The 13th Kodagu district Kannada literary meet will be organised at government PU College premises in Napoklu on December 22 and 23, said Kannada Sahitya Parishat district president B S Lokesh Sagar.
He told reporters here on Thursday that Madikeri tahsildar Kusuma will hoist the National flag at 8 am on December 22. Napoklu gram panchayat president K M Ismail will hoist the Kannada flag.
Exhibition stalls will be inaugurated by CMC president Kaveramma Somanna at 11 am.
The formal inaugural programme will be held at Jagadatmanada G Maharaj Sabhangana at 11.30 am. Zilla panchayat vice president Lokeshwari Gopal will inaugurate the programme.
The main stage, ‘Mahabaleshwara Bhat Pradhana Vedike’ will be inaugurated by zilla panchayat president B A Harish. Kannada Sahitya Parishat state president Dr Manu Baligar will inaugurate the literary convention.
Bharadwaj K Anand Theertha will preside over the literary convention. MLA K G Bopaiah, MLC Sunil Subramani and MLC Veena Acchaiah will take part. Cultural programmes will be inaugurated by social worker Sanket Poovaiah.
ZP member Latif will inaugurate Janapadotsava at 9.30 am on December 23.
An open forum will be held at 2.30 pm. The valedictory programme will be held at 4 pm, said B S Lokesh Sagar and added that various literary events will be held on both the days.
Kannada Sahitya Parishat district honourary secretary K S Ramesh, taluk president Kudekal Santhosh and office bearer Kodi Chandrashekhar were present in the press meet.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Districts / by Adithya KA / DH News Service / Madikeri – December 20th, 2018
Becoming a Muslim gave the musician a new name, a fresh identity and a renewed sense of purpose.
Wikimedia Commons
When AS Dileep Kumar decided to shed the faith he was born into and adopt a new one, the reasons were several. His father’s untimely death had put several financial pressures on the family, which included four children. His spiritual-minded mother had met, and gained immense succour, from a Sufi saint, peer Karimullah Shah Qadri. And he had been grappling with minor and major identity issues: he didn’t like the name he was born with, he was looking for direction and purpose, and he wanted to get a handle on his professional future. That man is today known as Allahrakha Rahman, one of India’s foremost composers. He discusses his decision to convert and the impact it had on him in these edited excerpts from AR Rahman The Spirit of Music by Nasreen Munni Kabir.
How has Sufism affected your attitude to life? It has taught me that just as the rain and the sun do not differentiate between people, neither should we. Only when you experience friendship across cultures, you understand there are many good people in all communities…
Did your belief in spirituality help when you and your family were facing hard times? Yes, absolutely. My mother was a practising Hindu… My mother had always been spiritually inclined. We had Hindu religious images on the walls of the Habibullah Road house where we grew up. there was also an image of Mother Mary holding Jesus in Her arms and a photograph of the sacred sites of Mecca and Medina.
In 1986, ten year after my father died, we happened to meet Qadri Saaheb again. The peer was unwell and my mother looked after him. He regarded her as a daughter. There was a strong connection between us. I was nineteen at the time and working on a session musician and composing jingles.
Did the peer ask you to embrace Islam? No, he didn’t. Nobody is forced to convert to the path of Sufism. You only follow if it comes from your heart. A year after we met Qadri Saaheb, in 1987, we moved to from Habibullah Road to Kodambakkam, to the house where we still live. When we moved, I was reminded of what Jesus Christ, Peace be upon Him, once said: “I wish that you were cold and hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”
What I understood by His words was that it is better to choose one path. The Sufi path spiritually lifted both my mother and me, and we felt it was the best path for us, so we embraced Sufi Islam.
Were you conscious of the fact that changing your faith might affect your relations with people? My family had started working by then and we weren’t dependant on anyone. No one around us really cared – we were musicians and that allowed us greater social freedom…
The important thing for me is that I learned about equality and the oneness of God. Whether you are a winner or loser, king or slave, short or tall, rich or poor, sinner or saint, ugly or beautiful – regardless of what colour you are, God showers unlimited love and mercy on us if we choose to receive it. It is because of our inability, our blindness in seeing the unknown that we lose faith.
On the net there are many versions of how you came to be called AR Rahman. What is the real story? The truth is I never liked my name…. No disrespect to the great actor Dilip Kumar! But somehow my name didn’t match the image I had of myself.
Sometime before we started on our journey on the path of Sufism, we went to an astrologer to show him my younger sister’s horoscope because my mother wanted to get her married. This was around the same time when I was keen to change my name and have a new identity. The astrologer looked at me and said, ‘This chap is very interesting.”
