers came across the ruins of Moghul palaces beneath a wilderness of babool trees, which grew on the land now occupied by Azad Park. Lower below the surface they hit upon volcanic rocks. That points to the fact that Delhi is founded on a rocky eminence. What lies below nobody seems to know.
Legend says that the Ashoka Pillar near the Qutb Minar is driven so deep into the ground that it rests on the head of the mythological serpent guarding the earth. Once Raja Dilli tried to confirm whether it was really so but had to give up in fear when, after digging a few feet near the pillar, he came across blood-soaked soil.
The sights and sounds of Delhi are the envy of the foreigner, for here he sees what an old Indian city really looked like. In the Jama Masjid area a bit of the atmosphere of the Nawabi days is still very much in evidence. There are kabab sellers and the perfume of flowers and itar, and soft music from the shrines dotted over the area. There are also veiled women and men dressed in oriental clothes who speak Urdu and bow low in adaab in greeting.
At a stone's throw from the Jama Masjid is Chandni Chowk, which, despite the mad rush of taxis, scooters and buses, still retains its old scars and the Hindu houses of yore. Delicious paranthas and kachoris are made there and some of the men and women you meet are dressed in the best traditions of caste and class. There are temples in nearly every gali, though a mosque too may be spotted here and there.
Chandni Chowk has fallen on evil days indeed, for at one time - exaggerations apart - it was the only mart East of the Suez where one could buy a houri or an elephant or catch a glimpse of a Moghul princess boating down the canal, which flowed through the centre of the chowk.
On the North Chandni Chowk is bounded by the Red Fort and on the South by the Fatehpuri Masjid. The latter commemorates one of the wives of Shah Jahan. Fatehpuri Begum, and in pre-partition days was famous for its good Mughlai dishes.
Beyond Chandni Chowk is Kashmere Gate, which flourished with the advent of the British. It marks the northernmost of the 10 gates built by Shahjahan. The wall near the Kashmere Gate still retains the marks of the bombardment by the British in 1857.
Past the Kashmire Gate lays the Civil Lines area and about half a mile from it the Ridge. Both the places are dotted with buildings erected by the British. The most prominent among them was Ludlow Castle, which was lately demolished to make room for a school that was previously housed in the old buildings. The castle had also served as the Delhi Club in the early years of the last century.
Mehrauli, where Prithviraj Chauhan built his Lal Kot and where Qutbuddin and his successors had their Capital, is another ancient area of Delhi. If Yanni could be persuaded to perform there after the Taj concert, it would be a befitting tribute to an eternal city, as old as Athens, if not older.
R.V. SMITH
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
|
