Priceless editions of Urdu, Persian and English lie in neglect as no one cares to maintain a library that should have been a national treasure.
Daniel Jacobius Morgan
I have spent much of the past week digging through piles of books at the Saulat Public Library in the city of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. I am looking for a single manuscript: Muhammad Sanaʾullah Panipati’s Khawass-i Hizb al-Bahr, an 18th century Persian commentary, written in Delhi, on the occult properties of a famous prayer formulae compiled by Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili, the Maghribi mystic of the 13th century. It is, very likely, the only copy of the commentary in the world.
I know it is somewhere in the library because it appears in Abid Reza Bedar’s 1966 catalogue, but despite my excavations and those of Mazhar Muin Khan, the endlessly patient librarian, the manuscript remains hidden.
I am sure that Muhammad Sanaʾullah Panipati would have understood my search: just as words have occult sympathies with the material world, so too does this hidden manuscript exercise its power, drawing me to the library day after day although it remains unseen, buried beneath thick layers of dust, cobwebs and mouldering pages. As I dig through the stacks, I can’t help but call to mind the hadith qudsi: “I was a hidden treasure that loved to be known.”The disappearance of a single manuscript, though serious in itself, is part of a far larger problem at Saulat Library: one of India’s richest archives of Urdu, Persian and Arabic works, it has fallen into a state of absolute desuetude.
Reader’s ticket
Founded in 1934, the library was once an important centre of political and social life for North Indian Muslims. In its heyday, famous visitors included Khalid Sheldrake (the British pickle manufacturer turned king of Chinese “Islamistan”), Sayyid Hashimi Faridabadi (author of a famous Urdu history of Greece), Khwaja Hasan Nizami (the great Chishti Sufi of Delhi), and the Agha Khan.
Besides 25,000 Urdu printed books – including the only known first edition of Ghalib’s 1841 Urdu diwan – the library holds hundreds of irreplaceable manuscripts: eighteenth-century Afghan chronicles, works on occult science, personal diaries of Rampuri notables, volumes of Persian poetry, and richly-illuminated Qurʾāns. It also holds a complete run of Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s Persian newspaper Jam-i Jahan Numa, Muhammad ʿAli Jauhar’s Urdu-language Hamdard and English-language Comrade, as well as Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s Tahzib al-Akhlaq.
Since the partition, when many of its leading lights moved to Pakistan, it has undergone a process of steady decline. A further blow came with the abolition of the privy purse of the Rampuri royal family, the library’s major patrons.
The reading room with pictures of Hakim Ajmal Khan, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Muhammad Ali and the first Nawab of Rampur
These days, residents of Rampur have barely heard its name. As I searched for it in the city’s narrow lanes, I kept being directed to its well-funded and illustrious sister library, the Raza Library, housed in the old Nawabi palace. Like its manuscripts, Saulat is hidden. To get there you have to walk through the winding streets that lead to the heart of the Chaku (knife) Bazaar to a small courtyard behind the city’s Jama Masjid (the congregational mosque). The library is up an unlit staircase behind a tailor’s shop. You really have to know where it is to get there.
The main reading room only has three walls now: the fourth collapsed in March 2013, and there is no money to replace it. All the books have now been moved into a single room where the electricity is intermittent at best and daylight comes in through a few holes in the ceiling. The library was already in poor condition when the wall fell. Since then the cataloguing system has broken down entirely.External view with missing wallThe library’s one regular patron, a retired engineer who studied at Aligarh Muslim University, comes each morning to read the newspaper. He described the library as a “graveyard for books” (kitabon ka qabaristan). It is hard to disagree: the books are piled high on shelves, some strewn on the floor, torn and covered in dust so thick it looks like the set of a low-grade horror film.The sad irony is that the collection survived almost certain destruction once before. In the violence that accompanied partition in 1947, the managing committee of the library faced an enraged crowd who were marching through the city torching government buildings. Because the library is located in a former tehsil office, it was targeted for destruction. Forming a human chain, they passed thousands of books, manuscripts and newspapers from hand to hand across the courtyard that separates the library from the Jama Masjid (congregational mosque) some eighty metres away. But where fire and violence failed, ants and neglect are winning the day.I have come to Rampur to gather materials for my PhD dissertation on the history of eighteenth-century North Indian intellectual culture. For my task, the most precious manuscripts are often those that were never printed because they reveal much about fields of knowledge that were neglected with the coming of colonial rule. To see these irreplaceable texts crumbling before my eyes is heartbreaking.
