Wajida Tabassum is the first writer to be called sahib-e-asloob (a writer with a distinct style) after Ismat Chughtai. Her unique style of writing and choice of themes have been riveting and revolutionary at the same time. With a lot of opposition for her work, Tabassum managed to remain a defiant writer until her last works.
Early Life And Education
Born in Amravati, Maharashtra in 1935, Tabassum graduated from Osmania University with a degree in Urdu. After graduation, her family moved from Amravati to Hyderabad, the influence of which is evident in her writing.
IN A SOCIETY WHERE WOMEN ARE SHUNNED, TABASSUM EXPLORES THE STRENGTH THAT UNDERLIES THE EXISTENCE OF THE WORKING CLASS INDIAN WOMAN.
Writing And Her Life After
In 1940, she started writing stories in Urdu in the Dakhini dialect. Her writing continued as a backdrop of an aristocratic social life of Hyderabad. Her books were published by her husband, Ashfaq Ahmad, after his retirement from the Indian Railways. With four sons, and daughter they settled in Bombay.
Career
Tabassum’s career started with her stories appearing in a monthly magazine called ‘Biswin Sadi’. She wrote erotic stories in a way that brought out the lifestyles of Hyderabadi Nawabs, which was often considered luxurious. The very first collection of her short stories, called ‘Shahr-e-Mamnu’ (‘Forbidden City’), was published in 1960.
Her work wasn’t just widely acclaimed by critics, it was also popularly loved. Her story titled ‘Utran’ (‘Cast-Offs’) was made into a popular soap opera on Indian Television in 1988. During the 1960s and 1970’s, her erotic stories were published in Shama magazine which also got her a handsome payment for those times. Her books include Teh Khana, Kaise Samjhaoon, Phul Khilne Do, Utran, Zakhme-e-Dil Aur Mahak Aur Mahak and Zar, Zan, Zamin, which she had published in 1989.
WAJIDA TABASSUM IS THE FIRST STORY WRITER TO BE CALLED SAHIB-E-ASLOOB (A WRITER WITH A DISTINCT STYLE) AFTER ISMAT CHUGHTAI.
Breaking Taboos
She was repetitively criticized for crossing the limits of decorum and ‘decency’. Her stories like Nath Ka Bojh (Burden of the Nose-Ring), Haur-Upar(A Litter Higher), and Nath Utarwai(Removal of the Nose-Ring) which were more on the erotic side, were highly controversial. Tabassum’s works saw public protests in the city in lieu of her showing the community in a bad light. Her stories were not just a courageous depiction of women’s sexualities, but the reclamation of it too.
In one of her stories called ‘Chutney’, the reader witnesses the sexual tension between a young Nawab and an incredibly gorgeous employed servant. Following the allegedly explicit description of the erotic aspect of the dynamic, is the climax wherein the servant gets raped. The story, like rest of her work, is a social commentary on how there is class-based exploitation in the self-proclaimed elegant lifestyle of the Nawabs as well. However, a revolution begins through the story when the servant rips her clothes and challenges the Nawab to try again on his wedding day.
The theme of women taking charge of her sexuality remains constant in Tabassum’s stories. In another story called ‘Tiya Paancha’, we witness the anger of a wife who declares her husband impotent publicly after he cheats on her. In a society where women are shunned, Tabassum explores the strength that underlies the existence of the working class Indian woman.
source: http://www.feminisminindia.com / FII – Feminism In India / Home> History / by Harshita Chhatlani / July 04th, 2019
The Wire’s Arfa Khanum Sherwani and Faiyaz Ahmad Wajeeh. Photo: The Wire
While Sherwani won in the Politics (TV) category for her interview with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Wajeeh was declared winner of the Arts (TV) category for his story on a bookstore.
New Delhi:
The Wire‘s Arfa Khanum Sherwani and Faiyaz Ahmad Wajeeh bagged the prestigious Red Ink Awards on Friday. While Sherwani won in the Politics (TV) category for her interview with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of The Art of Living foundation, Wajeeh was declared winner of the Arts (TV) category for his video on a bookstore that brought together Urdu’s literary greats.
Sherwani’s interview with Ravi Shankar was on his comments on the Ayodhya land dispute case in March 2018, when he said if the Ram mandir issue is not resolved “we will have a Syria in India”. While Sherwani pressed him on the issue, the interview was ended abruptly by members of his team. The video was produced by Akhil Kumar, while the camera was handled by Moniza Hafizee and editing by Asad Ali.
Wajeeh’s story was on 88-year old Shahid Ali Khan’s lifelong passion for Urdu literature. His journey with Maktaba Jamia, a publishing house and bookstore, took him from Delhi to Mumbai in 1957, where he befriended renowned Urdu writers and poets like Sahir Ludhianvi, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Meena Kumari and Jagan Nath Azad. He now runs the Nai Kitab publishing house in Delhi.
The video was produced by Hina Fathima, who also handled the camera. The video was narrated by Yasmeen Rashidi, while the poetry was translated by Meenakshi Tewari.
Apart from the two winners, The Wire‘s Kabir Agarwal, Jahnavi Sen and Ishita Mishra also received special mentions for their stories. Agarwal’s four-part series on Swach Bharat and its implementation in Uttar Pradesh received a special mention in the Health and Wellness category. Read the four parts here .
Jahnavi Sen’s story on the failure of the government to recognise and rehabilitate manual scavengers received a special mention in the Human Rights category. Ishita Mishra’s story on the BJP’s efforts to monitor the stories published in the media also received a special mention, in the Politics category.
The Red Ink Awards for Excellence in Journalism are announced annually by the Mumbai Press Club and recognise meritorious work in TV, print and digital formats. Awards are presented in various categories such as politics, crime, health and wellness, business, environment, human rights, photography, science and innovation, entertainment and lifestyle, and sports as well as a category called ‘Mumbai Star Reporter’. It is the only awards instituted by a professional body.
