Only artists and writers can freeze time. When old empires fall and a new age is heralded, only poetry and painting can elicit the memory of a time bygone. In India, Urdu poets donned the hats of thinkers and philosophers and viewed life and living from new points of view.
Today, decades after these poets have been laid to rest, people continue to find a sense of relatability in the words of these writers proving that the idiosyncrasies of human nature transcend time.
Several places in the country serve as testaments to these poets and authors. From the forgotten tomb of Dara Shikoh to the colonial Calcutta building where Ghalib spent a year of his life, these places strive to enshrine their legacy. Here's a journey across their inimitable lives and legacy reposed in the many places they have left behind:
"ek roz apanee rooh se puchha, ke dillee kya hai toh yoon javaab mein kah gayee, yah duniya maano jism hai, aur dillee usakee jaan"
(One day I asked my soul, what is Delhi? She replied, This world is like a body, and Delhi is its soul)
Mirza Ghalib, a renowned Indian Urdu poet once wrote this verse about Delhi, the city where his soul found home when he passed away in 1869. Born into an aristocratic family in Agra in 1779, it is said that Ghalib moved to Delhi as a 13-year-old.
Mirza Ghalib loved Delhi; He spent much of his life in the city and witnessed its transformation under British rule. The carnage that followed the revolt of 1857 and its effect on Delhi deeply distressed Ghalib who wrote about it in his published diary, "Dastanbuy."
While in the city, he moved multiple houses, but for the final six years of his life, Ghalib lived in a haveli called Gali Qasim Jaan in the Ballimaran neighbourhood of Delhi’s historic, bustling market, Chandni Chowk.
Delhi loved Ghalib just as he loved Delhi. His legacy is kept alive in poetry circles, through those who identify Ghalib’s words in the Ghazals of Jagjit Singh and Mehdi Hasan and spend their Sunday evenings reminiscing about a time that was never theirs.
Today, the house that Ghalib once lived in is an Archaeological Survey of India-declared heritage site. Ghalib ki Haveli, as it continues to be called, was reclaimed by the government in 1999 and restored as a heritage site. The interiors of the Haveli are adorned with portraits of the poet and his contemporaries, along with his books.
A half-hour drive from the Haveli is the Tomb of Mirza Ghalib. Located in Nizamuddin West, on the northern end of the Chausath Khamba enclosure, the mausoleum of Mirza Ghalib lies in the vicinity of the sacred shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin. It is said that Ghalib wished to be buried in the qabristan of his wife and in-laws and, so, Nizamuddin was where he was finally laid to rest. The well-known Ghalib Academy, established in honour of the Urdu poet, is located close to his tomb.
Interestingly, it is not just Delhi but also Calcutta that offers the followers of Ghalib an opportunity to interact with his life. Ghalib lived in Calcutta for a brief period of a year and a half. He travelled to the eastern city to secure his pension. While in Calcutta, he lived in House No. 133 in Bethune Row. The exterior of the building, which still stands today, exudes colonial charm with its red brick structure and tiled green windows. The apartment that Ghalib once lived in is today occupied by another family, but the building can still be viewed from the street.
"Chhap tilak sab cheeni ray mosay naina milaikay
Prem bhatee ka madhva pilaikay
Matvali kar leeni ray mosay naina milaikay"
There are very few in the country who haven’t heard of Amir Khusrau. Amir Khusrau was a prolific Sufi poet in the Delhi Sultanate. He is credited with popularising several poetic forms, including the ghazal and qawwali, in the subcontinent.
Khusrau was a master of the Persian language as well as the local Braj Bhasha, and his poetry reflects a sophisticated, playful blend of the two. During his youth, the poet became an ardent follower of Sufi saint Muḥammad Niẓām-ud-Dīn Awliyā, of the Chishtī dervish order. Some say that it was the antithesis of their lives that forged a bond between master and disciple; While Khusro followed in his family’s legacy of serving the throne of Delhi, Nizamuddin Auliya was a dervish whose world was far from that of kings and courts.
The relationship between the two has been immortalised in paintings and poems. Legend says the love between the two Sufi souls was so strong that within six months of Nizamuddin Aulia’s passing, Khusrau, too, breathed his last breath. Today, Amir Khusrau’s tomb exists within the Nizamuddin Dargah Complex as a symbol of their bond.
Amir Khusrau’s tomb, which is often frequented by those visiting the Dargah, was built over some time and, therefore, reflects stylistic elements from various periods of the Mughal rule. For instance, it was Babar who added the walls enclosing the grave, while under Humayun’s rule, a marble tombstone was built.
The tomb is located in the Dargah of Nizamuddin Aulia in Nizamuddin West in New Delhi and can be reached through local buses, autorickshaws, or cabs.
Three minutes away from the Dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya rests another great Urdu Poet in an unidentified grave in Humayun’s tomb: Dara Shikoh. Dara Shikoh was the heir-apparent to the throne of Shah Jahan, but after Shah Jahan’s illness in 1657, an imperial war of succession ensued between the sons of the Mughal Ruler, and Dara Shikoh was defeated and executed by his younger brother, Aurangzeb.
Dara Shikoh is said to have contributed significantly to the literary scene of the time. He is said to have translated Hindu scriptures, such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, into Persian. Through his translations, he came to closely follow Indian philosopher Shankara's commentaries. Dara Shikoh’s literary ventures (He authored books and wrote poetry) remain overshadowed by his tragic defeat and death. Despite this, he stood as a symbol of unity and as a learned mind amongst emperors.