A water-damaged Persian manuscript
Given the working conditions, Mazhar Muin’s daily enthusiasm for our thus far thankless search is remarkable. But without some urgent action to preserve or at least digitise the collection, the loss to India’s intellectual history will be immense. In the words of Ghalib:
“nāla-yi dil ne diye aurāq-i laḳht-i dil ba bād
yādgār-i nāla ek dīwān-i be-shīrāza thā”
“The heart’s lament threw the pages of the heart’s fragments to the wind
The memorial to the lament was a single unbound book.”
Neglected stacks
All photographs by Daniel Jacobius Morgan.
Daniel Jacobius Morgan is a PhD scholar at South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll / Home> Library of India / by Daniel Jacobius Morgan / November 25th, 2017
It is a classic case of believe it or not. Ebrahim Alkazi, the celebrated Indian theater director, has his roots in Unaiza in Qassim.
Alkazi’s businessman father, Hamad, came from Saudi Arabia and did business in India in the 1960s and 1970s. That was before the oil boom changed the face of Saudi Arabia.
Alkazi, now 90, went to St. Vincent’s High School in Pune and St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. He went to London for training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
On Feb. 20, when Alkazi will be honored at the 2nd Saudi Film Festival in Dammam, it will be like a homecoming for the prodigal son.
“We want to honor pioneers in the field of theater,” said Ahmed Al-Mulla, director general of the festival. “And Alkazi is top on that list.”
Alkazi has played the role of a bridge between Indian and Arab cultures. “We consider him as a treasure and a maker of history. We want to present him as a role model to our Saudi youth,” said Al-Mulla.
He said a documentary on Alkazi will be screened during the opening ceremony, and a book is also being published illustrating his remarkable life and achievements.
Early on in his career, Alkazi got associated with the Bombay Progressive Artists Group, which included M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza, Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta, artists who were later to paint from his plays and design his sets.
As the director of the prestigious National School of Drama, Alkazi revolutionized Indian theater by the magnificence of his vision, and the meticulousness of his technical discipline. He trained many well-known film and theater actors and directors, including Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and Rohini Hattangadi. He also founded Art Heritage Gallery in Delhi.
Alkazi’s father spent his life trading between Pakistan, India, Turkey, Kuwait and Lebanon. He settled for some time in India, when his son Ebrahim was born in 1925 in Pune.
His daughter Amaal and son Faisal are also associated with theater.
Alkazi speaks highly about his father and takes immense pride in his Saudi roots and considers his early days in Pune as “the richest moments in my life.”
source: http://www.arabnews.com / Arab News / Home / Jeddah – February 18th, 2015
when Shahnaz Khanum sits outside the Hussain Shah Ali Dargah in Shaikpet with her harmonium, she is bound to touch a chord with her soulful singing.
Shahnaz Khanum (Photo | R Satish Babu, EPS)
Hyderabad :
Women are not allowed to sing inside dargahs, and that is why, Shahnaz Khanum sits outside the Hussain Shah Ali Dargah in Shaikpet with her harmonium. Since she finds keeping the pallu of her sari fixed on her head a bit irksome, she ties a green cloth around her head. She sings outside the dargah on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. She is always dressed in green when she performs.
It is unusual to see a woman who sings qawwalis. The mutawalli of the dargah informs that she was once allowed to sing inside the dargah, but had to be relocated when devotees raised objections.Now 65, Shahnaz speaks in a low, husky voice about the days she used to perform inside the dargah with her husband. It has been 23 years since her husband passed away and the family, which is full of accomplished singers, now lives hand to mouth.
“I was married at 11, and had my first child at 12. My husband and I belong to a family of singers. I never went to school, but started singing in Telugu, Urdu, Hindi, Marathi and even Tamil from a young age. My mother was my teacher and she used to teach me ghazals. She was a big fan of Begum Akhtar. My husband used to play many musical instruments including the tabla and harmonium. My association with this dargah goes back 40 years. In those days, we used to live beside the dargah so that we could perform here.”
