Every second is a history to the following second. But we can't record the history of every second. The histories that are recorded in a film or in a book are the living versions of the past and they are the snapshots of that particular time and space. Whenever someone sees a film or reads a book, the history just relived in the minds of those people. And the history is also the subjective thing of the recorder of the events and obviously it is the perspective thing of the consumer of those recorded events. Putting it in a simple question, can we rely upon on the things that we read or see a recorded event of a time line? The answer is strictly NO. But I am afraid that we don't have any alternate way to know the past.
It has been a wonderful journey through the lanes of Delhi in a reverse chronological order in the book 'City of Djinns' by William Dalrymple. It was like waking up daily and walking the same street but here the only difference is the time goes reverse. So, while I walk, the surroundings change drastically each passing day with the rise and fall of empires and kingdoms again and again and when I hit that time line beneath which I couldn't walk anymore as the recorded events were not there, I started retracing my steps only to find the same pattern of rise and fall of empires and kingdoms over and over again.If Time is Linear, why the same set of events (the only change being the participant of the events) happening in a circular pattern?
Delhi. The City which is the powerhouse of Indian Polity and the center of power for around 1.25 billion people is the most cursed city in the world, I believe. It spilled more blood than any other city in the world in the recorded history in the struggle for power. As always to the any major city, Delhi lies on the banks of Yamuna, one of the main tributaries of the River Ganges, one of the sacred river of the Hindus. Now, I am wondering Yamuna is so blood thirsty a river that she had drunk more blood than any other river in the world.
The author started with the 90's life in Delhi in the 20th century and started spinning the wheel of time in the anti clockwise direction. The contrast between the Old Delhi and the New Delhi was so thick that the Old Delhi got struck in the past and the New Delhi was moving on. The surviving cultures of the Mughals and the beauty of the Urdu poetry and the people who are still speaking the pure Urdu are well illustrated. The lamenting of the Old Delhi wallahs against the new punjabi settlers, the complaining of the English people who stayed back after Indian Independence against the Indian Government, the loathing of different cultures and religions against one another seems to be because of the fact that everyone believed that Delhi belonged to them. But, Delhi never belonged to anyone but it is the other way around that everyone wanted to be a part of Delhi.
The religious tensions between the people of Delhi were uncovered by the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi after Mrs Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh Bodyguards and the riots that took place during the partition. A slight provocation in the name of religion could make the people to unveil their masks and show their original identity. Every faith and every kingdom wanted to change Delhi according to their beliefs. But Delhi never succumbed to anyone's.
One of the best things that English left in India as their stamp is the Lutyens Delhi. This architectural wonder is the power house of India where the Parliament, President's House (Raisina Hill) and numerous high profile ministerial offices located. The anecdotes relating the Lutyens vision of creating a magnificent city in Delhi compared to that of European contemporaries were given precisely.
The mutiny of 1857 and the subsequent destruction of Delhi's medieval structures by the British gives the real face of British. The writings of William Fraser, Metcalfe and the anecdotes about them gives us the glimpse of British's love for living in India with the then contemporary Indian Culture. The intricacies of the Mughal Buildings like the Red Fort, Qutb Minar, Jama Masjid, Nizam Ud din Tomb, Humayun Tomb etc were beautifully illustrated from the writings of those period's contemporaries. After ShahJahan was dethroned and his third son Aurangzeb became the Emperor, the Mughal Kingdom started to deteriorate.
The Eunuchs in Delhi during the Mughal period were patronized by the Royals and some of them were given high positions in the administrations of the kingdom. When the British recaptured Delhi after the mutiny of 1857, these Eunuchs were thrown out of the Royal buildings(like Red Fort) and now these eunuchs are living a life of shame and the current society sees them as Untouchables.
The Kite festivals, pigeon fighting, poem recitals in Urdu, qawallis, nautch girls dances' are still happening in the alleys of Old Delhi. The dervishes, fakirs, scholars in Persian, Urdu, Arabic are diminishing day by day in Delhi. The city tries to erase the old memories and build a fresh one each passing day. The author got the help from one such scholar named Dr Jafferey who helped him to know the era of Shah Jehan(The golden period of Mughals), the beastliness and the splendour of the Red Fort, the philosophical debates regarding God in each religion, the legends of Khwaja Khazir, the myth of Djinns, the qawals, the faith of the dervishes etc.
The Tughlaq's rule in Delhi was portrayed by the writings and anecdotes of Ibn Battuta. The city of Tughlaqabad and the subsequent Daulatabad in the Deccan were the capital's of Muhammed Bin Tughlaq. Every war, every conquest to capture the power in Delhi resulted in complete blood shed making the river Yamuna turning Red. It was like she always wanted to wear a Red Saree. During the conquest of Nadir Shah, 150 thousand people were massacred in a single day and this was the time where no furnaces were invented. Hitler would have ashamed of hearing that.
The book contains majorly of Mughal history in Delhi and the subsequent British but only few glimpses are given to the other rulers. There were little information about Lal Kot, the capital of Rajas before the Sultans. The last few pages of the book captures the prehistoric period. The great war in Mahabharatha, the longest surviving Epic of the World, took place in Kurukshetra around the current Delhi. The authenticity of this Epic and the debates over this were given in the final pages. The family feud which erupted into a massive war resulted in millions of casualties. Delhi was destroyed and created continuously on the cost of thousands of lives. Every time it was destroyed, the blood spilled in Yamuna became a layer in her banks. Each layer formed under the banks of the river is the history of a civilization or a kingdom and She holds the innumerable layers of History.
