Capital Literature – Twilight in Delhi, Ahmed Ali General by The Delhi Walla - June 20, 200915 The Delhi walla‘s pretension in writing makes me want to lodge a bullet in his balls – Blogger Nimpipi, the woodchuck chucks GO STRAIGHT TO MORE STORIESContact mayankaustensoofi@gmail.com for ad enquiries. The definitive Old Delhi novel. [Text and picture by Mayank Austen Soofi] Which is that one book you carry while walking around in the city? I lug along with Twilight in Delhi. First published by Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press in 1940, this novel was written by a Delhiwalla called Ahmed Ali. Mr Ali could not live his entire life in the city of his birth. After the Indian Partition, he had to move to Pakistan where he died in Karachi in 1994. However, thanks to the novel, no passport nationality could snatch away his Delhiness. For his is the definitive Old Delhi novel. There is romance, tragedy and drama; there is fine prose; pulsating history. But what elevates the book into the thin air is that despite its 200 pages, it manages to transcend its novelistic limitations. It becomes a gateway to a city which many think has died, a conviction that perhaps account for the novel’s cult status. But no, that Delhi is still alive. I keep going there. Just walk in Pahari Bhojla or turn into a quiet lane, off the Matia Mahal bazaar, and you would find yourself entering into the pages of Twilight in Delhi – pigeon wallas, kite-fliers, poets, majnus, purdah women, mullahs, and street vendors. The novel’s 19th century Delhi ‘reads’ the same as that of the 21st century edition of the city. Sample this:Heat exudes from the walls and the earth; and the gutters give out a damp stink which comes in greater gusts where they meet a sewer to eject their dirty water into an underground canal. But men sleep with their beds over the gutters, and the cats and dogs quarrel over heaps of refuse which lie along the alleys and cross-roads. Seems familiar? It is not just in our times that culture types are prone to beating their chest over the loss of civilization in Delhi. Set in post-1857, the novel cries the same city crib:But gone are the poets too, and gone is its culture. Only the coils of the rope, when the rope itself has been burnt, remain, to remind us of past splendour. Yet ruin has descended upon its monuments and buildings, upon its boulevards and by-lanes. Been there, heard that. One evening, after giving the haziri at the sufi shrine of Sarmad Shahid, I sat down on the Jama Masjid stairs. Looking far away at the Red Fort ramparts, I randomly opened a page in the novel and came upon this passage: Below, across the road, were the tombs of Harray Bharay and Sarmad, and beyond across… the red walls of the Fort stretched far away. Below… sat man selling quails and canaries, bulbuls and nightingales… Still below… sat shopkeepers selling all sorts of second-hand nick-nacks and bric-a-brac from old china to bedsteads. On the northern steps… sat the quacks and druggists plying as usual a great trade in lizards’ oil… In one corner stood a man shouting in a dramatic tone, selling his medicine to people who had flocked around him. By God, the scene is still the same, though now they also sell second-hand DVDs and fake iPods. The quacks, too, are present, including a hakeem who ‘cure’ illnesses by drawing out blood from his patients’ limbs. Those unfamiliar with Old Delhi says that it is losing its charm: too filthy, too ghetto-like. The intellectuals point out that the migration of the upper crust Muslim gentry after the Partition led to Shahjanabad’s decay. Some of that could be true. But if we read Twilight in Delhi and then make a detour to the walled city, we would find that after so many changes, not much has really changed. The wealth and grandeur of yesteryear has perhaps died, the soul is still intact. Even the people, sometimes dressed in sherwanis, achkans and shararas, look similar to the novel’s various characters – Begum Nihal, Asghar, Mirza Shahbaz Beg and Bilqeece. Indeed, while walking in the gallis, kuchas and havelis of Shahjanabad, I have often found myself flipping through Mr Ali’s novel. Trying to find out if the mohallas are now any different from their old description, I would quickly discover – no, they aren’t! Magic. FacebookX Related Related posts: City Walk – Strolling With Twilight in Delhi, Old Delhi City Hangout – Jama Masjid in Twilight, Gurgaon City Walk – Twilight Around the Water, Hauz Khas Lake Capital Interview – Mr Seth’s Suitable Girl Capital Commandments – For a World Class Delhi
Hi, have you read- 1. Ancient Delhi by Upinder Singh2. Historic Delhi, An Anthology by H.K.Kaulboth Oxford India Paperbacks. The thing about History is, it is subject to improvement. Change is good, if we learn from the past, as we go.
In spite of belonging to the city and in spite of having read City of Djinns, I haven’t been to the parts which define it, yet. I will though, this time. And I’ll try and get my hands on this book at the earliest.
yeah zindagi ke mele duniya mein cum na hongeafsoos hum na hongekya waqt kya jamana ,koi na saath dega sab kuch wahi rahe gaa,honge wahi jhameleyeah zindagi ke mele,duniya mein cum na honge afsoos hum na hongeee…………. nice soofi miyan
Is there a authentic detailed map of old delhi, specially chandni chowk area showing every gali, kucha and chowk available either on internet or in print. Eicher does not have have it, I could not find it on internet. Can not the eicher be inspired to print one ? Is hindi translation of “Twilight in Delhi” available in print.
i just have a few minutes to spare so i havent really read what youve written but the pic right at top is WOWOWOW
Wonderful Mayank, and the pic is breathtaking. I have been to old Delhi only a few times, not being from Delhi. My first impression of Delhi is when I was 11. The huge red wall of the Red Fort, the impressive domes of the Jama Masjid… I went there again when I was 13, and then may be when I was 26 or so. When I went a year-and-a-half ago, at this (old 🙂 age, I was still equally amazed by the Jama Masjid and the Red Fort, and the life that flows around them, and in the gallis in and around Chadni Chowk. India lives on….
Good, Austen, good.i say, when i visit Delhi, i am gonna devote a larger part in the older parts. and the photo was MashAllah material.
Nice post as always– Mr.MAS Everyime i learn about something ‘New’ to observe/experiment after i leave your blog, i can’t recall the day/date when i enterd in this blog world of MAS but its a swear, i m addicted !One query for you; Why ‘Ruined by reading’is no longer accessible- as it used to be, an english lady holding a book in her hands on right side of my computer screen was the only image displayed by the grace of our server support/I could relish your everyday entry and it was lot a fun when knowingly i used not to see it for couple of days, and then could analyze ‘your work’ done for last 4/5 days with each post. Why “RBR’ is not appearing in the google search nowadays/ either MAS has turned as a one Professional/committed journalist of HT’ or what.I commit i am ruined by reading, then what?? – NY”(fellownetizen@yahoo.com)
hey. why dont you start some kinda tour of old delhi? you seem to know so much, i am sure there will be many takers.
I would refrain from taking ‘tours’ of old Delhi. keep doing what you do best..evoking the charm of old Delhi through the pen and your awesome blog. Jas.
Hi, Nice article, in fact the Twilight in Delhi has inspired the same sense of nostalgia in me and forces me to visit Old Delhi every now and then. I have become a fan of Ahmed Ali and I have been searching for his more works since then! I found his another masterpiece – a short story on Delhi named ‘Our Lane‘. If you haven’t read it already then tel me and I can send you the scanned pages…