Roam Alone: The tombs, the Khans and two ladies in different moods

Not much is recorded in history about the Khans who are buried near Kotla Mubarakpur locality on Delhi, except that they were probably Lodi-era nobles, but their tombs are counted among the architecturally significant and aesthetically impressive lesser-known Delhi monuments. In eminent Delhi chronicler Rana Safvi’s “The Forgotten Cities of Delhi: Book Two in the Where Stones Speak trilogy”, they are included in the South Ex walk trail.

Last Wednesday, I planned to have a morning walk to see the tombs and took a bus to South Ex. Getting down in front of newly-built Kidwai Nagar East government housing colony, I invoked the Google baba and despite a few wrong turns here and there, finally reached in front of a park full of morning walkers, yoga enthusiasts and one or two stray dogs who were looking at me with suspicion.

It is said that Bade Khan and Chhote Khan were not named so, but their tombs got the nomenclature simply because they lie side by side and one is larger than the other. I found both of them quite imposing, their grandeur standing out more prominently in comparison with the modern-day buildings all around. Both of them have one large central dome and chhatris on the corners while distinctive calligraphic inscriptions and jaalis enhance the beauty of the monuments. I sat on a bench in the park and tried to engage the elderly lady beside me in a conversation about the tombs but she seemed supremely disinterested and even a bit irritated. If one sees the tombs every day, one may not find them that interesting, after all. I decided not to ruin her morning peace and went to see Bhure Khan’s tomb, which is adjacent to the park, but fenced with barbed wire due to some dispute over the land in between. It did not look as good in condition as the other two.

Bade Khan's tomb 

Bade Khan's tomb and Chhote Khan's tomb from L-R

In front of Bade Khan's tomb

The tomb of Kale Khan is also nearby, but he should not be confused with the Sufi saint after whom Sarai Kale Khan is named.  On the right side of Bhure Khan’s tomb, one can see a Satyanarayan temple with a colourful pink-and-yellow “sikhara”.

Bhure Khan's tomb

I walked back towards the government housing complex and traced the Tomb of Darya Khan, which sits securely inside a square-shaped garden enclosure and atop a large platform with staircases and domed pavilions. I was clicking photographs from the gate of the enclosure when a saree-clad morning walker lady broadly smiled at me and told me to venture inside and climb the platform so that I can get better photos. “Upar phool bhi hai bohot sare,” she said. I asked, “Safe toh hai na?” I asked. She said, “haan, haan, koi darr nahi, jao.” I met two ladies of different moods this morning, I thought.

I went up through an elevated pathway and took some pics, probably disturbing the peace of a solitary young man doing yoga in a pavilion with my cellphone click-foolery. The grave of Khan, who was the Chief Justice during the time of Sultan Bahlul Lodi, lies at the centre, raised upon another pedestal. Parts of the domes and pavilions have disappeared, but remnants of their faded glory can still be felt even by a casual visitor.

Darya Khan's tomb

As my watch showed that further indulgence with history can jeopardize my timely departure for office, I took an auto home from the main road. On the way, noticed several new installations on the government housing estate buildings. I took a photo of one of them. It is probably about global warming,.but I may be wrong too.

Modern artwork

A day after, I visited the tomb of another Khan. The mausoleum of Mirza Najaf Khan, the Baloch commander-in-chief of Mughal army during Shah Alam-II, is near Safdarjung airport. It is a square-shaped red sandstone building situated in a very crowded park, full of over-excited youngsters, some of whom were hanging from its low roof or using the walls to bounce their cricket balls. A ruined entrance can be seen at the gate of the park. (Tip; After getting down at S.J. Airport bus stop, turn left towards B.K. Dutt Colony and then turn right. If you go along the flyover, as suggested by Google maps, you will end up in an NDMC toilet complex instead of the tomb).

Tomb of Najaf Khan

Trivia 1: The tomb also houses the grave of Najaf Khan’s daughter Fatima.

Trivia 2: Najafgarh in southwest Delhi is named after Najaf Khan, who had set up an outpost/fortress there.

A cancelled walk and a chance blessing: my trip to Sultan Ghari

It was a routine Friday evening activity for me - going through the events listing in Facebook to find out if anything interesting is lined up in the weekend – when I came across a post by a well-known heritage walk group of Delhi, inviting people to come and explore the fascinating story of Sultan Garhi, India’s ”first Islamic Mausoleum”, with them.

I was intrigued, especially when a quick internet search threw up phrases like “one of the best kept secrets of Delhi”. but had a get-together planned in advance with two of my very good friends next morning when the walk is scheduled. Naturally, I decided to give the event a miss.

However, when I  told them about the walk, M and A were eager to join too. We decided to reach the meeting point mentioned by the group (ticket counter of the monument) and see if we could register ourselves on the spot.

From Nelson Mandela Marg, we took a right turn in M's car into Abdul Gaffar Khan Road and then entered into a confused state. Google map was showing a left turn but the only road there was a uneven dirt track. We went past it, but realised after some time that that was the road we were supposed to take to reach our destination, even if it was less travelled by.