When asked to sing her favourite qawwali, she deftly runs her bony fingers on the harmonium and breaks into the famous, ‘Mere Dil Mein Hain Yaad-e-Mohammed.’ Her voice has pathos and she is a tad out of breath. But again, she has been sitting outside in the summer sun for the last three hours.
Shahnaz continues reminiscing about the good old days and says, “Earlier, there used to be many qawwali competitions in which both men and women used to take part. I used to travel to various parts of South India to take part in these soirees. But now, these gatherings are not held often. Also, I had to stop performing after my husband’s death. I earn anything between `200– 600 per day. I need to do this for my grandchildren. One of them has haemophilia and she needs an injection that costs `6,000 every month.”
Her son, Qadir Ayaazi, sings qawwalis, ghazals and bhajans. He performs with his two brothers in various dargahs, and has also sung bhajans for Satyanarayana puja. He laments that getting work in the age of YouTube channels has become a Herculean task. “We do not know how to record and upload our performances. For recording, we need a studio and equipment which are costly. That is why, we do not have much visibility. Also, the competition is intense. There are plenty of other parties who agree to perform taking half the amount we charge. At the end of the day, we earn a pittance.”
Picking the thread of words from her son, Shahnaz says, “This vidya is of no use if there is no backing or platform. My dream is to educate all my grandchildren so that they can come out of this cycle of penury.”
If you want to help/contact Shahnaz for any programme, you can reach her at 9849365164.
kakoli_mukherjee@newindianexpress.com @KakoliMukherje2
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by Kakoli Mukherjee / April 04th, 2019
Most people know of this hierarchy but how much do we know of the women behind this great dynasty?
Mughal empire
The Mughal Empire (1526-1707) was established by Babur defeating Ibrahim Lodi in the First Battle of Panipat. His reign went on for four years (1526-1530). His successor was his son, Humayun. Then arrived Akbar, followed by his son Jahangir, followed by Shah Jahan, and the, the last great Mughal ruler– Aurangzeb.
Most people know of this hierarchy but how much do we know of the women behind this great dynasty?
Here’s a list to educate you about the same!
source: http://www.indiatoday.in / India Today / Home> News> Education Today> GK & Current Affairs> History / by India Today Web / New Delhi – May 06th, 2016
The 56-year-old walks seven kilometres, reminding residents to get up for the meal before the roza.
Photo Aakash Karkare
It’s 3 am in Mumbai. Much of the city that claims never to sleep is silent and resting, save for one corner in the south. Under the massive JJ Flyover, in an area called Mohammad Ali Road, the streets are humming and throbbing. All kinds of meats and sweets are being made at roadside stalls. Not a single restaurant is shuttered. Teenagers, sometimes four to a bike, whiz around. Little children play cricket in the traffic-free narrow lanes.
In this chaos resounds the call of Mohammed Farooq Qureshi Sheikh. “Neend se jaago, sehari ka waqt ho gaya. Zindagi ka kya bharosa? Ramzan mile ya na mile.” Wake up, it’s time for sehar. Who knows what life will bring? If we are able to get Ramzan, or not?
Credit: Aakash Karkare
For the last 18 years, during every Ramzan, Sheikh has made the same seven-kilometre trek from Shafai Masjid in Dongri to Dawoodbhoy Fazalbhoy High School in Chinch Bunder. The distance isn’t much, but Sheikh walks through every lane and by-lane, reminding the residents with his call to awaken for sehar (the meal eaten before the fasting for the day begins).
Along the way, passersby who know him, and call him Taj Bhai, stop to greet him. A few of them give him donations for his work. Children holler “Taj Bhai, chalu ho jao.” Taj Bhai, do your thing.
The 56-year-old finishes his walk by quarter past four, about 15 minutes before sunrise, so he can have his meal before the fasting begins. He chooses to avoid the area’s famed Ramzan delicacies, opting for a simple meal of milk and chapati. “At my age I can’t eat things like malpua,” he said.