He suggested the names: “Abdul Rahman” and “Abdul Rahim” and said that either name would be good for me. I instantly loved the name “Rahman.” It was a Hindu astrologer who gave me my Muslim name.
Then my mother had this intuition that I should add “Allahrakha” [Protected by God], and I became AR Rahman.
Excerpted from AR Rahman The Spirit of Music, Om Books International.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Matters of Faith / by Nasreen Munni kabir / January 16th, 2015
The Punjabi festival of Lohri commemorates Dullah Bhatti for his act of defiance against the Mughal emperor.
Wikimedia Commons
Lohri in Delhi has bonfires, popcorn, peanuts, pine nuts, gur or jaggery and til and sundry sesame sweets. Around the bonfire, people gather to sing a popular Punjabi folk song , Sundar munderiye, about a certain Dullah Bhatti who helped to rescue poor Punjabi women from the rather cruel zamindar, landlord.
In the big city, cut off from folk legends, most of the people who sing that song are unaware of who Dullah Bhatti was. Bhatti, though, is a historical figure, a contemporary of Mughal emperor Akbar who lived in Pind Bhattian, a town about 50 kilometres west of Lahore.
Rai Abdullah Khan Bhatti – to use Dullah’s full name and title – lived in tumultuous times. Akbar was just beginning to consolidate the Mughal state, setting in process a new order that would ensure that his dynasty would rule Delhi for the next three centuries to come. The Mughal state proceeded to implement a system of land revenue devised by Akbar’s brilliant Rajput finance minister, Todar Mal, called the Zabt system. The Zabt revenue system made Mughal officers responsible for both the assessment and collection of revenue.
Punjab in chaos
What was victory from Delhi, though, often meant chaos and destruction on the ground, as old ways of life were overturned. The Zabt system underpinned the Mughal state but proved to be the end of the road for local power centres in the Punjab, as all authority was concentrated in the Mughal administration. One of those local power centres was Dullah Bhatti’s family, a Rajput landowning clan made powerless by the financial scheme of Mughal finance minister, Todar Mal. As a result, the Bhattis rebelled against Akbar – and lost. Both Dullah’s father and grandfather were executed – at the time, Dullah’s mother was pregnant with him.
Legend now has it that Akbar’s son Jahangir and Dullah were born on the same day. To make Jahangir brave, Akbar was advised to have his son breastfed by a Rajput wet nurse who – in an incredibly filmy twist – happened to be Dullah Bhatti’s mother, in one version of the legend. A more prosaic explanation for this myth is that the Mughals initiated a policy of reconciliation with the Bhattis. By providing Dullah and his mother with royal patronage, the Mughal state hoped to assuage their hurt, win them over and – most importantly – prevent future rebellions.
Things, however, didn’t go according to plan. Bhatti grew up to swear revenge on the Chughtais, Mughals who had executed his father and grandfather. So fierce was this local resistance that, says historian Ishwar Dayal Gaur, Akbar had to shift his capital to Lahore from Delhi for two decades to try and get things under control. Gaur also adds that Akbar exempted the Bari Doab or Majha (the region between the rivers Beas and Ravi) from taxes and also made peace with the Sikh guru, Arjan Dev by visiting him in Goindwal – Bhatti’s revolt was so effective that the Mughals couldn’t afford to make any new enemies.
Dullah Bhatti becomes legend
Ultimately, though, Akbar prevailed, the Mughals capturing and beheading Dullah publicly in the main bazar area of Lahore. Till the last, though, Bhatti remained defiant and his final words as recorded by sufi poet Shah Hussain were, “No honourable son of Punjab will ever sell the soil of Punjab”. His grave still exists in Lahore, although interestingly, there is no official recognition of the spot. Pakistan – a country which is dominated by Punjabis – still takes much of its national mythos from the Mughal state, making its recognition of Dullah Bhatti’s revolt against Akbar a rather delicate matter.
Nevertheless, Dullah’s revolt passed into popular Punjabi legend and his feats as a Robin Hood are still celebrated today in the popular song Sundar munderiye, which talks of how he protected Punjabi girls from being abducted by the Mughal zamindar. The custom of giving money and sweets to children, who go from door to door singing the song, is said to honour Bhatti’s acts of generosity, of looting the tributes and taxes sent to the emperor and redistributing them among the poor.