The Journalist of the Year Award went to former Tribune journalist Rachna Khaira for her expose on the functioning of the Unique Identification Authority of Indian (UIDAI) and its Aadhaar data cache. Lifetime achievement awards were given to former Maharashtra Times journalist Dinu Ranadiv and Mumbai Mirror‘s former photo editor Sebastian D’Souza.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Media / by The Wire Staff / June 29th, 2019
Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has said that a record number of two lakh Indian Muslims will go to Haj this year without any subsidy.
Mr Naqvi said this while inaugurating a two-day ‘orientation-cum-training programme’ for Haj 2019 deputationists in New Delhi yesterday. He said, nearly 48 per cent of the pilgrims are women.
The Minister said, even after removal of Haj subsidy, there is no unnecessary financial burden on the Haj pilgrims. He said the Central Government has taken effective steps to ensure safety and better facilities of the pilgrims.
Mr Naqvi emphasised that no negligence will be tolerated in this regard. He added that a total of 620 Haj coordinators, Assistant Haj Officers, Haj Assistants, Doctors and Paramedics have been deployed in Saudi Arabia to assist the pilgrims.
The Minister also informed that the number of women Haj pilgrims going without Mehram this year is double in comparison to last year. A total of 2,340 Muslim women from India will go for Haj without Mehram this year while 1180 women had performed Haj last year without Mehram.
source: http://www.thenorthlines.com / The NorthLines / Home> Latest News / June 26th, 2019
Islamic history expert Prof. P.A. Ibrahim Kutty, 71, a prominent presence in the city’s cultural and literary circles, passed away on Wednesday.
He was the vice president of Kerala History Association and treasurer of Samastha Kerala Sahitya Parishad. His body, kept at his house Nilofer on SRM Road at Kaloor, will be buried at the Kaloor Thottathumpady Juma Masjid on Thursday.
Born in 1948 at Mala, Prof. Ibhahim Kutty had his education in Maharaja’s College, Aligarh Muslim University and Ernakulam Law College.
He had retired as Head of Islamic History Department from the Maharaja’s College in 2001. He was a member of boards in various universities and was the chairman of the Islamic Studies Board in Kerala University, Calicut University and Mahatma Gandhi University.
He is survived by his wife Razia, daughter of former Mayor A.A. Kochunni Master.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Special Correspondent / Kochi – July 04th, 2019
An artisan works on one of Khatri’s unique asymmetrical designs. | Photo Credit: Vijay Soneji
Khalid Amin Khatri’s favourite theme is clouds floating atop mountains
He grew up in a world of symmetry. The perfectly synchronised movement of wooden blocks from a plate of colour onto long stretches of cloth, and the accompanying sound of a regular, dull beat, are deeply ingrained in Khalid Amin Khatri.
This is, after all, Ajrakhpur, in the Kutch region of Gujarat ,and he was born the son of generations of ajrakh printers. Khatri, however, was bored by the regularity. He wanted to capture his imagination on a piece of cloth, to bring the clouds and the mountains, shrines and monuments down to his canvas.
So that’s what he did.
Khatri, 26, calls himself an artist — more than an artisan. A step away from the traditional ajrakh block-printing that relies on uniformity of design, Khatri’s work is dominated by asymmetricity. But it’s more than that. “Each of my creations has a theme,” he tells us, as he unfolds piece after piece, each hand crafted, each guided by a theme. Unlike the traditional form that mostly prints floral motifs and geometrical designs, Khatri’s designs are guided by his imagination. His favourite theme, for example, is clouds floating atop mountains.
Different strokes
Showing us one such piece — it has a river, flowers, bushes, and yes, clouds and mountains — Khatri recalls a time, not even 10 years ago, when other artisans in his village would look at him with dismay. “‘Why are you hell-bent on destroying the art form,’ they would ask,” he says, smiling. “But I didn’t care. I always knew if I was going to do Ajrakh, I would do something different.”
Khatri was a child when the 2001 Bhuj earthquake destroyed their village, Dhamadka, and the entire community of artisans moved to Ajrakhpur. Most villagers went back to their craft, but Khatri’s father, Amin Khatri, stopped working on ajrakh and instead opened a grocery shop.
He did not however discourage his son from learning the art form in his uncle’s workshop. But traditional ajrakh could not capture the boy’s interest, and he ran away to Mumbai. He was just a teenager and he had found himself a job as a telemarketer.
“I lasted just six months there,” he smiles sheepishly. “I decided to come back to my world — but to innovate and leave my mark.” In 2010, his uncle, Dr. Ismail Khatri, encouraged him to study textile design at Kala Raksha Vidyalaya.
During the one-year course, one theme caught Khatri’s fancy: concept design. “Concept development was completely new to me. We were taught how to develop a theme; it was aligned to what I wanted to do,” he says.
Dargah on cloth
Khatri’s first finished product as a student was a black stole on which he made mountains and clouds. “A lady from the U.S. had come to see our products and when she saw my creation, she said my talent was qudrati, that I was a natural, like M.F. Husain. I didn’t even know who Husain was then,” he says. The stole sold for ₹50,000.
Since then, Khatri’s visually arresting work has gained widespread popularity, both among Ajrakhpur’s regular customers and new buyers. His work is unusual, for instance, a stole with a vivid image of Mumbai’s Haji Ali Dargah, complete with the half-submerged road leading to it. Or the white Rann of Kutch printed on a scarf. He also does a lot of abstract work, both on silk — modal, mashroo, etc. — and on cotton.
“I spend a lot of time on each piece and make sure it is unique. I take at least two hours to print a two-metre piece of cloth, when traditional ajrakh block-printing would have taken 10 minutes,” he says.
He gets wooden blocks made for every design and theme, and uses paper to cover portions of the cloth in order to break the symmetry; he hand-paints some as well. This means that unlike the traditional six metre long ajrakh prints, he usually does stoles, scarves and dupattas. “But I recently got an order for a cotton sari and I did that,” he says.
Khatri has travelled across the country for exhibitions and his wares are displayed at fashion shows. A lot of his orders come from overseas. “These,” he says, showing a pile of abstract art stoles on his bed at home, “are ready to be shipped to a textile designer and collector in the U.S.”
