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history Venice
of North
Sultana’s last abode Not many can help find Razia Sultana’s grave in Delhi… By Kaiser Tufail Standing at the Turkoman
Gate, we hailed a cycle rickshaw to take us to the curiously named Bulbul-i-Khana
locality inside the convoluted labyrinths of Old Delhi. “Where exactly?”
the rickshaw wala asked us. “Razia’s grave,” I replied. Last year,
pedalling laboriously for several minutes in the April heat, he abruptly
stopped for what seemed like a breather. “There, in the street... ask
anyone,” puffed the rickshaw wala. Looking at the width of the street that
branched off, we understood why he could go no further. Feeling odd — and a
bit guilty, I may add — at having arrived in almost colonial splendour, we
rewarded the wretched rickshaw wala handsomely and strode off to pay homage
to the fabled Razia Sultana. I, along with my wife, had been soaking up Delhi’s history for the whole of the previous week and, had seen just about every landmark that we had read about in our school days. When we expressed our desire to visit Razia’s grave, hardly anyone could help with its location, which was a surprise. Though a famous film starring Hema Malini as the vivacious Sultana and, even comic books featuring Razia have been popular in Delhi, there weren’t many who seemed interested in her forlorn after-life. We asked a chai-wala if he could help us with the way to the gravesite. “It’s up there on Bhojla Pahari, not far from here,” he replied casually, while his clients looked at us questioningly. As we headed into the shabby cobblestone street, we noticed that it was getting claustrophobic and not even two persons could walk abreast without a nudge. Not sure if we were at the right place, we rechecked with some passer-by, who said that we were not only on track, we were actually at our destination, as he pointed at the grilled iron gate on the dead end of the street. The surroundings could not have been much different from our own Inner City in Lahore, with rickety conjoined houses putting good neighbourliness to severe test, live electric wires taking dreadful dips in every terrace and, the rubbish mocking at slothful babus of the municipality. The subcontinental street scene came full circle when a pye-dog soaked in sewerage slithered past us, having had a cool dip in the open sewers. Something must have gone very wrong for Razia to end up where she was, we wondered. Our schoolbooks never told us that Razia was enamoured to the keeper of her stables, an Abyssinian slave by the name of Jalal-ud-din Yaqut. The chauvinistic Turki nobility known as the ‘Group of Forty,’ already incensed at having to bow to a woman in court, was aghast at seeing Yaqut promoted from the Amir al-Khayl (Superintendent of Horses) to the powerful position of Amir al-Umara (Superintendent of Nobles). Palace intrigue, thick with
spying and plotting, soon implicated the unmarried Razia and Yaqut in a
frivolous bit of intimacy. Yaqut was reported to have helped Razia clamber
into her saddle, rather ardently. While she trotted off with a gratifying
smile that eventful day, little did she know that the long knives were out. A revolt by the Governor of Lahore in 1240 AD was put down bloodlessly, but shortly afterwards, Razia was confronted with a more ominous threat from Malik Altuniya, the Governor of Bhatinda. Razia led a force to confront the rebel governor, but was routed soon after her arrival. Her favourite Yaqut was killed in battle, while Razia herself was imprisoned in the very fortress she had come to reduce. Thereafter, in a twist right out of Indian cinema, her captor Altuniya found himself irresistibly captivated by Razia’s charms — she was about 30, we are told — and the two promptly got married! Altuniya then led the combined force to Delhi to wrest his bride’s sultanate from her brother Muiz-ud-din, who had usurped it in the prevalent brotherly fashion while she was away campaigning. Standing on the little Bhojla Pahari, which is more of high ground than a hillock, we looked around at the dense jungle of brick and concrete that is Old Delhi today. It took our mind’s eye to visualise that over seven and a half centuries earlier, this place was a wooded jungle on the floodplains of Yamuna; the imperial court was a further 10 miles south at Rai Pithaura — the first of seven Delhis — then just 60 years old. We imagined Muiz-ud-din marching past where we stood, to square off with his new brother-in-law, as far north from the capital as he possibly could. Though Razia was more experienced in battle craft, she was constrained to defer leadership of the force to her husband, who was not quite equal to the task this time, as it turned out. After a resounding defeat, Altuniya and Razia fled westwards from the battlefield near Karnal, but after a day’s march which saw bulk desertions, they were cut down by local Hindu Jats at Kaithal. It was October 14, 1240 almost four years into Razia’s rule as the first Muslim woman ruler of Hindustan. Reaching the iron gate at the dead end of the street, our eyes fell on two unremarkable graves in a small open courtyard. Were it not for the Archaeological Survey of India plaque, which gave the details, we could well have been looking for some domed building hidden from view, elsewhere. Mounted on a foot-high plinth, both graves are dressed in crude stone blocks. Of the two graves, one is said to belong to Razia’s sister Shazia but in the absence of tombstones, guesswork is fair game. The possibility of Altuniya resting in the company of his wife is not altogether improbable, I thought. A couple of platters full of bajra ensure that pigeons liven up, what might otherwise qualify as the most pitiful resting place of any monarch that I have seen. With nothing more to see, or any caretaker to talk to, we left the place rather cheerlessly. As we were winding down the street, a shrill voice called out, “aye bhai sahib.” Looking back, we spotted a middle-aged man with paan stained teeth, beckoning us to stay, as he had not been able to offer his hospitality. Sensing it to be the usual attempt at extorting money, we continued, only to be chased by the man who kept insisting that we see the adjoining dargah and mosque. The whole situation started to become tense as he grabbed my arm and almost dragged me to a halt. My wife too was worried that one shrill whistle by the charlatan could draw out a dozen thugs rushing from the warrens and alleys. Before things got nasty, I jerked