A dying tradition
Sheikh is a practitioner of a Ramzan tradition that dates back ages, to a time before people had ready access to clocks and needed someone to tell them time. In Egypt, the practice is called Musaharaty and those who sustain it El Musaharaty. In Kashmir, they are given the name Sehar Khans.
Everywhere, alas, the custom is slowly dying out. The Sehar Khan, or the El Musaharaty, is becoming increasingly obsolete as people have begun relying on their mobile phones or alarm clocks to tell them time.
Sheikh calls himself a “sehariwalla” and while he says he hasn’t heard of the Sehar Khans of Kashmir, he does remember an “old man with a walking stick” who would come to his neighborhood when he was growing up. “Even then, the tradition of the sehariwallas was almost non-existent.”
Sheikh began his twilight Ramzan walks when he was in his mid-30s. His wife passed away when he was 22 and their son passed away soon after he was born. “In the beginning, I would walk up to the last floor in each building and call out to people. Now, I am too old to do that so I have this megaphone.”
He stays up all night, and at 3 am, he sets off from the office of the travel agency where he has worked for the past 15 years and where he lives in a corner. Sheikh says he got his first job when he was 16 at a printing press, after which he got by with odd jobs. Many of the employees at the travel agency have grown up seeing Taj Bhai do his nightly rounds.
Even in his old age, Sheikh keeps a brisk pace as he makes way through Mohammad Ali Road, chanting, “Neend se jaago, sehari ka waqt ho gaya…”
Saif Sathi, who has grown up in the area, feels Sheikh is still important. “There are so many people who don’t have anyone to wake them up,” said the 17-year-old. “People who sleep on the streets, for one thing. Even the local mosque has no one to wake them up. My family, too, relies on his call to awaken.”
But giving wake-up calls is not all Sheikh does. Last year, when the monsoon was late in arriving, he began going to the Kasaiwada area in Kurla to ask people to pray for rain. Even this year, because the rains didn’t come on time, he reminded people to pray for them. On occasion, when asked by local municipal councillors, he even announces government schemes. “A few years ago, they were distributing spectacles, so I announced that in the neighbourhood. More recently, I announced the government’s plan to conduct heart operations for free.”
According to Sheikh, there are still sehariwallas in the “poorer areas of the city who go around with daflis (tambourines)”. In Mumbai’s suburbs, in slums in Kurla or Nala Sopara, this tradition might still exist because not everyone there might have a phone, he believes.
But in the main city, he claims he “might be the only one still practising the profession”, although he adds a disclaimer. “I don’t keep up with what others are doing. All I can say for sure is that I am doing it.”
He plans to continue being a sehriwalla as long as he is “hale and hearty”, and is not very optimistic that future generations will continue in his footsteps. “Is there anyone in your generation who will stand and sing for an hour and a half?” he asked and laughed heartily.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Magazine> Traditional Touches / by Aakash Karkare / July 03rd, 2016
Mazameen.com, one of the largest websites of Urdu after Rekhta.org, in collaboration with Department of Urdu, Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) organized a programme to launch Foziya Rabab’s first collection of poems “Aankhon Ke Us Paar” at the auditorium of the University’s Engineering Department here on Friday, 3 November, 2017.
Speaking on this occasion former Chairman of National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Justice Suhail Ejaz Siddiqui likened the young poet from Ahmedabad with the famous poet Parveen Shakir (1952-1994) and extended his good wishes for her poetry to flourish in years to come. Renowned Urdu litterateur Gulzar Dehlvi maintained that Rabab was aware of the style of expression. “There is possibility of great creativity in her poetry,” said the nonagenarian poet.
Former Head of the Department of Urdu, JMI, Professor Khalid Mahmood appreciated the title Aankhon Ke Us Paar (Beyond the Horizons) in a philosophical note stating that the metaphor stood for wisdom and farsightedness.
He described the poem Mujhko to kuchh aur dikha hai aankhon ke us paar/Ek tilsam-e-hoshruba hai aankhon ke us paar as one of the finest poems of the collection.
Mahmood, who has also served as Vice Chairman of Delhi Urdu Academy, commended the feminine expression of emotions in her poetry stating that at times the changing mood in her narration took one by great surprise.