In 2015, Bhatti’s tale was even made into a Punjabi pop number, although the video of the song, interestingly, portrayed him as a Sikh battling the Mughals, rather than the Muslim Rajput Bhatti historically was. Given that our histories rarely talk of the complex nature of Mughal India, and reduce most situations to a mirror of the communal conflicts of the modern age, this, perhaps, is an expected error.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Festival Celebrations / by Shoaib Daniyal / January 13th, 2016
Of Wajid Ali Shah, and how a popular ‘thumri’ from another century reached us.
The Lucknow gharana of Kathak is famous for its repository of thumris. In fact, the very genre of thumri found immense patronage in the nawabs of Awadh. The last ruler, nawab Wajid Ali Shah, was a great lover of the arts. He wrote his first play, Radha Kanhaiya Ka Qissa, in 1843, when he was barely 21 years old. The British saw him as a debauched ruler wasting his wealth on entertainment.
Nineteenth-century India remembers the nawab as a romantic poet, a benefactor of the arts and a great lover of classical music and dance. By the time he ascended the throne in 1847, he had written two long romantic narrative poems (or masnavis) titled Bahr-E-Ishq (The Ocean Of Affection) and Darya-Yi-Ta’Ashshuq (The River Of Love). He adopted the pen name Akhtarpiya. An admirer of the Hindu god Krishna, he wanted to adapt these poems into a play in raas/rahas format.
Shah’s idea of staging these plays was beyond grandiose. According to the account of one Iqtidar-ud-daula who witnessed the play in February and March 1851: “The play was staged in 14 sessions (with intervals of one-two days between each session. The whole play took a month and 10 days to finish). Not every scene was staged in Qaisarbagh (a large complex housing gardens, manicured lawns and palatial buildings). Consecutive scenes were played out in different parts of the garden. In fact, some scenes were played out in different parts of the city.” It goes on to vividly describe the setting where canvas tents on bamboo frames were erected across the city along with “larger-than-life frames of scenery”. The elaborate preparations for each play took a whole year and cost £12,000 (around Rs10 lakh now) to produce.
Thus, Shah entertained himself with grand sessions of rahas. Here was a Shia Muslim king who consulted priests and celebrated Hindu festivals like Saawan, Holi and Basant Panchami with great pomp. He learnt Kathak from his court dancer-musician, Pandit Thakur Prasad. He appointed to his court the dancing duo of brothers Kalka and Bindadin Maharaj. The Kathak legend, Pandit Birju Maharaj, is a descendant of this family.
The nawab invested state wealth on arts and culture for the benefit and entertainment of his people. If the mounting expenses didn’t bother the British, Shah’s secular love for the arts and excessive indulgence did. They annexed his throne in 1854 and sent him into exile.
The book Asrar-I-Wajidi (1856) by Zahiruddin Bilgrami describes scenes of sorrowful locals who lined up on streets and wailed as the nawab left Lucknow. A caravan of a thousand people started from Lucknow on 13 March 1854 towards Calcutta (now Kolkata). For Wajid Ali Shah, there was nothing more painful than being separated from a place he loved so much and its people. His sorrow took the form of a song that spoke of displacement and loss. The song reflected an allegory to a human being’s last journey on this earth, when the body is carried on the shoulders of four pall-bearers.
Babul mora naihar chhooto jaaye
chaar kahaar mil, mori doliya sajaave
mora apna begaana chhooto jaaye
angnaa toh parbat bhayo, dehri bhayi bides
le ghar babul apno, main chali piya ki des
A large part of Shah’s writings have, unfortunately, been lost. Those that have remained, have luckily been preserved through music and dance by the descendants of his court musicians and dancers. This particular thumri reached us in its pristine condition from Kathak doyen Pandit Shambhu Maharaj. According to his first student, the late Maya Rao (in her autobiography Maya Rao—A Lifetime in Choreography, 2013), K.L. Saigal, who learnt the song from Pandit Shambhu Maharaj, spending months with him, seeing him perform it countless times and finally learning it, decided that he would sing it in the film Street Singer (1938).
In 1947, when Saigal died, All India Radio broadcast the song as a tribute. Thumri got a new lease of life on the classical music concert stage. The late Akhtaribai Faizabadi aka Begum Akhtar, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Kishori Amonkar, among others, immortalized the song. In the 1974 film Aavishkar, starring Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore, this song, sung by the late ghazal singer Jagjit Singh and wife Chitra Singh, weaves many scenes together. While Wajid Ali Shah might have been a political eccentric, he is credited with being a revivalist in the world of Hindustani classical music, dance and Urdu drama.
source: http://www.livemint.com / LiveMint / Home / by Veejay Sai / December 01st, 2017
Workers put finishing touches to violins at Zamiruddin’s workshop in Rampur, UP. / Credits: Rohit Ghosh/Qrius
Zamiruddin’s old house in Purana Gunj, Rampur, a town 175 km east of New Delhi, is as nondescript as they come. But enter it and you might just find yourself transported, musically, to ancient Egypt.