The Dara Shikoh Library Building, located on Lothian Road in New Delhi offers a unique insight into the interests of the Mughal Prince. The building was built by Dara Shikoh in 1637 and has since been through numerous iterations. According to the Department of Archaeology, Government of NCT of Delhi, the building does retain elements of the original structure made by Shikoh which can be observed on the northern side. A Kitabkhana (storehouse of books), which originally housed the Prince’s collection of books and manuscripts, also exists today.
Humayun’s Tomb, a popular tourist attraction located in Nizamuddin East in Delhi, is said to house the grave of Dara Shikoh, along with his great-great-grandfather. Humayun. Humayun’s Tomb can be visited by tourists between Monday to Sunday between 6 AM to 6 PM.
"us galī ne ye sun ke sabr kiyā
jaane vaale yahāñ ke the hī nahīñ"
Jaun Elia began writing poetry at the tender age of eight, but he only published his first collection of poems in 1991, at the age of 60, which propelled him to fame as one of the subcontinent’s most prominent Urdu poets.
Born as Syed Sibt-e-Asghar Naqvi in the city of Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, Elia had a complicated relationship with his family and wife which is reflected in his verses. He passed away in 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan, where he migrated after the Partition.
Despite his volatile temperament and elusive history, Elia’s poems on love and destruction have gathered a massive band of followers and patrons; People loved how perplexed his words made them feel. The paradox of his thoughts and the inimitability of his composition continue to draw people into his literary world.
The house that Jaun Elia spent his childhood in still stands and parts of it are occupied by his extended family. The city of Amroha is located some 150-odd kilometres east of Delhi in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Raksha Kumar, an ardent fan of Elia's, once visited his house and wrote about the experience for the Dawn. Built like a traditional haveli, the ancestral home belonged to both Jaun Elia and acclaimed filmmaker, Kamal Amrohvi. While the rooms on the ground floor have taken on a museum-like form, the first floor houses guest rooms, wrote Kumar.
The house can be visited even today. A walk through some of the rooms will affirm that the house was indeed a home of intellectuals, once buzzing with ideas and unwritten poems.
Another Indian writer better known by their pen name is Munshi Premchand. Premchand was born Dhanpat Rai Srivastav and was a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction. While his poetry is not as well-known as his prose, Premchand was nevertheless a poet too.
Premchand was born in 1880 in Lamhi, a town near Varanasi. He spent much of his youth in and around Varanasi and moved away as employment opportunities presented themselves outside the ancient city.
Today, Munshi Premchand’s legacy extends far beyond Varanasi. Given the social nature of his work, some of his stories have found a place in school textbooks, while others have been made into serials and films. It is then no doubt that the town that Premchand comes from has today become a haven for all his fans.
Lamhi, located on the Varanasi-Azamgarh highway, is a thirty-minute car ride away from Varanasi. Adorned with a Munshi Premchand memorial gate, it is where the writer’s house is located. In 2005, a Hindi teacher from Bangalore, along with his students, pushed for the renovation and conservation of Premchand’s house in Lamhi. Since then, many devotees of the writer’s work flock to the town every year to pay their homage to the town and house that birthed the literary legend.
The town is usually pulsating with excitement and endearment for their homegrown author which is heightened at the time of his birth anniversary. Every year, the town gets together to put up performances and plays based on Premchand’s loved stories, as well as exhibitions of old documents and photographs. In Varanasi, too, visitors can visit the Premchand Memorial in Bada Lalpur.
"dil kī choToñ ne kabhī chain se rahne na diyā
jab chalī sard havā maiñ ne tujhe yaad kiyā"
A six-hour drive from Lamhi is Malihabad, a town in Uttar Pradesh that is famous for its mangoes and for Josh Malihabadi, the revolutionary twentieth-century poet.
Born in 1898 in Malihabad, Josh Malihabadi was given the title of "Shayar-e-inqilab," or the poet of the revolution. He was known for his liberal views which often challenged state order. Many consider him to be a misunderstood poet who, even today, remains well-known by only a few, much like the town he hails from.
Malihabad, governed by the Afridi Pathans, was once a town steeped in tradition: Urdu poetry and mangoes were its speciality. Josh came from a long line of writers: his great-grandfather was celebrated Urdu writer Nawab Faqeer Muhammad Khan ‘Goya’, and his grandfather, too, was a prominent poet in the late 1800s.
Josh studied in Agra, then at Shantiniketan, and also worked at Osmania University in Hyderabad later in his life. It is said that Jawaharlal Nehru held the revolutionary poet in high esteem and frequently attended his mushaira. Josh’s legacy is concealed in the many couplets and rubaiyats that he wrote as well as in the fondness with which his followers and contemporaries remember him.
The house in which the Malihabadi family once lived still exists amongst the winding mango orchards in the town of Malihabad. The Josh Malihabadi House in Mirzaganj, Malihabad, is said to be dedicated to Josh. Apart from that distant relatives of Josh continue to live in the town in a large haveli. Unfortunately, not much information is available on the haveli or the family today, but followers can visit the house through guidance from the locals.
India has birthed many great Urdu poets and authors who continue to inspire new generations of readers and thinkers. However, due to their nomadic nature, and improper conservation efforts, it’s not been easy for avid readers to find places that were once touched by their favourite poets. While the more popular poets have been immortalised through tombs and museums, not every poet has met the same fortunate fate and their legacy lives in the dusty pages of old books.
For instance, today, in the place where the house of eminent pre-modern poet, Firaq Gorakhpuri, once stood, stands a school. A lone dilapidated hutment in the Banwarpaar Village, the place where he was born, is the only tangible memory of the great poet.
Several other structures and tombs belonging to the Indian subcontinent lie on the other side of the border, in Pakistan. Despite this, the influence of these poets persists in the culture of the cities they once lived in and the towns they came from.