the fellow aside and we shuffled out of the street as fast as we could. How on earth did Razia come to be buried in the horrid corner of Bulbul-i-Khana? Is the grave actually hers? To complicate matters, there is a tomb in Kaithal also attributed to Razia. To answer the question, one can only speculate, based on the circumstances in which Razia died. If indeed Hindu Jats had killed her (there may have been a tacit nod from the top), the new Sultan would have put up pretence of a decent burial and, would have hastily brought his sister’s remains back to Delhi. Bhojla Pahari is said to have been the place where Razia’s alleged patron saint, Hazrat Shah Turkoman Bayabani, used to sit during meditation. This location may have been chosen by Muiz-ud-din in the belief that the saint’s blessings might comfort his tormented sister’s soul; that it was out of the way for any would-be sympathisers from the capital, was just as well. In the event, the saint died shortly afterwards and is buried not too far from the gate named after him. As for the tomb at Kaithal, a later ruler could have built it over the site of Razia’s temporary burial. There being no tombstone or memorial tablet at Kaithal does not help matters much. That Razia’s grave could yet emerge somewhere in Pakistan, some day, would be no surprise. In fact, discovery of Razia’s burial chamber in Kasur has already made news in some Urdu dailies, but we shall leave that for another story! kaiser_mach2@yahoo.com
On a bicycle, exploring Amsterdam’s sights and sound… By Ammara Ahmad On finishing a course in the International Academy of Leadership, Germany, we decided to go to Bonn. But on the Cologne train station, we opted for Amsterdam, a better choice, because it is in a new country altogether. And all we needed was a train ticket. Trains in Europe are a real boon, but they can get confusing because you have to catch different connecting trains. Just two stations from Cologne we realised that the train is going back and we had to switch trains and not just enjoy the outside view with rivers and lakes, untouched forests, fields and cattle. Amsterdam has two important
features — canals and cycling. “The Venice of the North” is makred by a
huge grid of canals. An aerial view makes the canals appear as concentric
circles emerging from the city centre, which Albert Camus compared to the
circles of hell in his novel ‘The Fall’, “Have you noticed that
Amsterdam’s concentric canals resemble the circles of hell? The
middle-class hell, of course, peopled with bad dreams.” Every street either
ends on a canal or runs parallel to it. Freshwater and cruises with tourists
aboard can be seen everywhere. I once met a Dutch in the US who used to bicycle very fast, even on hills and intertwining roads and it impressed me. I didn’t know that he inherits it from the country’s culture. Amsterdam is full of cyclists. Cyclists not only speed around the city but also have their children sitting on special seats at the back or baskets in the fronts. There is nothing as lovable as two blonde kids or toddlers looking around intently while their father speeds away. Although I have had a bad cycling experience in US, I still decided to look around the city through a guided bicycle tour. A company, called the MacBike, arranges these tours. Our guide was an American who breathed out swear words eloquently and told us something bad about every place. He started by informing us that the chances of breaking your nose on a bicycle are very high. He had a tragic tale for every stop. Like how someone fell in the canal, or how a girl broke her foot when cycling drunk or how an intoxicated French girl drowned into the River Amstel by falling from the NEMO Science Museum, a huge ship like structure with an open top like the dock of a ship, where visitors sit and eat. We passed through main roads and hilly streets next to the river. I struggled to keep pace with the fairly large and diverse group, sometimes striking a wall, billboard or getting dangerously close to the riverbank. Once I got stuck on the railway track but the train was quite far and slow. We saw the pigeons in the Dam square, went over the Skinny Bridge which has been widened now, had several intimate views of river Amstel and the De Gooyer Windmill — one of Amsterdam’s oldest windmills — which is now brewery. The daughter of a Dutch friend of mine lives in Amsterdam and he often mentions the city with a lot of affection. This was something I found strange. Hometowns are often not well-appreciated. Netherlands often makes it into the lists of happiest countries in the world. A few morning hours in Amsterdam are enough to discern what it meant. One can see old people in restaurants and pubs, men and women cycling, lovers sitting by the riverside eating or talking. After the grey, grim and highly industrialized Germany, this was a nice break. The entire city, foreigners and natives included, seemed adjusted to the tourist mode. The closest bond you can strike with an artist is through appreciating his work. My eyes have been appreciating the strokes of Van Gogh’s hands for many years now. May it be the “Starry Night” or “Café Terrace at Night”, his unique blend of colours and distinctive constructs on canvas bewitch the trained and the untrained eye alike. Van Gogh’s tragic life, mental illness, self-trained, exceptional and highly prolific output makes him a plausible Ducth success story, much like Abraham Lincoln for USA and Winston Churchill for UK. For people who are academically challenged (like me) and want to make it big, Van Gogh is a sign of hope. Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam holds the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings in the world. It includes his self-portraits (the first painting you see is the one in which he ear is bandaged), the sunflowers (many of different types of them), The Potato Eaters (with a dimensional error) and The Bedroom in Arles. The lighting reflected on the painting glass along with the music downstairs spoiled the effect. But I was dazed for hours nevertheless. I didn’t go to the Amsterdam’s famed Red light district, taste marijuana which is legal in Netherlands or drink the Heineken beer. I am not sure as to why but it gives me a reason to return and explore it again. Another reason is that I couldn’t meet my old Dutch friend. His memories were there with me; it made the city more special and brought me closer to him nevertheless. |
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