Khatri’s work was exhibited at the V&A Museum in London. And he is renowned enough for students from design schools like the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and M.S. University (Vadodara) to visit him for learning.
Asked about his future plans, Khatri looks up for a second and then smiles. “I don’t think too much about the future. I enjoy doing what I do. Like, right now, I want to work on a piece that celebrates Delhi, its monuments and landmarks,” he says. His father, who now helps him in his workshop, nods approvingly.
The author is a Gujarat-based freelance journalist.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sunday Magazine> Focus> Society / by Azera Parveen Rahman / June 29th, 2019
The genre has given new life to the literary landscape of the northeastern state.
Miyah poetry gives us a peep into how it is to live in the Char Chapori or riverine geographies in Assam. Photo: Kinshuk Kashyap/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
For Richard Rorty, there are two kinds of writers largely – those who strive for ‘private perfection’ and those who are collectively engaged with efforts to make our institutions ‘more just and less cruel’. I wish to draw from his seminal work Contingency, Irony and Solidarity to critically think about the ongoing debate about Miyah poetry. It might come across as a highly unusual reference, but I do believe that there are interesting parallels.
Miyah poetry as a genre is multilingual and encompasses a world of suffering and humiliation of a group of people whose life-world has passed through numerous political claims and counterclaims. My first introduction to Miyah poetry was through an article written by the talented poet and translator Shalim M. Hussain. I was deeply moved reading his account of the word Miyah and how this subaltern group of committed poets are trying to create something beautiful through protest and celebration of life. Hussain shared with us this beautiful poem of Maulana Bande Ali written in 1939:
“Neither charuwa, nor pamua I am an Asomiya. Of Assam’s earth and air I am an equal claimant.”
This one is seen as the first wave of poems, followed by a series of poems in the 1980s mostly written in Assamese by the likes of Khabir Ahmed and Dr Hafiz Ahmed. Hussain notes in a recent article that the new wave of poems has been more explorative and has moved beyond protest and resistance. This new generation is committed to writing a total history of their being.
If one follows Miyah poetry closely, it has always attempted to enrich our understanding of the cultural and political landscape of Assam. It gives us a peep into how it is to live in the Char Chapori or riverine geographies in Assam. It teaches and asks us to be ‘more just and less cruel’. These groups of poets also share a love for Assamese culture and society. In their humble effort, they seek to beautify the cultural landscape of Assam. And to remember Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, their contribution brings light (puhor) to our society.
Criticism of Miyah poetry
The recent debate about Miyah poetry questions its very existence and need. This discomfort and criticism mirror the condition of Assamese civil and literary class/society which is deeply rooted in the hegemony of Assamese language, its form and one that guards its boundaries. It cannot digest a new discourse emerging from the within which reflects our own condition of culture. It fails to give freedom even for artistic and aesthetic expression, like it does to any critical intellectual pursuit. The ‘otherisation’ that Bangla speakers of the state face is precisely a product of this Assamese hegemony and the ‘class condition’ in the state.
Criticisms about Miyah poetry suffer from a ‘liberal irony’. For Rorty, such a condition and being is one where people hope for a decrease in suffering and hope that humiliation shall end one day. They indulge in discussions involving concerns about whether it is right to deliver innocents to the torturer if they let go more people instead. In Assam, there is a considerable section who thinks that something good may come out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process. This something good is indeed a discourse of ‘private perfection’ where there are many sacrificial lambs being created. Such ironists are far greater in number. In essence, they determine a hierarchy of responsibility, which is indeed an irony.
For Rorty, it is a liberal utopia that irony is hostile for democracy and human solidarity at once. In essence, criticism of criticism is the only way out of the present milieu. However, it doesn’t threaten human solidarity itself. Solidarity for him is not only possible by enquiry, perhaps even criticism, but also, through imagination. Solidarity can be created by highlighting the pain and suffering of people that are not familiar or who you know.
To agree with Rorty again, one needs to think of human beings as ‘one of us’ and not as ‘them,’ write about the ‘other’ as ‘us’ and ‘redescribe’ and re-visit who we are. In other words, we ought to write not only about others but also of the capabilities of love and evil one carry. In the process, we create more vocabularies to understand our everyday life. It makes us better, not worse off.
Need for a cultural revolution
It struck a chord with me and I have come to admire the poems, its discourse and have shared them with numerous friends and acquaintances. Recently, when Miyah poetry is being put in a pickle by a few writers, one should always remember that being in Assam, the world of beauty and its articulation is not lost on us. The cultural icon of Assam, Jyoti Prasad Agarwala believed that any culture ought to have a revolution (biplab) in society whenever there is a threat to our cultural mores.
Jyoti Prasad Agarwala. Photo: YouTube
Our culture, and I use ‘our’ with much discomfort and keeping in mind the syncretism that we find in Assam theoretically and the ‘otherisation’ that is rife, requires a biplab – for Assamese political and cultural landscape have become narrow and selfish. Our social boundaries are more rigid than before. In Agarwala’s words, we have an unholy presence of anti-cultural (duskriti) in our society that asks us to become divisive. It is, thus, imperative that we need a revolution, a cultural one as Agarwala articulated.
Miyah poetry, of which there is no gatekeeper as Hussain empathically puts it, gives new vocabularies to a culture that comes out of a ‘lifetime of oppression’. A new grammar of suffering and humiliation is being written through these poems that tell us not to walk those paths that treat people with disdain and humiliation.
Like the contribution of Henry James and Nabokov, it shows us the limits of our culture and the ‘cruelty we are capable of’. Miyah poetry, in fact, creates a meta-vocabulary of our everyday life, of possible ways of knowing and feeling.
Why Assam should embrace Miyah poetry
This genre of poetry has given new life to the literary landscape of Assam. It creates new grounds for solidarity and takes us to a world unknown – of suffering, othering and humiliation. Assamese society ought to embrace it, not brush it aside as unnecessary and describe it as reactionary. Brushing them aside also means forgoing the possibility of solidarity. It is time to move beyond ‘private perfection’ and think of human solidarity outside the gaze of liberal irony. People who engage in art and intellectual pursuit ought to extend their love, not silence, and certainly not hollow criticism.