Urdu essayist and critic Kausar Mazhari said, “Foziya has tried to unfold women’s poetry which usually remains closed, but in so doing she has opened it a little more than required”. He called her a beautiful poet of romanticism with an amazing blend of simplicity and sincerity.
Head of the Department of Urdu, JMI, Prof Shehpar Rasool said, “The poet [Foziya] in Aankhon Ke Us Paar knows well what to say, when to say and how much to say”.
There is no feminism in Foziya’s poetry, rather it has an oriental household woman’s love for her man in which romanticism prevails because of the power of expression, remarked Dr Baran Farooqi.
About her own poetic journey Rabab said that her achievement was the result of the blessing of Allah and love of friends and well-wishers. “Playing around words is my profession; words which keep changing and which then take the shape of poetry.”
Words are the signs and symbols of life and carriers of truth and honesty, she added. She also read out some of her poems. Dr Adil Hayat presented a paper in which he termed Rabab’s poetry as the “poetry of love and separation”.
The book launch and discussion was followed by a mushaira in which over a dozen poets participated. These among others included Shehpar Rasool, Shakil Jamali, Tarannum Riyaz, Alok Shrivastav, Salim Saleem, Alina Itrat, Abdul Wahab Sukhan, Khalid Mubashshir, Kunwar Ranjit Singh, Poonam Yadav, Rehman Musawwir, Saurabh Shekhar, Tabish Mehdi, Urmila Madhav. Irfan Waheed and Khalid Saifullah Asari of mazameen.com also shared their views.
Moin Shadab beautifully compèred the mushaira whereas Dr Khalid Mubashshir moderated the book launch session.
A good number of literary persons including teachers and students from JMI and other institutions attended both the book release programme and the mushaira.
(A Delhi-based freelance journalist Manzar Imam can be contacted at manzarkhalil@gmail.com)
source: http://www.ummid.com / Ummid.com / Home> Life & Style / by Manzar Imam , ummid.com / November 13th, 2017
Nawab Najaf Ali Khan, a grandson of the seventh Nizam, at the exhibition in New Delhi recently.
Rare Nizam-era stamps from Ewari family’s philately collection exhibited in Delhi
An exhibition of postal stamps, envelopes, documents and photographs of the Nizam era held at New Delhi recently was a journey into the past not only for history lovers and inquisitive minds ready to peep into the bygone era at any given opportunity but also for descendants of the last and seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan.
The exhibition with the theme of ‘Property of a Gentleman – Stamps from the Nizam of Hyderabad’s Dominions’ was organised jointly by The Gujral Foundation and Guli Art Foundation at Bikaner House from March 9 to 24 with the collection from the Ewari family. The kin of the seventh Nizam, including one of his grandsons Nawab Najaf Ali Khan, who visited the exhibition along with other family members, were all praise for the Ewari family for their prized collection.
Mr. Najaf Ali Khan said the collection comprised a selection of stamps originating from the erstwhile Hyderabad State during the Nizam’s rule. “The philately and other collection has a deep personal connect with Hyderabad,” he said, adding that the genesis of the expansive collection was the legacy of Nawab Iqbal Hussain Khan, the Post Master General in the Government of Nawab Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur Nizam VII.
First adhesive stamp
In all, the Ewari collection includes three million stamps from across the world, including the rare Penny Black, the first adhesive postage stamp in the world. It also featured every single stamp in the chronology of the senior most princely state of colonial India, Hyderabad. “The Asaf Jahi rule with Hyderabad as its headquarters issued its own stamps for almost 80 years from 1869 to 1949 till it joined the Indian Union,” Mr. Najaf Ali Khan explained. Against the present day advanced technology in communication, postage stamps were the indispensable remnants of the bygone era. The seemingly insignificant pieces of paper played an essential role as payment to help transfer messages, to facilitate revenue collection, taxation and other fiscal purposes, he noted.
Historic value
“Thanks to the organisers, who created such an ambience that immediately drew us in and we felt transported to the era of such royalty, it was a mesmerising experience. The dimly-lit huge landscapes of structural marvels of Hyderabad and custom-made lead boxes housing the stamps added to the beauty of the collection. We thank the Ewari family for preserving these priceless and alluring exhibits of historic value,” Mr. Najaf Ali Khan said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by B. Chandrasekhar / Hyderabad – April 01st, 2019
When Sania Mirza burst upon the global scene, the London-based New Statesman saw this “slender 18-year-old Muslim tennis player from India” as one of the 10 people who could change the world.