To our surprise, it opened up into a wide field, with parts of walls visible here and there and a fortress-like structure standing in between. Who knew that a massive mediaeval mausoleum complex would be found hidden behind the busy and modern Vasant Kunj thoroughfares and buildings!
Sultan Garhi, I later found out from various sites and articles, is actually called Sultan Ghari, coming from the word “ghaar" or cave, not from “garh” or fort, despite looking like a fortress with bastions and huge walls. The tomb was built by Sutan Iltutmish of Slave dynasty for his son Nasiruddin Mahmud,  (brother of Razia Sultan) in 1231 AD, after he died in his prime while serving as the Governor of Bengal. Interestingly, the tomb is now revered by local villagers, of all religions, as the mazaar of a Peer Baba. How the prince came to be known as the Peer, is not clear. Some blogs suggest that Iltutmish's grandson, of the same name as his father, was a pious man and it may have led to this image of a Peer being created, but I could not find anything concrete to prove this theory, at least not on the internet. May be I will visit a library someday to find out.

As we reached near the steps of the building, we saw a guard talking to a lady, who certainly did not look like a local. This must be the walk leader, we thought. She asked us, “are you here for the heritage walk?” We replied in the affirmative. “Are you the organizers,” she enquired. “No, are they yet to arrive,” A asked. She replied that no one has turned up and she was thinking of returning home when she saw us and felt her hopes rise. I called the office of the organisation and they informed us that the walk has been cancelled because they received only 2-3 registration requests for it. “Oh, they did not know four participants are waiting here,” M quipped.

The lady suggested, “now that we are here, let's see it.” The ASI guard and a villager named Shakeel, who were chatting idly at the gate, also encouraged us to go and visit the Peer Baba. “Hindu, Muslim sab aate hai yahan. Jo maang loge pura ho jayega (both Hindus and Muslims come here. Whatever is your desire, Baba fulfils them),” said Shakeel, who resides at nearby  Pahadi. Traditionally, newly-married couples of the locality also visit to seek blessings from the Peer Baba before starting a new life, he added.

Once you step inside crossing the marbled gate carved with calligraphic inscriptions, your eyes will fall upon a large octagonal flat structure just at the middle of the site, which, at first glance, may look like a covered well but is actually the roof of the grave-chamber.  This cave-like strcture has actually led to the tomb being called “ghari” There is one theory that Mahmud saw himself as a sinner and wanted his body to be thrown into a dungeon, though I don't know the authenticity of this claim.  The square-shaped courtyard has a marbled white structure on one side which looked like a mosque. There are arched columns and windows as well as rectangular pillars as seen in one part of the Qutab complex. The roof of the mosque is not domed, but  pyramidal But the most unusual aspect of this mausoleum was the underground grave-chamber, where we descended after struggling slightly at the rocky and rough stone steps. Most parts of the room was covered by a shroud of darkness, but a ray of light coming through the door up above and a few earthen lamps kept inside by the devotees helped us see the graves, with offerings of green chaddars as can be seen on any Sufi dargah in the sub-continent. Shakeel, who came inside to help and guide us, was telling us again and again to seek something from the Peer. He said people sometimes put chits and letters, seeking boons from the Baba. It reminded me of Firoz Shah Kotla, where devotees place their applications in writing (and in triplicate, one heritage walk leader once told me) in the small dark chambers, believed to be the abode of the djinns who possess magic powers to change your life.

I did not know what should I seek. Health, happiness, knowledge, one bhk flat? “Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi...” I was just thinking if we could have absorbed the silence of the graves and kept it inside us for invoking on a congested city road full of honk-crazy drivers, how would that be?

Sultan Ghari, like many other monuments in India, has its own share of disputes on its origin, confusion about its history and chronicles of competing claims. But I am not going into all these. I think such issues come to the fore because our way of looking at monuments is wrong. We should, instead, try soak the silence of the stones, the starkness of the ravages of time, and take back home the lesson that nothing lasts forever, so make most of your time in this beautiful planet of ours.

As I was coming out of the door of the low-roofed grave-chamber, I bumped my head. Shakeel said, “madam, now you have received the Babaji's blessings.” I thought that was really a blessing by chance, as I never actually planned to visit this tomb, neither did I know that a shrine is located here.

It was time to pocket our blessings, and leave the cricket-playing kids at Sultan Ghari compound behind us, to return to our everyday existence.

(My pic: courtsey M)

Back to School: Maa in Mussoorie

“Oh yes, there was a school by that name. But it is not there anymore. The building is still there. But it has now been taken over by Indo-Tibetan Border Police. You won't be allowed inside,” said the white-haired gentleman at one of the photography studios in Library Bazaar in Mussoorie, the popular hill station of Uttarakhand. “The school has shifted elsewhere, probably in Dehra Dun,” he said.