Perhaps, Miyah poetry needs to accept the politics it carries or its potential, although, Hussain notes that ‘they are least bothered about politics’. The history of Miya poetry suggests that in many ways, it essentialises Char Chapori settlements as only Miyah settlements, however, the history of permanent settlement in riverine areas of 90 odd tributaries of the mighty Brahmaputra suggest that there are other river people (nadiyal) who share the same precarity, perhaps not the intensity of social othering.
A complete history of Char Chapori ought to appreciate that heterogeneity of Char Chapori scapes and how it is home to the other margins of Assam – the Mishings and the Kaibartas (a lower-caste group), among others, who are the first permanent settlers of these areas. As non-colonising settlers of these geographies, there are many commonalities that these communities share.
At the moment, there is no solidarity among these communities as such, but as Rorty suggests, solidarity can be created. It can be created from the shared lived experiences, of being marginalised through religion and caste and the productive activities that they are engaged with. Hussain notes in the FirstPost article that ‘Miyah poetry has done its job’, however, borrowing Hafiz Ahmed’s words: I beg to state that it has, in fact, began.
Suraj Gogoi is a doctoral student in sociology at National University of Singapore and tweets @char_chapori.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Culture / by Suraj Gogoi / July 03rd, 2019
The Nikah between Muhammad Muhsin and Shafaq Qassim was a strictly family-and-friends event
Palakkad:
Pattambi’s young MLA Muhammad Muhsin has married a student from Uttar Pradesh’s Balrampur. The wedding was held in the bride’s hometown.
The Nikah was a strictly family-and-friends event as the bride, Shafaq Qassim, has to fly out to Europe on December 31 for studies leading to a PhD.
Shafaq, who has completed her M Phil from the Jamia Millia University in Delhi, has worked at the National Physical Laboratory there for sometime.
Muhsin and Shafaq knew each other for the last year-and-a-half.
Muhsin, who was a firebrand leader at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, is an MLA of the CPI. The bride’s family, however, are Samajwadi Party supporters and they have contributed MLAs to that party.
Muhsin is the son of Puthenpeediyakkal Abubaker Haji and Jameela Begum of Karakkad, Pattambi.
source: http://www.english.manoramaonline.com / OnManorama / Home> News> Kerala / by OnManorama Correspondent / December 23rd, 2018
An interview with the author of ‘Patna Blues’, a novel about a lower-middle class Muslim family in small-town Bihar.
Abdullah Khan is a banker by profession and a poet-storyteller at heart. Born and raised in Bihar, Khan’s fiction carries evocative descriptions of his roots. His debut novel Patna Bluesisa coming-of-age story set in Patna and other places in Bihar in the 1990s. In an interview with Scroll.in Khan talks about his first novel, his inspirations, his poetry, and Bihar.
You started writing Patna Blues as “The Remains of a Dream”. I had the opportunity to read parts of this novel when you posted some chapters on your blog, way back in 2010. How was the journey from 2010 till 2018, from starting to write the novel as “The Remains of the Dream” to seeing it published as Patna Blues? Actually, I started writing this novel in 1997 just after Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize. And the excerpts you read in 2010 were from probably the third draft of my novel. Initially, it was a romantic drama mostly focussing on Arif’s love life. Then, on the basis of the feedback I received from my writer friends and a couple of literary agents to whom I had submitted my manuscript for possible representation, I rewrote the entire thing making a lot of changes in the plot and in the characters.
Once the final draft was ready, I started sending my queries to British and American literary agents. And, after collecting more than 200 rejection slips, I decided to submit the manuscript to Indian publishers. I was lucky that my novel landed first on Renu Agal’s table at Juggernaut Books and she could connect with the story. Renu asked me to make certain changes in my manuscript which I immediately did. Then she recommended Patna Blues to senior editor Sivapriya who also liked this story about a small town and, finally, my book found a home.
Now, in its present avatar, Patna Blues is a culturally insightful coming-of-age novel with political undertones. It is actually three stories in one. One is simply the story of a boy: Arif, the central character, who deals with love, lust, and ambitions as he goes through the painful process of growing up. The second too is Arif’s story, but it is also the story of a Muslim boy in particular, and this flows into a larger narrative of being a Muslim in post-Babri India, with its own challenges and anxieties. The third is the story of India itself, not the India that exists in the cities, but the India of villages and small towns.
Who or what inspired the character of Arif Khan and how much of Abdullah Khan is there in Arif Khan? Arif is a fictional character and is not inspired by anyone in particular. Unlike Arif, I was never interested in the civil services. But, yes, the moral values of Arif are quite similar to those of mine. And, like Arif, I also lived in police colonies in Patna and Darbhanga.
The story of Arif Khan’s family seems to be a story of several families in Bihar and Jharkhand, not only Muslim families. Was it one particular family that gave you the insights to create this one or was it what you observed in several families? Is there an issue (or many issues) you wish to highlight through your portrayal of Arif Khan’s family? Arif’s family is a typical lower middle class Bihari family and their problems are not different from the other families of the same class. Since I also come from a similar background, it was easy for me to create such a fictional family. Some of the incidents portrayed in my novel, however, are inspired by real life stories. For example, Arif’s sister’s marriage to a man double her age was inspired by a real event. It had happened in Darbhanga. I was barely 12-13 years old at that time. In my neighbourhood, a girl was married off to a man who was no match for her only because her father was not willing to spend too much money on her wedding.
The characters of Arif’s mother and grandmother are inspired by my own mother and grandmother.