Jason Cowley, who wrote the article, believed that she had the “potential to change the world” for the following reasons: 1. She was the first Indian female tennis player to be ranked among the world’s Top 40. 2. She had made a breakthrough in sport despite coming from a country that usually discouraged women in sport. 3. She had discipline, tenacity, flamboyance. And all of this amounted to 4. She was going to “inspire a whole new generation of Indian girls”. Cowley’s article was written in October 2005, soon after a fatwa stipulated that Mirza should be prevented from playing tennis in skirts and T-shirts. Mirza instantly became a symbol of defiance, a “slender 18-year-old” girl who could stand up to Muslim hardliners. At around the same time, Time magazine hailed her as one of Asia’s heroes. AndThe New York Times said the weight of the country’s expectations rested on her.
I am at a loss to explain how or why the Sania phenomenon fizzled out in mainstream media. To be sure, she remains a remarkable player who will continue to inspire a whole generation of young women. But Mirza is no longer feted and hailed for her potentially transformative powers. I thought of Muslim role models once again when I saw the modest, self-effacing Allah Rakha Rahman accept his twin Oscars in Los Angeles.
There he was, up on stage in his very Indian designer sherwani singing Jai Ho, the song from Slumdog Millionaire. Or there he was on the red carpet with his wife, her head covered as she shyly posed for photographs. On stage, he was thanking God (“all glory and fame to God”) and his mother, talking of the path of love rather than hate that he had opted to follow. There was quiet dignity about him rather than the usual over-the-top Oscar exuberance. I suspected he would have had the same quiet smile had he lost.
Rahman is not known to be a man of many words. So, it was the subtext of what he said (or didn’t), that struck me as significant. Here was a Muslim who was confident in his identity as an Indian Muslim (in fact, with Maa Tujhe Salaam, he has done more to popularize Vande Mataram than the entire Sangh parivaar put together). Like the majority of Muslims everywhere, he believes in his God, in family values, in love and brotherhood. He was not out of place on the world stage performing with artistes drawn from all over the globe.
Rahman does not conform to any of the Muslim stereotypes. But he is undeniably an adherent of Islam, converting to the faith at the age of 21 along with his family. His views on politics are not widely known. But as a believing Muslim, he is reported to earmark one-third of his earnings to charity. Significantly, one of his first acts on returning home to India was to visit the Ameen Peer dargah at Kadappa in Andhra Pradesh to offer special prayers.
India’s Muslims have been singled out for their many unique qualities.
Thomas Friedman recently hailed the community’s decision to refuse burial in Mumbai to the Pakistani terrorists killed in the 26/11 attack. By denying terrorists the status of martyrs, the world’s second largest Muslim community was doing a “great service to Islam”, he said. Yet, one of the laments among Muslims is the lack of credible role models.
Bollywood within its secular framework has been able to throw up some figures—Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi most notably speak up for a pluralistic, democratic framework, but they’re not necessarily seen as strong adherents of Islam. Aamir Khan is the sensitive voice for the marginalized, not really a strong Muslim figure. Azim Premji is probably the richest Muslim in India but, once again, his success is defined in business, not religious terms.
In cricket, you could certainly look at the Pathan brothers who straddle both worlds—cricket and Islam. The sons of a poor muezzin who couldn’t afford even a pair of shoes, they now symbolize a can-do spirit. In a TV ad, they refer to their father as “abba”. It’s as if they’re saying, like Omar Abdullah, “We are Indians and Muslims and see no contradiction between the two.”
With his stunning Oscar win, Rahman reaffirms the same message to emerge as a new role model for young Indian Muslims. In equal parts a proud Muslim, proud Indian and proud professional, he stands as a counter to both the fanatic and the stereotype of the fanatic that many believe represent the average Muslim.
For this reason alone, I’m singing the new anthem: Jai Ho.