Stacked on the shelves and lofts in rooms around the house’s rectangular courtyard are ouds, a musical instrument dating back thousands of years to the time of the Pharaohs.
This is the only place in India where you can buy an oud, a short-necked, pear-shaped stringed instrument that produces a sound similar to that of the sarod. The oud is oft used in Middle Eastern and North African music.
“My father [Haseenuddin] was the first and only person in India to make ouds,” said Zamiruddin, owner of New Slovakia Musicals. “Now, I am the only one…”
How the oud came to India
The oud dates back to ancient Egpyt. When it came to be used in Persia, some 3000 years ago, it was called the barbat, while it was called the al Oud (wood, or specifically thin wood) by the Arabs.
The oud came to India with the spread of Islam. In his book Two Nations and Kashmir (1956), Lord Birdwood notes that it was during the rule of Zain-ul-Abuldin in Kashmir that musicians from the West Asian region came, and brought the lute and the oud with them.
Discovering the instrument: Haseenuddin’s story
Zamiruddin inherited the business from his father Haseenuddin in 1996 and named it New Slovakia Musicals. / Credits: Rohit Ghosh/Qrius
Once a cabinet-maker in Rampur, the lyrical story of how Haseenuddin started making ouds goes back 70-odd years.
“My father and his younger brother Ameeruddin lived together. In 1942, my uncle visited Bombay and bought a violin. He became so engrossed in playing it day in and day out that he completely detached from his surroundings,” recalled Zamiruddin.
One day, Ameeruddin accidentally dropped the violin and it shattered to pieces. Heartbroken, he continued to become more and more miserable as the weeks passed. Unable to see his brother in that state, Haseenuddin then studied the violin that had become a tangled lump of wood and strings, Zamiruddin told me.
“My father was a genius. Using his skills and things available at hand, he made a new violin for my uncle.”
Seeing the joy on Ameeruddin’s face made Haseenuddin realise his latent potential in making the instrument. “Along with chairs, tables, beds, and wardrobes, he started making violins on a large scale. The year was 1947.”
Gradually, the demand for violins soared so high that Haseenuddin gave up making furniture and concentrated only on the instrument, becoming an established violin-maker in India. His violins had a big market in Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, where music was a big part of the school curriculum.
Zamiruddin started assisting his father soon after finishing his graduation.
Then came the oud
Zamiruddin shows an oud crafted at his workshop. / Credits: Rohit Ghosh/Qrius
“Some people visited us with an oud in 1984 and introduced themselves as dealers and exporters of musical instruments. They showed the stringed instrument to my father and asked if he could make it and said that every other craftsman in India had refused to,” said Zamiruddin.
Haseenuddin, who had already made a name for himself by making quality violins, was up to the challenge.
“I advised my father against it, owing to the oud’s complicated design. He, however, chided me and said I should never doubt the skills of a master craftsman. His first oud was a success, after which we started producing them on a large scale—120-odd ouds a month,” reminisced Zamiruddin.
During that time, the ouds were exported to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern countries. “Ouds are made in the Middle East, but my product is better. India has a variety and better quality of wood compared to the Gulf, which is a desert. Also, my ouds are cheaper. An oud made in Syria may cost Rs 80,000, but mine are Rs 18,000 a piece,” said Zamiruddin, who inherited the business in 1996 after his father passed away.
Yet, despite the many pluses his ouds have, he has no immediate plans to export them to foreign markets, given the low returns.
According to him, no two ouds are the same, neither in dimensions nor the sound they produce. “Ouds are handmade. So, something that has been cut and carved by hand won’t have the precision of machines. Hence, every oud is unique, even if made by the same craftsman.”
Spreading the music
Zamiruddin uses the backyard of his house as his workshop, where 30-odd workmen sit cross-legged on the floor, designing violins and ouds. At any point, he has about 40 ouds ready.
Although the ouds do not sell as much as the other musical instruments, Zamiruddin has found many buyers online. “Connoisseurs of music contact me online. Two months back, I even sold one to a person from Mumbai,” he said.