The whole novel is very atmospheric. Be it the description of Patna city or the villages in north Bihar or the description of the 1990s – the time period in which a major part of your novel is set – or the politics of the time (and place), you have given a no holds barred description of everything, even of the film magazine Priya. Thank you for re-igniting our memories. Is there a particular memory from those times that made your writing so evocative? Something you would like to share? Thank you very much for your kind words. I didn’t plan it. Since the story is mostly set in Bihar of the 1990s, I just tried to evoke a sense of time and place by mentioning the things which signify Bihar of the 1990s. And, it appears that, to an extent, I have succeeded in doing so.
One important feature of Patna Blues is the poetry/ghazals in Urdu that Arif and Sumitra compose. You yourself are a poet and the poetry and ghazals you have featured in Patna Blues are your original works. You have also written the screenplay and lyrics for a Hindi film, Viraam. What made you use your poetry in the novel? How do you think the book would have turned out had this poetry not been there? The main characters of this novel, Arif and Sumitra, are interested in Urdu poetry, so it is obvious that they will use poetry in their conversations. Additionally, the use of poetry in my novel is not only for ornamental purposes but they have also been used as a narrative tool.
Since Arif and Sumitra are amateur poets, it would not have been appropriate if I had used the poetry of well-known poets. So I decided to use my own poems, for both Arif and Sumitra. I believe that this novel couldn’t have been written without using Urdu poetry.
My favourite character is Zakir, Arif Khan’s younger brother. But you have not really given him closure. Similarly, the character Maya Banerjee, Sumitra’s friend, too has not been given closure. Why? Can we expect to see their stories somewhere else? Are you planning a sequel to Patna Blues? Zakir is one of my favourite characters too and his story is too big to be covered in this book. It needs a separate book. In fact, I have plans to write two sequels to Patna Blues. In Zakir’s Dilemma, I will give closure to Zakir’s story, which is going to be more intriguing and suspenseful than Patna Blues. The third book in thetrilogy will be Sumitra’s Choice, which will be told from Sumitra’s POV.
As far as Maya Banerjee is concerned, as of now, I don’t know much about her except that she used to be Sumitra’s friend. But, in future, I’d certainly like to explore this character.
What are you writing right now? Is there a new book from you that we can look forward to Right now, I am working on a novel titled Aslam, Orwell and a Pornstar. It is about a man called Aslam who was born in the same house in Motihari, India, where George Orwell was born. The story is set in Motihari, India, and Los Angeles, USA, against the backdrop of contemporary political events.
Simultaneously, I am also working on a couple of story ideas for television and web.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Meet The Writer / by Hansa Sowvendra Shekhar / September 22nd, 2018
Anyone travelling on India’s road network in the north of the country may from time to time see a curious little structure standing in isolation by the side of the road. Seemingly unassociated with anything else around them, to the casual observer they can probably be best described as enlarged stone salt/pepper pots.
With all the astonishing monuments that still stand today in this amazing country, it would be all too easy to dismiss these humble little constructions as your car passes them by at speed. However, they have their own story to tell, and one for which we can draw so many parallels with life as we live it today in terms of travel and communication. They are also a type of monument that is slowly disappearing from the landscape of India, so they deserve a little time in the spotlight before it’s too late.
These monuments are known as Kos Minars. A Kos is an ancient Indian unit of distance representing approximately 3.22 kilometers (2 miles), and is 1/4 of a Yojana, a vedic measurement of distance. The use of Yojana scratches back to the ancient vedic texts, and was used by Ashoka in his Major Rock Edict No.13 to describe the distance between Patliputra and Babylone. Minar means ‘Pillar’, so the broad translation of Kos Minar is ‘Mile Pillar’, even though one kos is not strictly speaking an exact mile in measurement. Interestingly, elderly people in many rural areas of the Indian subcontinent still refer to distances from nearby areas in kos.
A Short History of the Kos Minar
The first recorded evidence in India of using something in the landscape to specifically denote distances and routes comes from the 3rd century BC. The Emperor Ashoka established routes linking his capital city of Pataliputra to Dhaka, Kabul, and Balkh, and landmarks in the form of mud pillars, trees and wells helped guide the travelers and provide a sense of how far they had traveled and how much further they had to go. In the majority of cases these landmarks were already pre-existing in the landscape, they were not created specifically for this purpose.
Kos Minar on NH21 near Sahara, between Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh
In India the notion of purposely building structures to physically denote distances in the landscape was first adopted by the Mughal Emperor Babur during his short reign from 1526 to 1530. He ordered one of his central asian nobles, Chiqmaq Beg, to measure the road between his new capital Agra and Kabul in modern day Afghanistan, with the assistance of a royal clerk. He then ordered the raising of distance markers, each twelve yards high and topped with a superstructure having four openings, at every nine kos all along the measured route.
It is not clear how far the builders got with Babur’s instructions, but we do know that the Pashtun ruler Sher Shah Suri who ruled from 1540 to 1555 greatly expanded on this earlier plan. He paid great attention to the development of the road network in northern India, recognising them as arteries to the empire, and erected Kos Minars along the royal routes from Agra to Ajmer, Agra to Lahore, and Agra to Mandu. These three major routes, which were called Sadak-e-Azam, became later known as the Grand Trunk Road.
Kos Minar in Delhi Zoo. / (File is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0. Source.
Many of the Kos Minars you can see today can probably be attributed to the time of Akbar, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Abul Fazl recorded in Akbar Nama (the official chronicle of the reign of Akbar) that in the year 1575 Akbar issued an order that, at every kos on the way from Agra to Ajmer, a pillar or a minar should be erected for the comfort of the travelers, so that the travelers who had lost their way might have a mark and a place to rest. Between 1615 and 1618, shortly after Akbar’s reign, early European travelers to India brought back detailed reports of the Kos Minars they had seen, most notably Richard Steel, John Crowther, and the ambassador of King James I, Sir Thomas Roe.
Subsequent Emperors Jahangir and Shah Jahan added to the network of Kos Minars, by now they were an institution. In 1619, Jahangir ordered Baqir Khan, the garrison commander of Multan, to erect Kos Minars from Agra to Lahore. Thirty four of these milestones still exist today in Punjab in varying states of preservation. It is estimated that between 600 and 1,000 minars were erected in total during the Mughal period, but of course today only a fraction of that number still exist.