Namita Bhandare writes every other Tuesday on social trends. Respond to this column at lookingglass@livemint.com
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint / Home> Explore> Looking Glass / by Namita Bhandare / March 02nd, 2009
In 1674, Shivaji crowned himself king, with classical ritual in full display. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By accepting the concept of the Thulukka Nachiyar, within the temple, was a space created to locate the newcomer Muslim within the world of the orthodox Hindu?
India is a mosaic of many curious tales. But very often, seemingly incongruous elements that reside in the realm of fable and myth end up lending an ironic congruence to the concrete world of men. Throughout Indian history, whenever politics has found itself at an awkward crossroads, a generous fabrication of mythology has helped ease the process. One prominent example is Shivaji’s—the Maratha warrior had emerged as a powerful force in the late 17th century, with armies, treasure, and swathes of territory at his command. But rivals painted him merely as an over-strong rebel, so that in addition to power, what he needed was legitimacy too.
The answer to Shivaji’s woes came in 1674, when he decided to crown himself king, with classical ritual in full and extravagant display. A genealogy was invented connecting him to an ancient royal line, and retrospective rituals permitted him to take his place as a “pure” Kshatriya, when so far Brahmins had deemed him inferior in caste. It was a masterstroke: Shivaji now towered over other Maratha clans in status, while simultaneously alerting his Mughal enemies that he was no longer a “mountain rat”—he was an anointed, lawful monarch.
As a society too, India has been capable of negotiating disruptive changes through the invention of tradition. Reading scholar Richard H. Davis’ work recently reminded me of the bizarre, clever and typically Indian ways in which this was achieved. When Muslim might arrived in India in the form of invaders, a new chapter was inaugurated in the story of our subcontinent. The old order fell, and a different structure was fashioned. One way in which the elites on both sides tried to rationalize, in their respective world views, these painful changes is through what historian Aziz Ahmad called epics of conquest and resistance. Thus, for instance, we have Muslim accounts that exaggerated the “destruction of infidels”, when, in reality, even the terrifying Muhammad of Ghor’s coins prominently featured the “infidel” goddess Lakshmi, countered by Hindus with their own stories, the case of Padmavati preferring fire to the embrace of a Muslim being one such. Rhetoric was amplified on both sides, legends and tales competing for narrative dominance to come to grips with changes under way on the ground.
One such fascinating story from the 14th century features a Muslim woman recalled to this day by Hindus as Thulukka Nachiyar (literally, “Tughluq Princess”), who is said to have fallen in love with a Hindu god. The outline of the story is as follows: When Muslim troops from Delhi plundered temples in southern India, on their list was the great Vaishnava shrine at Srirangam in Tamil Nadu. Temple chronicles show that indeed idols were seized, and, in this story, the processional image of the deity is taken to Delhi. The reigning sultan consigns the idol to a storeroom, while a local Tamil woman, who had followed the troops, returns to Srirangam and informs the temple authorities of the precise whereabouts of their deity. Dozens of priests now make their way to court, where, after entertaining the sultan with a series of performances, they request the return of their lost idol. The cheerful Tughluq king is happy to grant them this, commanding his men to go to the storeroom and fetch Srirangam’s deity. Everyone is, at this point, rather pleased with the turn of events, and we have every hope of a happy ending.
This is where the twist occurs. It so happens that the sultan’s daughter had long before gone into the storeroom and collected the idol, taking it to her apartments and there playing with the deity as a doll. The implication, however, is that by dressing “him”, feeding him and garlanding him, as is done to deities in Hindu rituals, the princess was essentially worshipping the image, winning divine affection. When the appeal from the Srirangam party is heard, the deity puts her to sleep and agrees to return south, only for the Tughluq princess to wake up distraught—she hastens to catch up with the Brahmins, who meanwhile have split, one group hiding the idol in Tirupati. Arriving in Srirangam but not finding the deity even there, the princess perishes in the pangs of viraha (separation).
Her sacrifice is not for nothing, though. When eventually the deity comes home, He commands the priests to recognize his Muslim consort, commemorated ever since in a painting within the temple. On his processional tour of the premises, to this day, the deity is offered north Indian food at this spot (including chapatis).