So, although not as well known as its more famous stringed siblings, the oud may yet find a wider market and fanbase.
Rohit Ghosh is an independent journalist based in Kanpur.
source: http://www.qrius.com / Qrius / Home> Music / by Rohit Ghosh / February 19th, 2002
Calligraphy is one of the many arts that has been on the decline in the modern age: with people not even using pen and paper these days, the art of calligraphy has few takers, or at least that is what the image around calligraphy has been. But in Bhiwandi, a city in Thane district, a medical practitioner is working hard to ensure that the future generations both treasure and learn the art of Urdu Calligraphy.
Dr.Rehan Ansari has been conducting weekend Urdu Calligraphy (Khattati) classes for the past many months at a local school for the benefit of all. Dr Ansari, who is a calligraphy expert and has been practising it since his school days, says that his classes have been met with an enthusiastic response from students of all age groups and professions.
In a conversation with TwoCircles.net, Dr Rehan says that these classes are at an attempt to save the script. In an interesting observation, he says, “This art has helped me a lot in being a doctor. Observing the words, the art of turning the hand and setting words in a proper shape is a unique art which is called calligraphy and it needs sincere efforts. I regularly use a blackboard as a teaching aid to draw letters and explain the various aspects of calligraphy.”
The one thing that sets Dr Rehan apart from other people is he disagrees to the statement that calligraphy is a dying art form. “In Bhiwandi, Hyderabad and other cities of India, calligraphers exist and extend their services. Nowadays, social media is also playing a favourable role in promoting this and expanding the market. It would be wrong to expect hundreds of calligraphers; one or two are enough for the amount of work that exists,” he says. To add to his point, He further told Twocircles.net that India will be hosting the International calligraphy conference of Urdu, Arabic and Persian on October 22 and 23 in Jaipur, which will see delegates of about 50 countries participate in the event.
Talking about his teaching methods, Dr Rehan says he provides beginners with the Reed Pen (Baru Qalam), which is a well-known tool in the world of Urdu and Arabic Calligraphy. Sajida Jamal, a teacher and an Urdu story writer, shared her experience with TwoCircles.net. “This is really a good opportunity for me to improve my writing skill…it is a skill that helps everyone and I believe it makes a person love the language a little more and appreciate the art of writing a lot better.”
Another student of Dr Rehan, Fahim Bari, who is a lecturer at the local commerce college, was full of praise for the classes. “This is our literary and cultural asset…it’s promotion and progress can only be possible when we protect it and reach more and more people. Dr Rehan is the creator of the famous Faiz Nastaliq font and his classes are doing a lot to help us fall in love with the language again.”
source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCircles.net / Home> Indian Muslim / by Imran Inamdar, TwoCircles.net / September 28th, 2018
Grand design: A view of Fatehpuri Masjid | Photo Credit: V_V_Krishnan
From Haji Begum to Qudsia Begum, there is a a long list of women who contributed to the city’s grandeur
Women who patronised Delhi and converted it into a centre of art and culture, besides making it verdant and floral by laying parks and gardens, can be traced right from the time of Bega Begum or Haji Begum who built the beautiful tomb for her husband in Nizamuddin, which became the model for the Taj Mahal. After her, the daughters of Shah Jahan made it a paradisiacal city (just as Nur Jahan had done so earlier in Lahore and Kashmir). They were followed by Qudsia Begum and in recent times, in a small way though, by Lady Willingdon, Aruna Asaf Ali, Indira Gandhi and Sheila Dixit, among others. From the mid-17th century, the social and cultural fabric of Shahjahanabad has borne the stamp of women as during the Mughal era they acquired considerable wealth and influence. Much of what survives in Shahjahanabad reminds us of them and their contribution, compiled from different sources.
The imperial city was given overall shape under the supervision of Shah Jahan himself. His diktat determined the encircling of the city wall and the two main streets, running north-south and east-west, respectively at their junction of the palace complex (Red Fort) and the congregational Jama Masjid. “Within the limits of this centralised plan, it was mainly individual enterprise that led to the creation of commercial, religious, public spaces and homes.” Among the landmarks of the city were its mosques, three of which were commissioned by the wives of Shah Jahan after the death of Mumtaz Mahal – Akbarabadi, Fatehpuri and Sirhindi masjids named after the three. Akbarabadi Begum of Agra built a grand mosque to the south of Red Fort which was demolished by the British after the Revolt of 1857. Akbarabadi Begum was gifted a garden by Shah Jahan to the north-west of the city which came to be known as Aizzabad or Shalimar Bagh. The Begum then built a sarai within it. It was in this garden that the coronation of Aurangzeb took place on the July 31, 1658, after he had deposed Shah Jahan and also the place where Gen Ochterlony caught a chill that led to his death. Another wife of the emperor, Fatehpuri Begum built a mosque at the western end of the street that led from the Red Fort, which is known after her name. The Sirhindi Masjid, just outside the city wall, was built by the third wife, Sirhindi Begum.