Construction and Function
Kos Minars are round pillars around 30 feet high built on a masonry platform. They are completely solid with no stairs or internal rooms, and are mostly made of brick and once covered with lime plaster.
Whilst the features of a Kos Minar generally match each other they are not all identical, there are slight differences depending on location and time of construction/repair.
Kos Minar at Karnal, Haryana
Many of the Kos Minars you can see today stand in isolation, but that was not always the case. As the network of pillars expanded, so did associated structures to complement them and assist the traveler. Scholars believe there were three categories of Kos Minar along the major routes.
The first category is just a standalone Kos Minar with no supplementary infrastructure, erected purely for landmark identification.
The second category of Kos Minar had small associated contemporary buildings, offering limited facilities for the travelers.
The third category of Kos Minar had substantial additional infrastructure such as sarais (inns), baolis (wells), mosques and other facilities to ensure the safety, security and well-being of the traveler. There is some speculation that Chor Minar in Delhi is one such example, although the passage of time may have blurred that fact and introduced folklore into the narrative for that monument. Throughout most of the world you can see this infrastructure in operation along the major roads of any given country. In the UK we call them “service stations”, which exist at fairly regular intervals along our extensive motorway network.
Chor Minar in the Hauz Khas district of Delhi. / Potentially an example of the third and most extensive type of Kos Minar
These structures not only served to assist the traveler from place to place, but were also instrumental in the day to day governance of the Mughal empire. Horses, riders and drummers were stationed at many of the Kos Minars, relaying royal messages at a much faster speed than would be possible with a single horse and rider from source to destination.
In addition to helping relay messages from place to place, Kos Minars may have also served as a hub of information themselves. Some scholars believe the plastered surface of the Minar would have been covered with information, not just about distances but also recent news and popular slogans. This method of distributing news, information and propaganda throughout an empire was not a new concept. The Roman emperor Caesar introduced a similar model where information he wanted to share with his people was posted daily on wooden boards in the Forum (center) of major cities in the Roman empire.
Today we have technology to help us communicate these things. You can post messages on someone’s “wall”, or provide information to a Facebook group (often geographically centric). For many people, social media began with the advent of Facebook, but this is a modern term that refers to a very old idea that people have been using for thousands of years.
Distribution and Preservation
The passage of time has not been kind to the Kos Minar. Of the approximately 1,000 that once existed in India there are now just 110 examples still standing, the highest concentration is in the state of Haryana, where 49 are to be found.
For those who are perhaps traveling to northern India to see the major tourist sites, there is a good stretch of them surviving by the side of NH21 between Agra and Fatehpur Sikri. Hopefully the map below will prove useful for that purpose (click on the image to view larger scale):
Heading away from Agra towards Fatehpur Sikri look out for the following four Kos Minars on the right-hand side of the road :
Kos Minar #1 : Just after the village of Sahara. This Kos Minar (ASI ref: N-UP-A33) is visible and marked on google maps, co-ordinates 27.154760, 77.886290.
Kos Minar #2 : This one (ASI ref: N-UP-A34) is 2 km further on just after the village of Midhaker, and is also visible on Google Maps but not marked, co-ordinates 27.151050, 77.860133.
Kos Minar #3 : (ASI ref: N-UP-A35) is 2 km further on towards Fatehpur Sikri after the village of Kiraoli.
Kos Minar #4 : The final one (ASI ref: N-UP-A36) is after a longer gap of 4 km (clearly we have lost one in middle of these last two).
Although all Kos Minars are now declared protected monuments by the ASI, they remain structures at great risk. What were once meant to show the way to others often now stand in near obscurity, isolated in zoos (Delhi), jungle, car parks, villages, slums, farmlands and even beside railway tracks. Others are being devoured by the rising skyline of rapid development in urban areas, being swallowed up and becoming almost invisible.
Attempts have been made to increase awareness, most recently in February 2005 when a first day cover was issued depicting a renovated Kos Minar as a symbol for Heritage Conservation.
I hope efforts continue to raise awareness of the Kos Minar, and hopefully ensure they no longer lose their way in the rapidly changing landscape on India.
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source: http://www.kevinstandagephotography.wordpress.com / Kevin Standage / Home> Agra / by Kevin Standage Photography / May 20th, 2019
The Raja of Mahmudabad has been fighting to claim his inheritance since 1974, despite being branded ‘enemy’ under the Enemy Property Act.
The Butler Palace in Lucknow, one of the ‘enemy properties’ of the Raja of Mahmudabad that is at stake in the court case against the Enemy Property Act. Photos: Pradeep Gaur/Mint
Mahmudabad/Lucknow/New Delhi:
At the entrance of Muqeem Manzil, the sprawling main hall of Mahmudabad Qila (fort), stands a guest table on which is perched a beautiful old world calendar bearing the Mahmudabad crest, two lions flanking a crown. The date card reads 23rd but none of my companions, local Waqf board members and the secretary to the present Raja, can tell me what the day, month or even year is. In many ways the old world calendar stuck on a particular date is an apt metaphor for the current state of the kingdom whose crest it bears.
Since 1974, Mohammad Amir Mohammad Khan, better known as the Raja of Mahmudabad, has been petitioning the government for the return of his properties but apart from a brief respite in 2005, the Raja’s heritage, spread across parts of Lucknow, Sitapur and Nainital, has been mired in litigation with him challenging the highest authority in India; the Indian government itself. It is a heritage that can be traced back to the 16th century and Emperor Akbar’s patronage, but today Khan has to struggle to not be labelled an enemy.
Raja Mohammad Amir Mohammad Khan with younger son Amir Khan.
