NEW DELHI :

THE HAVELI of Kale Sahib is no more but the ahata (compound) still exists, and what a slum it has become since 1847 when Ghalib lived there after his release from prison for debt default! The poet quipped that after being freed by Gore (the British) he had been “imprisoned” by Kale. Kale Sahib was a highly venerated man. Whether he got this name because of his complexion is not known, but it is quite likely that the saint was not as fair as Ghalib. The Moghul emperor was among his devotees and so were Ghalib and his family. As a matter of fact, Ghalib’s sister-in-law, Bunyiadi Begum gifted the ahata to Kale Sahib and the name stuck.

Kale Sahib was a practical minded saint who refused to perform miracles just to please his devotees. He counselled them to pray fervently, pointing out at the same time that in 90 per cent cases prayers went unanswered. But there were instances when he did help people out of their difficulties. He once admonished a man from whom he had driven out an evil spirit that if he went back to his sinful ways he would again become possessed and then even miracles might not help. Apparently Kale Sahib did not have to exorcise him again.

Situated in the Ballimaran area of Delhi, Ahata Kale Sahib forms part of the locality founded by a Persian, Qasim Khan, who first settled down in Lahore about the year 1750 and was befriended by the Governor of Punjab, Moinul Mulk. When Ahmed Shah Abdali invaded Punjab, Moinul Mulk resisted him and was killed. His widow, Mughlai Begum then became the virtual ruler and made Qasim Khan her chief adviser. There were insinuations, but then which young widow is safe from wagging tongues if she befriends a man?

Qasim Khan later came to the court of Shah Alam where he was accepted as a nobleman. The place in which he lived is known to this day as Gali Qasim Jan. Qasim Khan’s son, Faizullah Beg built the ahata. But how Buniyadi Begum came to possess it is not clear.

Congested mohalla

Ahata Kale Sahib now is a congested mohalla. Few of its residents remember Kale Sahib. But the ahata is in the news generally, for whenever BSES resorts to power cuts, Ahata Kale Sahib is as much affected as distant Janakpuri. In fact one finds this link between what was once Asia’s biggest colony and one of the dirtiest amusing. After Ghalib’s joke about Gore and Kale this should surely take the cake for it would have tickled the poet too. But he is long dead and gone.. But one has the feeling that he couldn’t be resting peacefully in Nizamuddin for he was essentially a man of the walled city of Delhi whose charms began and ended within its confines.

The charms are still reflected in a slight difference in speech, the flavour of the kababs and the taste of the water from Hare Bhare Sahib. The breeze that springs from the Jamuna goes past the Red Fort, negotiates the many arches of the Jama Masjid and merges with the smell of the motia and chameli sold at the crossroads before cooling the courtyards of the houses in the narrow gullies.

Ghalib liked to move about in this area of which the Kashmere and Delhi gates were the two extremities, with the fort being the hub and centre and the mosque the cultural bastion of the city. Yes, of course, Ghalib always had a soft corner for Agra, because he was born there and passed his boyhood in Kala Mahal from which the Taj looks just like a building in the next locality.

But his heart had been won over by Shahjehanabad. From Ballimaran to Jama Masjid the walk was long enough via Chandni Chowk. Sometimes one could meet Mir Ashiq who came from the opposite direction and went back to his kucha via Ballimaran. Was the tilt of his cap different from that of the residents of Nizamuddin? People noticed such traits and developed their pet notions.

For a man of such intense likes and dislikes as Ghalib, his grave in Nizamuddin is out of the milieu in which he flourished. It is a small enclosure though beautiful in its own way where sparrows make love in the afternoon. The illiterate take it for another shrine where obeisance must be paid, and budding poets hope to imbibe some of the virtues of the great “shair”.

An old man who sometimes steals up to the mausoleum feels that even a blank page touching the “mazar” would instantly be graced with a ghazal. He has never seen it happen, nor would we surely, but such feelings are the stuff legends are made of.

R.V.SMITH

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> MetroPlus Delhi / by R V Smith / Monday – November 29th, 2004