It was 2007. I was in Mussoorie with my mom and sister for a three-day trip. I had been there twice earlier and during those visits had fallen in love with the mysterious layers of mist, the cloud-capped Himalayan ranges, the roofs of the old-world British-style bungalows, the beautiful Kempty Falls (before it turned into a dirty swimming pool full of loud tourists) and the serenity of Camel's Back Road. I also carried out the north Indian ritual of shopping from the Mall Road of Mussoorie (a long sweater with which I parted ways after realizing that it is making me look even shorter).

But this time it was different. It was a quest for the memories. It was a pilgrimage of sorts for mom. It was a trip to find out the boarding school in which she taught for a year from 1955 to 1956, when she was a youngster just out of university. A large part of our childhood was filled with stories from that quaint town, of the journey from Dehradun to Mussoorie on a rickshaw carried up the slopes by four bearers (Ruskin Bond describes these as “jhampanies, a crude sort of palanquin adopted to hill travel”), of the experiences of mom (her maiden name was Dipti Sengupta) and that of her younger sister, our mejo mashi, (both of them joined as teachers, along with a family friend who convinced their parents to allow them to go) at a new place so far away from their house in Guwahati, of the residential school and the mostly Sikh students who loved them, and the Mussoorie of the 50s, an abode of peace and quiet before tourists like me invaded in large numbers and turned parts of it into Karol Bagh (Ok, I am not anti-Karol Bagh, just used it to convey the feeling of a congested road).

I travelled there with different groups of friends in 2002 and 2005, and shared the experiences with mom. Every time. She expressed a keen desire to see her school again. Finally, we could arrange the trip and there we were, asking every local person who looked over 70 whether they remember anything about “Shishu Niketan” Cambridge School.

No one seemed to know, until we went into that studio.

Shishu Niketan was founded in Cainville Estate, Mussoorie, by Shri Alok Chandra Deb, a Bengali educationist from Dehra Dun and an alumni of the University of Calcutta. The “our founder” section in the websites of Cambridge Schools in Noida and Indirapuram say the first Cambridge School was founded by him in 1931 in Qutub Road, Delhi. “It moved soon after to 21 Daryaganj and — as it grew – to 2 Daryaganj. By the nineteen forties it had already established itself as one of the foremost schools in the city. A boarding school by the name of Shishu Niketan was set up in Mussoorie in 1950, moving subsequently to Dehra Dun under the name Raja Ram Mohan Roy Academy,” it said. The same A. C. Deb had signed my mom's appointment letter, which is still with her, preserved with care.

Anyway, the comment that we won't be allowed in the building had made me disheartened, but mom was not the one to give up. Armed with photographs of herself and her students, she was confident that she will be able to procure a permission. Our taxi driver, who had by then become personally involved in the her search for a lost world, suggested that “chalo ekbar koshish karke dekha jaye".

As we reached near the entrance of the ITBP academy, we could see a check-post manned by sentries. Mom went ahead and showed them her identification documents and the (then) 52-year-old sepia-tinted photographs. They looked quite surprised to see the pics and the saree-wearing ex-teacher who came so far to look for a slice of her youth, but keeping a non-personal demeanour, spoke to someone senior over phone, and asked us to wait.

After five minutes, we were told that we will be allowed in. Mom was super-excited.
As we entered through the gate, it was a sort of Deja vu for me too, because she goes on and on, speaking about the school, her room, the assembly hall, the kitchen. We did not see all of these, only the courtyard. But what we saw was enough to set my mom's pulses racing. “This was where outdoor games were played, on that side were our rooms...see...this was my classroom (a small cabin beside the courtyard)...standard three...I was in charge of that class...I don't believe it, I am touching this door after 52 years...,” she was so overwhelmed with emotion that the kind and helpful officer who came out of an office room and was accompanying us in our short tour also started smiling. Mom showed him the old photographs and told him how it was in her time. It appears that the school had shifted even before the ITBP took over the Estate, but I don't know what happened in between.

On the way back to our hotel, we were in a daze, while mom went on and on reminiscing... which student was quiet and shy, who was a troublemaker, who used to jump from one desk to another... .

We had no camera, and even if we had, I don't think photography would have been allowed. Mom's collection had photo of the courtyard with students either playing or doing P.T., I don't exactly know. I saw the same place in an ITBP docu-film in  YouTube. However, I am not sharing them as I am not sure if that should be done. Here are a few 1955 and 2007 photos of the old lady (Don't  tell her, she gets really upset when I call her that).

We did the routine touristy things too, but I don't remember any details. Everything else faded out in comparison to that trip to the erstwhile Shishu Niketan. Oh yes, when we were taking a rickshaw ride in the beautiful Camel's Back Road, mom whisked out (again) the photo of the famous rock formation (it looks like a camel and the road got its name from it) taken by her with her box camera and started ruing the fact that the rock is showing signs of erosion. The rickshaw puller was quite amused.

The only regret of that tour; mom wanted to meet Ruskin Bond, the most famous resident of the town and her favourite author. But he was out of station.

(Pics by my mom and by my sister. I don't know who took the photo of my mom with her students. Probably her younger sister. One photo shows both of them with the family friend).