In 1962 when war broke out between India and China, the government confiscated what it referred to as “enemy properties”, namely properties that belonged to a person or a country who or which was an enemy. This included not just Indian citizens of Chinese ethnicity but also those who had migrated to Pakistan during the partition. The same act was applicable during the 1965 India-Pakistan war. One of the people to migrate was a certain Mohammad Amir Ahmed Khan who had left India in 1947 but for Iraq. He eventually took Pakistani citizenship in 1957. This was the former Raja of Mahmudabad, father of Mohammad Khan, and by all accounts a close associate of Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
“I had just arrived in Cambridge to begin my undergraduate degree when our properties were taken over under the Defence of India Rules in 1965. In those days it took some time for news to travel from here to there and hence I learnt about it only a week after it had actually happened,” the Raja tells us.
An elegant man with just a hint of a British accent, the Raja peppers his conversation with quotes from classical Indian poetry to Western philosophers. Every question posed to him is an opportunity to share an anecdote from his family’s rich history which in modern times overlapped quite a bit with the birth of the nation.
He tells us how it was his uncle, his father’s younger brother, Maharaj Mohammed Amir Haider Khan, a barrister at law who practised in Bombay in the chambers of Sir Jamshedji Kanga, who explained just what the label enemy property meant, and why a huge chunk of his father’s inheritance had been taken over by the government. Interestingly both the Raja’s uncle, Haider Khan and his mother, Rani Kaniz Abid of Bilhera choose to stay on in India after partition and were Indian citizens.
Mahmudabad Mansion in Lucknow.
The seized properties included Butler Palace, Mahmudabad Mansion, Lawrie Building and court in Lucknow’s Hazratganj. All these are prime real estate holdings, the court especially is a sprawling marketplace spread over 200,000 square feet.
Apart from these, the Mahmudabad estate’s holdings were spread over Sitapur, Nainital and of course in Mahmudabad itself. While some properties like those in commercial areas already had tenants staying, others were converted into government offices. In fact, Butler Palace situated smack bang in the middle of one of Lucknow’s toniest government colonies used to house the Indian Institute of Philosophical Research. “But it was the taking over of the Qila at Mahmudabad, the ancestral house, which is the venue of all our religious observances throughout the year for the entire community, where my mother actually lived and that was a big shock to me,” recalls the Raja.
The Qila in question is not just the family’s ancestral seat but also the religious and cultural hub of Mahmudabad, home to a large Shia community. Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar when the martyrdom of Imam Husain, the grandson of the Prophet, took place, is observed in all its solemnity by the community with the Qila and the shrines built by the Raja’s family as the focal venues.
“It is a very important centre for Mahmudabad both culturally and socially. We have scholars who come from far and wide to preach, all local communities, irrespective of their faiths are involved when Muharram is observed. This has been the tradition here for years and nothing can change it,” Ali Mohammad, the Raja’s secretary, explains to us as we walk around the Qila. It is a magnificent structure with colonnaded arches where many rooms still retain their original furniture right down to the beautiful expansive Persian carpets. The Mahmudabad crest shows up everywhere even as portions of the Qila remain locked up, slowly crumbling under the weight of neglect.
The Mahmudabad Qila at Mahmudabad in Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh.
The Qila was indeed taken over by the government in 1965 but since it is under the Waqf board, under an order of the court it was opened up again in eight months. “During those eight months, my mother, my father’s brother and his wife, who was also my mother’s sister, along with all the retainers, lived in the verandah, enduring what had come to pass. The government knew that substantial parts of the Qila are under the Waqf board and our observances have been taking place for centuries. A place like this could not be used against the disadvantage of the country,” reminisces the Raja.
It is still possible to catch a glimpse of how life would have been at the fort when the kingdom was at its peak. The number of families who live here has greatly diminished but they have all been in the service of the royal family for generations.
Muqeem Manzil, the entrance hall, leads to a library stacked with classics bound to make any book lover’s heart beat faster.
In Mahal Sarah, the ladies section of the fort, a group of women still sits everyday and painstakingly create beautiful chikan outfits under the label Qilasaaz which Vijaya Khan, Rani of Mahmudabad, oversees.
The Raja’s father died in London in 1973 where he moved soon after he took Pakistani citizenship, disillusioned as he was with his experience there.
The interiors of Mahmudabad Qila.
“He was a Shia in a Sunni country, he did not speak any local language and had no roots in the countryside. He had roots only amongst the urban immigrants,” explains the Raja who was 14 years of age when he found out that his father had taken Pakistani citizenship. “I was in school and the term was ending. When I came back, I was told my mother was very unwell. She had a seizure of a terrible sort when she had heard about my father’s citizenship. My father had never asked her to go to Pakistan. It was a foregone conclusion that she would not even countenance it.”
This is a narrative which is slightly at odds with what the current government is pushing with finance minister Arun Jaitley even insisting in a Rajya Sabha debate that the Raja’s father had “sent” his wife and son back to India to claim citizenship.
“I have documentary government proof that we were never anything other than Indians,” claims the Raja.
But why is the Raja’s nationality being discussed in Parliament? The answer to that lies in a process that started in 1974 when he came back to India from Cambridge and petitioned the government to return the properties to the family.
The Enemy Property Act, 1968, categorically defined enemy property as belonging to a citizen of a country which was an enemy and with the passing of the Raja, the properties were bequeathed to his son who was an Indian citizen. Section 18 of the 1968 Act also includes a provision of the properties being returned on a special or general order by the central government, “in such manner as may be prescribed to the owner thereof or to such other person as may be specified in the direction…”
The interiors of Mahmudabad Qila.
The then young Raja met Morarji Desai, the then prime minister, who assured him the file would be examined. The Raja also met Indira Gandhi, the matter was taken up by the Union cabinet and by the end of 1980 he was informed that the properties will be returned to him but then it was said that only 25% of the properties will be returned.
“I was asked to furnish proof that I was my father’s legal heir. A succession certificate was required. The district court in Lucknow in 1986 gave a decision in my favour,” he says.
But the 25% clause remained and it is this that took the Raja to the Bombay high court seeking a return of his property in 1997. In between, there was stint with politics as a two-time MLA from Mahmudabad from the Congress party even though his struggle for his inheritance continued.