Women of influence
Shah Jahan’s elder daughter, Jahanara commanded great influence and resources. She was well-educated and also had leanings towards Sufism. Jahanara’s wealth enabled her to patronise works of learning, like commentaries on Rumi’s Masnavi and for commissioning architectural projects, in which the pride of place was taken by the moonlight square, Chandni Chowk.
Mughal ladies who continued the tradition of Jahanara and Roshanara were Aurangzeb’s wife, Aurangabadi Begum who built a mosque near the Lahore Gate. The emperor’s two daughters, Zinat-un-Nissa and Zeb-un-Nissa, were also great patrons. Zeb-un-Nissa is the author of poems composed under the alias ‘Makhfi’. A skilled calligraphist, she patronised many writers, poets and learned men and commissioned several important books and tracts. She was buried in the Tees Hazari Bagh, inherited from Jahanara, but her tomb is hard to find.
Her sister Zinat-un-Nissa built a grand mosque beside the Yamuna in 1700 which is called Ghata Masjid now, her tomb, north of the mosque, was demolished in the aftermath of 1857 while the mosque was used as a bakery for British troops.
Story of Sunehri Masjid
Qudsia Begum laid Qudsia Bagh to the north of the city in 1748 whose grand buildings and a mosque were badly damaged during 1857. She also constructed Sunheri masjid near the southern gate of the Red Fort in 1751, whose dome were originally gilt-covered. A noted Shia, she constructed a number of buildings in Jorbagh, at the Dargah of Shah-e-Mardan, the shrine of the footprint of Hazrat Ali. Fakhr-ul-Masjid, near Kashmeri Gate, was built in 1728-29 by Kaniz Fatima in memory of her husband, Shujat Khan, a commander of Aurangzeb’s time who was killed during a military campaign in Kandhar.
Rabia Begum built a palatial house south of the Jama Masjid in the 18th Century. She was the wife of Muhammad Khan Bangash, the Governor of Farukkhabad, Agra and Allahabad. Rabia also commissioned a number of other structures, including Pul Bangash. Some buildings are named after unknown women such as Burhiyas’ (old women’s) mosques, two other anonymous ladies built Mir Afzal’s mosque in the Lal Kuan area in 1806. In fact, there were a large number of mosques and temples built by women at that time. These included three mosques, a Kali temple and several Shiva temples. Mubarak Begum, a dancing girl, built a mosque in Lal Kuan which came to be known as “Randi-ki-Maszid”. But now it is known after her name. She was the chief mistress of Gen Ochterlony. Better known than her and other 18th Century women was Begum Samru, a Kashmiri dancing girl of Chandni Chowk who had married the European military adventurer, Walter Reinhardt ‘Sombre’. His nick name, Sombre, or ‘dark’ was corrupted to Samru. After his death, his begum inherited the estate of Sardhana. She also successfully led military expectations and made astute political alliances.
Zinat Mahal was the wife of Bahadur Shah Zafar who became a powerful influence within the palace, and controlled a good deal of wealth. In 1846, she built a mansion in Lal Kuan Bazar. Her aim was to establish herself in the city, so that when the emperor died, her property and person would not be under the jurisdiction of the new emperor, who might be one of his older sons. So how can one overlook the contribution of women (royal or not) to Delhi’s grandeur?
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / by R.V. Smith / December 10th, 2018
The style of writing on the coins indicates that they might be from the Lodi dynasty. Photo: V.V. Krishnan | Photo Credit: V.V. Krishnan
The discovery of over 250 copper coins at Khirki Mosque is expected to throw light on Delhi’s medieval period
Khirki is crowded, with narrow roads and tall buildings bundled together like Lego bricks stacked precariously. Smack in the middle of this chaos is Khirki Mosque, a 14th century fortress-like structure built during the Tughlaq dynasty.
The mosque is fenced in by high compound walls and the uneven ground is lower than the houses that surround the structure. It is deathly quiet inside, with its myriad archways partially lit by Delhi’s smoggy sunlight. Standing there, it is easy to imagine a priest, or a trader, furtively hurrying along the walls of the mosque to find a spot to bury treasure.
