Delhi - Those Times and Lives - 6

The posting of this series has been somewhat irregular, mea culpa. But I hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I did. Here is the next part: 

(Continued excerpts from The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple)

As the sun set, the churches, mosques and temples filled again: the ringing of the bells of the evening arti, the final call to prayer from the minarets, and the basso profoundo of the organ chords concluding Padre Jennings' evensong in St James's, all fusing together with rumble of British carriages heading out towards the Civil Lines through the bottleneck of Kashmiri Gate - where the bricking up of the second of the two arches was a cause of frequent complaints in the Delhi Gazette.

Delhi-RamageBradford-1870

As then gloaming thickened, the lights were lit in the Red Fort by a procession of torchbearers accompanied by tabors, trumpets and pipes, while out in the city the streets were filling with the Delhi College students and the madrasa boys returning in the half-light, exhausted from a day's hard study and memorising. The two streams would rarely mingle, however.
For the English, sunset was the beginning of the end of the day. They had another vast meal to look forward to - ......... but there was little to look forward to thereafter. The French traveller Victor Jacquemont was particularly unimpressed by the after-dinner entertainments offered by the British society of Delhi: 'I have not seen the slightest exhibition of pleasure among the idlers at [Delhi] parties', he wrote. 'None of the conditions which make a ball a pleasurable thing in Paris exist in the European community in Delhi'.
It was certainly true that the British community in Delhi were an eccentric lot, even by the standards of Victorian expats.
Certainly, the British in Delhi were always to some extent looking over their shoulder to the more Anglicised station of Meerut, which with its huge cantonment and large English community was famous for its theatre and its lavish regimental balls. But Delhi could boast almost none of that: 'There is little society here, complained one junior Residency official, adding that after he had finished his court work, he had little option but to take refuge in the company of his classical library.'
For the people of Delhi, however, the best part of the day lay ahead. Chandni Chowk really came alive only after sunset, as the pavements swelled with wide-eyed boys from the mufussil or Jat farmers and Gujar herdsmen in from their villages in Haryana, ogling the gamblers locked in the stocks outside the lotwal or heading off to ask for blessings and good fortune  at the city's matrix of bustling Sufi shrines. Elsewhere could be seen gentlemen visiting from Lucknow in their distinctive cut of wide-bottomed pyjamas or tall, bearded Pathan horse traders fresh in from Peshawar and Ambala, spilling out of the sarais and in to Ghantawallahs, the famous sweet shop, whose laddus were supposed to be the best in Hindustan. The coffee houses - the qahwa khanas - were filling up now too, with poets reciting their verses at some tables, scholars locked in debate at others.

Photo courtesy: http://oldindianphotos.blogspot.com/

On the steps of Jama Maszid, the story tellers would be beginning their recitations, which could go on for seven or eight hours with only a short break. The most popular of all the tales was the Dastan-i-Amir Hamza, a chivalrous epic romance....) In its fullest form, the tale grew to contain a massive twenty thousand  separate stories, and would take several weeks of all-night story telling to complete, the printed version filled forty-six volumes. As listeners gathered around the Dastango (the story teller), at the other side of the steps, Jani the celebrated kebab man would now be fanning his charcoal. Delhiwallahs used to like surprise visitors from outside by taking them to eat there without telling them of 'the pot of hot chillis' with which Jani would marinate his kebabs.
(Contd..)

Also in the series:
Delhi - Those Times and Lives - 1
Delhi - Those Times and Lives - 2 
Delhi - Those Times and Lives - 3 
Delhi - Those Times and Lives - 4
Delhi - Those Times and Lives - 5

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a difficult book to read, to experience and to describe.
Epic in its proportions and ambitious in its ambit, it tells the story of generations of a fictional Buendia family set in Colombia, South America. Rich backdrop for an interesting story, which it is, no doubt.  All through the book, you are aware that this is no ordinary book. It is said to be a thinly disguised history of Colombia with some important historical markers, and inhabited by some very interesting characters and situations.
But, the narrative style, which has been eulogized as "magical realism", fails to rouse an average reader like me. Almost forever in third person, the narrative seemed to me trudging along like a tuneless song. It is with great effort that one sifts through the debris and finds the sparkling diamonds beneath.
Salman Rushdie described this book as "The greatest novel in any language of the last fifty years". I am sure I would read it once more to be able to rise up to it.

Gods on the Road

What does one do when one encounteres Shree Hanuman Ji and Ma Kali together on the main road in Gurgaon?

What else but bows one's head in reverence, marvel again at the stream of spectacles which keep on hitting one and click a picture for posterity?

Jai Ho!

शांति पाठ

अभी कुछ दिन पहले मित्र राहुल झाम्ब ने अपने फेस-बुक नोट्स पर बाबा नागार्जुन की प्रसिद्द कविता - "मन्त्र-कविता ॐ"  लगाई थी.

इसे एक विरोधाभास (आप कविता पढेंगे तो जानेंगे, विरोधाभास क्यूँ) ही कहूँगा कि इस शानदार कविता ने मुझे वेदों में लिखे इस शांति-पाठ की याद दिला दी, जो कि सामान्यतः हिन्दू धर्म से ही जोड़ा जाता रहा है  - 

 

कुछ समय पहले एक कैलेंडर पर इसका भावार्थ पढ़ा, जो कि आप से बांटना चाहता हूँ. मुझे पता नहीं यह कितना प्रमाणिक है, और ना ही इस के उद्गम के बारे में मुझे पता है (आपको पता हो तो बताएं), पर इस को धर्म की संकरी गली से निकाल कर इंसानियत के चश्मे से पढ़ा जाये तो बहुत सुन्दर भाव है:

शांति कीजिये प्रभु त्रिभुवन में, 

शांति कीजिये प्रभु त्रिभुवन में!

जल में, थल में, और गगन में,

अंतरिक्ष में, अग्नि-पवन में,

औषधि, वनस्पति, वन-उपवन में,

सकल विश्व में, जड़-चेतन में,

शांति कीजिये प्रभु त्रिभुवन में!

ब्राह्मण के उपदेश वचन में,

क्षत्रिय के द्वारा हो रण में,

वैश्य जनों के होवे धन में,

और शूद्र के होवे चरनन में,

शांति कीजिये प्रभु त्रिभुवन में!

शांति राष्ट्र-निर्माण, सृजन में,

नगर, ग्राम में और भवन में,

जीवन मात्र के तन में, मन में,

और जगती के हो कण कण में,

शांति कीजिये प्रभु त्रिभुवन में, शांति कीजिये प्रभु त्रिभुवन में.

एक निवेदन - "और शूद्र के होवे चरनन में" के अर्थ के बारे में मुझे शंका है, हो सके तो बताएं.