The story is a remarkable one, with an exact parallel in the Melkote Thirunarayanapuram temple in Karnataka, where, in fact, she has been enshrined as a veiled idol. Though it seems unlikely that a Tughluq princess actually came to the south head over heels in love with a deity, could it have been that there was a Muslim woman instrumental in having idols released from Delhi? Or is it, as Davis suggests, a “counter-epic” where the roles are reversed: Instead of a Muslim king chasing after Hindu princesses, we have a Muslim princess besotted with the Hindu divine. By accepting the concept of the Thulukka Nachiyar, within the temple, was a space created to locate the newcomer Muslim within the world of the orthodox Hindu? The truth might lie in a combination of these possibilities, but we can be sure that it is a colourful, revealing narrative with a splendid cast, telling us once again that while there were moments of crisis between India’s faiths, legend and myth allowed them to see eye to eye and move on to fresh ground—a lesson we would be wise to remember in our own contentious times.
Medium Rare is a column on society, politics and history. Manu S. Pillai is the author of The Ivory Throne: Chronicles Of The House Of Travancore.
He tweets @UnamPIllai
source: http://www.livemint.com / LiveMint / Home> Explore / by Manu S. Pillai / March 30th, 2018
Rehana Khan, perhaps the first female stunt-woman to entertain the guests at Maut ka Kuan in Numaish, Hyderabad
28-year-old Rehana Khan
Numaish has been an integral part of every Hyderabadi, where year after year one doesn’t miss to take a stroll around the many stalls and rides. Not just the stalls but also the well of death — or maut ka kuan as it is popularly known — has always been a crowd-puller. Kids and adults alike would be excited to watch men get onto their bikes and cars as they take a round of the near-vertical pit with walls lined by wooden planks, at a high speed, often giving the audience a high five as they ride up!
However, this year the crowd hooted and cheered, as a stuntwoman made her entry and joined the team for the first time. 28-year-old Rehana Khan, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, has been performing stunts for the last six years and has been invited to be a part of Numaish for the first time.
Calling it her passion, Rehana says, “I would watch men do stunts on their bike and think to myself that if they can, then I can do it too. That is when I took it up as a challenge and started practising. It feels good that being a girl from a small town, I am doing something different, and not treading on the usual path.”
It’s been a little over two weeks and Hyderabad has welcomed the daredevil with open arms. “The audience here is very happy to watch my performance. They meet me after the show and I love the respect I have been getting. As girls have a bad (and clichéd) reputation for not riding properly on the road, when people see one attempt such deadly stunts, it leaves them in awe. Women feel happy and tell me that girls are not behind boys anymore,” she adds further.
Rehana stuns the audience at Numaish, Hyderabad
Stunts take Rehana to different parts of the country — Ranchi, places in Bihar and Chhattisgarh and Assam among others — but it is the respect she is getting in Hyderabad that she will “cherish forever”.
Rehana started practising right after college and it took her about six months to perfect the stunts. “If someone wants to pursue a career in it, they would require proper training. You have to make sure that you have no dizziness during or after riding on the ground. It would take a while for it to go, but once you get rid of it, the path ahead would seem easy,” she says adding, “Girls should try to create their own identity and not bow down to the stereotypes of the society. In today’s time, they are not behind men and can work as hard as them or even more.”
Her husband is always by her side, encouraging and proudly watching Rehana perform the stunts. “My family sees it as a dangerous profession but at the same time supports it since it is my passion,” she says adding that the money a stunt-woman earns is decent but it is the respect that she gets that makes it all worth.
Rehana stuns the audience at Numaish, Hyderabad
She entertains the audience from 5 to 11 pm every day with minimal breaks, but Rehana has no complaints and says with pride that she took the right path. “I wanted to be known for what I do, for the society to recognise me, to meet new people and to travel to different parts of the country showcasing my talent. Money is decent but what gives me happiness is to be among people, and be known for my talent. They respect you for taking up an unusual career. I must add that Hyderabad’s reaction has been very encouraging. I like it here,” concludes the daredevil, as she rushes to get ready for another show.
source: http://www.medium.com / Medium / Home / by Neha Jha / January 20th, 2019
All photographs by Daniel Jacobius Morgan.
Daniel Jacobius Morgan is a PhD scholar at South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll / Home> Library of India / by Daniel Jacobius Morgan / November 25th, 2017