Treasure is what the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) found two months ago in this complex — a hoard of small copper coins vaguely resembling those bite-sized Britannia biscuits from the 90s.
Happy chance
A team from ASI’s conservation wing was levelling the ground in early September as part of ongoing conservation work when one of the workers’ pickaxes landed on a mud pot. Work was halted and ASI archaeologists were called.
The office was abuzz when they learned about the discovery, says N.K. Pathak, superintending archaeologist, ASI-Delhi circle. “As soon as the coins were discovered, there was a big halla. For archaeologists, discoveries like this are always exciting, no matter the value. Everyone said, Khazana mil gaya!” he says, laughing.
The style of writing on the coins indicates that they might be from the Lodi dynasty. | Photo Credit: V.V. Krishnan
The discovery of these coins is what those in the field call a ‘chance discovery’, as opposed to a planned dig. The mosque is also the site of an earlier discovery of 63 coins in 2003, which was also a chance discovery. There is a possibility that both sets of coins might be from the same era.
Preliminary investigations of the 254 coins reveal that they are from Delhi’s medieval period — 13th to 16th century — the latter part straddling the early modern period. Proper identification can happen only after they are cleaned and studied, says Pathak. “However, some of the coins belong to the reign of Islam Shah Suri.”
Inscriptions on the coins
Islam Shah Suri is the son of Sher Shah Suri, who founded the Sur dynasty and ruled Delhi for seven years from 1538 to 1545. “Most Islamic coins have inscriptions (what we call legends) on them — the name of the ruler and their father’s name. In this case, some of the coins had ‘Islam Shah Suri, son of Sher Shah Suri’ inscribed on them,” says Shahmoon Ahmad, Assistant Archaeologist, ASI-Lucknow circle, who will be studying the coins further.
Notably, it was Sher Shah who introduced the precursors to the modern rupee and paise — the silver rupaiya and the copper paisa. The gold coins issued by the Sur dynasty were called mohurs. “Discoveries of gold and silver coins are rather rare. Copper coins are not that much of a surprise,” says Pathak.
That’s because copper coins were reused by the general populace; the gold and the silver ones had to be re-minted with the names of current rulers, adds Ahmad.
He suspects that this might be true for this hoard as well. There are several paleographic indications — the style of writing — that indicate that some of the coins might be from the Lodi dynasty, which fell less than two decades before Islam Shah’s reign.
However, any discovery, even something as small as a copper coin hoard, is quite significant. “The monument is of the Tughlaq period, but the coins are from the Lodi and the Sur periods. Once we date the coins, we can establish that people used money regularly from the earliest date on the coin to the latest,” says Ahmad.
Interestingly, the fact that there are coins from two different dynasties might mean that this was not the hoard of a single person. “It could be the savings of one or two generations of a family,” he adds.
These coins can also establish other things. “They tell us this area was populated, the jurisdiction of the particular ruler, the prosperity of his rule, the money usage patterns, and so on,” says Pathak.
The coins also show that the mosque was in use during the reign of that particular ruler.
If they were indeed minted during the time of Islam Shah, it would mean the mosque was in use even 200 years after it was built.
Khirki’s secrets
More than half a millennium later, however, the Khirki Mosque is in bad shape. The buildings that flout ASI’s 100-metre-rule is the least of the concerns. There are broken pillars, loose bricks, decaying stones, a decades-old bat infestation, and more. The boundary wall around the monument came up only in 2003, according to an earlier report in The Hindu.
Conservation work, which began roughly mid-August, started with clearing the debris to bring the lower plinth of the monument to an even level, says deputy superintending archaeologist, Sanjay Kumar Singh. “It was also to make the movement of water on the ground smoother, especially in the monsoon. So work began with levelling the ground,” he says.
When the coins were found, the area around the discovery was carefully cordoned off, while all the debris and mud excavated so far were sieved thoroughly for more surprises from the past. “There is possibility to get anything, even pot shards, at any important site in Delhi. Workers, supervisors, and other staff are trained to be vigilant. We tell them this work is different from what the Public Works Department might do,” says Pathak.
Conservation work will go on for another six months, during which time the broken pillars and the decayed chajja stones will be replaced. “We will also undertake ‘pointing and underpinning’ work to fix the loose bricks and mortar. We will be using the lime mortar mix that was originally used,” adds Pathak.
Detailed information on the coins, however, will roll in before work on the monument is finished. “We will first send them to the science branch for cleaning, after which our numismatics branch will come in to decipher the writing. It will take three to four months,” says Pathak.