The Bombay high court returned the Raja’s entire property to him but the government then took up the matter in Supreme Court. And in 2005, the apex court gave what became a landmark and eventually a very contentious judgement. Declaring that enemy property is only vested with the custodian and that the Raja is a bona fide citizen of the state and not an enemy as defined by the Act, all of the Raja’s properties were returned to him.
It is a day the Raja still remembers clearly because he says that is the day his pride in India and his belief in the nation was reinforced. “It made me proud. I felt an injustice had been reversed,” he recalls.
One of the gates of Mahmudabad Qila.
But this was just the beginning of another round of struggle. For while properties like the heritage hotel Metropole in Nainital and Butler Palace in Lucknow were returned to the Raja, the holdings in Lucknow’s prime commercial area were occupied by tenants, most of whom were paying a pittance. Halwasiya court, for instance, which is home to several high-end showrooms, was given out on rent by the Raja’s father on a 90-year lease for a paltry amount of Rs600. After several meetings, perusal of property records, it was decided that the lease will be honoured.
From top brands to iconic restaurants, a lot of big names in Hazratganj, just across the road from Halwasiya court, are housed in Mahmudabad properties and pay rents in the vicinity of Rs500-1,000 per month. In December of last year, the district administration decided to revise the rent of enemy properties. A Hindustan Times report cited a government official as saying that shops run out of enemy property, especially in Hazratganj, will now pay 30% of the market rate which comes to Rs330 per sq. metre. The money will go to the government.
But even as these properties were not returned, work on the others began in full swing. The restoration of Metropole Hotel was undertaken by the Raja’s wife while Butler Palace too was being reimagined in all its previous glory.
“We borrowed from banks, put in our own money, developed Waqf land…and then one fine morning in 2010 I heard that the government is issuing an ordinance that seeks to amend the Enemy Property Act,” he says. It was the Raja’s worst nightmare come true. Overnight his properties were taken back and it was 1965 for the family all over again.
The ordinance which was introduced by the United Progressive Alliance government reportedly amid fears that the Supreme Court judgement will open a Pandora’s box of claims from others across the country, sought to amend the 1968 Act. On 17 March 2017, the amendments to the Act were passed which expanded the definition of enemy from the 1968 Act to include citizens of India who are the legal heirs and successors of the enemy or enemy subject.
The Raja’s family lived in the Mahmudabad Qila before it was seized by the government and handed to the Waqf board.
The amendment also gave the government the right to sell the property, thereby implying that the owner of an enemy property was the state. In effect, all of the Raja’s properties were now the properties of the Indian government, laws of succession, Indian citizenship and the Supreme Court order notwithstanding.
“We fought 40 years for justice. We went to the government, we went to the court…we availed every recourse that is available to the citizen only to be told that it is retrospectively overturned. This is in the teeth of justice inequality,” says Khan, Rani of Mahmudabad.
The daughter of former foreign secretary Jagat Singh Mehta, Khan is a quiet woman who states her family’s disappointment and anger at the ordinance and the subsequent amendment in a definite manner. We are travelling in an ambassador from Lucknow to Mahmudabad as she tells us about the work that had started on all properties and just how cruelly they’ve been allowed to fall apart. Case in point is Butler Palace, which is almost in ruins. Grass as high as an adult’s waist impedes access to the building though it is no deterrent to the vandals who come here as evinced by the empty beer bottles one finds lying next to the gate. “To think there was a time when we would actually come here to have tea in the evening,” says Ali Mohammad, the Raja’s secretary, as he takes us for a walk around the properties in Lucknow.
Every member of the Raja’s family, be it his wife or two sons, is an independent authority on the Enemy Property Act and its amendment. The older son is a professor at Ashoka University who has written several editorials on the Act, while the younger son, who is pursuing his PhD, can discuss every amendment in the new Act threadbare.
Raja Mohammad Amir Mohammad Khan (left) with the documents of his court case against the Enemy Property Act. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint
There is a palpable sense of anger but what stings most is the usage of the word enemy. “Here I am, sitting next to you and I am an enemy. This Act has created deep distress, especially financial. The only thing we have is the benefit of education which enables us to realize that anger and cynicism are futile,” says Khan, Rani of Mahmudabad.
There is a palpable feeling that the ordinance and the subsequent amendments were brought in to target the family specifically though no one says so outright. In fact, the ruling party’s defence in Rajya Sabha during the debate for the passing of the bill centred mostly around the Raja’s case, with it being said that the former Raja, “who threw his weight behind the idea of a separate Muslim nation” sent his wife and son “back to become Indian citizens and claim Indian property”. Finance minister Jaitley also said that the Raja’s family had lost the title to the properties in 1965 so the question of inheriting these does not arise.
The Raja currently has a writ petition in the Supreme Court but the fate of it remains up in the air. Niraj Gupta, his advocate, worries about the powers vested in the custodian given that the office has come under the radar for some questionable deals. The former custodian of enemy property Dinesh Singh, an IRS officer, was recommended for criminal action by the Central Bureau of Investigation for helping a developer acquire an enemy property.
There have been several cases against enemy properties in Indian courts with few settlements being in the favour of the custodian of enemy property, as neither the rights of the legal heirs of the enemy or the duties of the custodian were ever clearly defined.
However, none of these cases have been as high-profile as that of the Raja of Mahmudabad’s given his family legacy, the association with Jinnah and the sheer magnitude of the real estate at stake. The amendment to the Act, however, removes all ambiguity vis-à-vis ownership while attempting to create a different class of citizens, the children of enemies. This is a clear violation of Article 14 of the Constitution which guarantees the right to equality and it is perhaps on this ground that the amendment can be challenged.
Till then the Raja, who in William Dalrymple’s Age of Kali, had said visiting Mahmudabad brings him “terrible bouts of gloom”, sits in his well-appointed living room in New Delhi waiting to see what new curve ball life throws at him.
“However, I will always be able to say that I did get justice in this country,” he concludes. The semblance of it, in the form of the 2005 Supreme Court judgement is perhaps the only victory he can savour from the fight that has taken over his entire life.