What are the possibilities of finding more antiquities here? “That’s just it,” he says. “You can never predict what you can find in Delhi and when. What is beneath the earth, you never know.”
janane.venkatraman@thehindu.co.in
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / by Janane Venkatraman / December 08th, 2018
Mustajab Malik’s short film “Sir Syed Ahmed Khan” is quite relevant at a time when media circles are abuzz about a possible Bharat Ratna for him.
Many times adverse conditions bring out the best in a human being. So was the case with Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, a visionary and educationist, whose single greatest contribution among others to the posterity stands in the form of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), the renowned centre of learning.
The 30-minute documentary “Sir Syed Ahmed Khan” is a part of the series “Charagh-e-Hind” directed by Mustajab Malik that traces his life highlighting several important aspects of his personality. “The objective of the series is to inspire the Muslim youth and enable them to change their mindset from ‘we have got nothing’ to ‘we must contribute’,” explains Mustajab, a veteran theatre person. Virendra Vashistha essays the role of Sir Syed and the script is written by Dr. Mohammad Aleem. Born on October 17, 1817 in Mughal nobility, Sir Syed after education joined the civil services. The First War of Independence in 1857, when he was munsif in Bijnor, had a profound impact on his life. Despite suffering personally as many of his family members were either killed or missing, he ensured protection to the women and children left by the British for safekeeping.
“Sir Syed was aware that the 1857 events reflected dissent on the part of Indians and that they were not well prepared for it,” comments historian, Prof. S.M. Azizuddin in the film. “An Essay “On The Causes Of The Indian Revolt” in 1859, the English translation of his discourse, was widely debated in the English Parliament leading many members to demand action against him.
Instead mourning the death of his loved ones, the educationist was deeply hurt by the repercussions on his community and nation. He decided to serve and provide hope in the time of despair. “When Muslims were being targeted and their confidence was at the lowest ebb, he stepped in to guide them in tune with the changing international environment,” remarks Dr. Khwaja Ekramuddin, an Urdu scholar, in the documentary. For achieving that Sir Syed identified knowledge and science as the prime tools and promoted Western style scientific education. He founded a modern madarsa in Moradabad and Ghazipur and the Scientific Society of Aligarh to instil scientific temper apart from having several scientific papers translated into Urdu.
Sir Syed’s meeting with Mirza Ghalib to write the foreword of his edition of Abul Fazl’s Ain-e Akbari, proved a turning point for him. The poet asked him to forget the past and concentrate on current developments and take into account the galloping progress in the West thereby turning him towards social reform.
During his stay in England for nearly two years from 1869 he visited several educational establishments and learning centres inspiring him to replicate them in India. This led to setting up Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875. “Educating Muslims meant taking India forward,” comments Pradeep Saxsena, a Hindi scholar. In this cause he was helped by several Hindus in cash and kind. Besides seeking funds, Sir Syed also staged plays to espouse the cause. In 1920, 22 years after his death, it became AMU. The institution enrolled a large number of Hindu students and Babu Iswhari Prasad is among the first batch of graduates.
Sir Syed was swayed by all the British did. “He wanted their help and at the same time criticised them as proved by his essay on events of 1857. Besides he also rebutted the allegations made by Sir William Muir in his book “Life of Mahomet” in writing,” says Mustajab adding “he did not take to the streets protesting or led agitations and instead adopted the civilised method.”
The film highlights Sir Syed’s scholarship by informing the viewers of his 1846 book “Athar-al-Sanadid” which documents the Delhi monuments. “It was a first- of-its-kind attempt. In fact this authoritative work which cannot be ignored by anyone studying Delhi monuments,” comments Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, a historian shown in the documentary.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Friday Review / by S. Ravi / January 08th, 2015
City-based writer Rahman Abbas has won the Sahitya Akademi Award, 2018, for his Urdu novel, Rohzin.
Mr. Abbas’s novel is a love story set against the backdrop of the 2005 floods in Mumbai. The novel was published in 2016 and has been widely debated in India, Pakistan, the Middle East, Canada and Europe.
It begins on the day Mumbai was submerged on July 26, 2005, and is narrated with the use of mythology, legend, religion, magical realism, sexuality and sensuality. It has been translated into English and Hindi, and was published in German in February.
The 46-year-old writer, who has grown up in Mumbai, is a Konkani Muslim. He was educated in Urdu and has published seven books, four of which are novels.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Mumbai / by Special Correspondent / Mumbai – December 06th, 2018
