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BUBBLES: A Biography of Brigadier H.H. Maharaja singh ii Museum trust Sawai Bhawani Singh MVC, of Jaipur

Lotus Collection

First published in 2015 Third impression, 2020

The Lotus Collection

An imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd

M-75, Greater Kailash II Market, New Delhi 110 048

Phone: ++91 (011) 40682000 info@rolibooks.com; www.rolibooks.com

Also at Chennai, & Mumbai

Layout: Bhagirath Kumar

Production: Lavinia Rao

Cover: Sneha Pamneja

ISBN: 9789351941255

Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by Roli Books Pvt. Ltd.

Printed in India at Repro India Ltd.

Dedicated to Joseph Lawrence Tobias (1935–2013) more than a friend, a brother, whose interest in the history of Agra (where he was born), along with Delhi and Kolkata (where he died) was phenomenal.

Foreword

am delighted to introduce this new book by an old friend, R.V. Smith, whose writing and general knowledge of Delhi, his adopted home, is legendary. History runs in the Smith family, who are descended from Salvador Smith (1783-1871), the soldier who trained the troops of Daulat Rao Scindia.

R.V. Smith is the son of the late journalist Thomas Smith (19101995), whose articles in numerous newspapers were always full of interesting snippets about the bits of history that historians usually neglect. His book, Agra: Rambles and Recollections was republished in 2007. R.V. Smith is a worthy successor to his father, and is the author of eight books on Delhi, of which, The Delhi That No-One Knows has become a bestseller.

During his career, R.V. Smith worked for the Statesman, and since retirement has continued to pen articles for the Hindu and the Statesman. He began writing articles on monuments, historical places and the social life in the Walled City of old Delhi in 1958. He also writes poetry and romantic novels, including Jasmine Nights & The Taj. Another novel, on the eighteenth-century courtesan who became the empress, Qudsia Begum is underway. His interest extends to Egyptology, the occult, which led to a book of ghost stories, The Veiled Shadow, and mysticism.

He came to Delhi over fifty-two years ago and slowly grew to love the city. A born romantic, he attended mujras by dancing girls and sat at the shrines of Sufi saints late at night to hear qawwalis. Born

in January 1938, he was educated at St Peter’s College, Agra, from where he did his Senior Cambridge and later received the MA degree in English literature at St John’s college. His liking for Delhi was heightened by the fact that it is almost a twin of Agra, his beloved home town, where he still goes to recharge his batteries. The oldworld ambience of Delhi intoxicated him and he tried to merge it with his Anglo-Indian antecedents, researching poets like Alexander Heatherley ‘Azad’, a pupil of Ghalib’s nephew, and Benjamin Montrose ‘Muztar’, a pupil of Ustad Daagh Dehlvi.

As a regular Sunday churchgoer, he found that many of the earlier Italian Capuchin fathers had written treatises on Mughal history, medieval life and manners, right up to the aftermath of Great Uprising of 1857. This also gave him material for his own articles. In his long career he has won a Rotary Club award, the Michael Madhusudan award for journalism and the Canon Holland prize for general knowledge. For him Delhi is not a city but a timeless begum who excites love, devotion and nostalgia. She is truly the beloved of all Delhiwalahs but mistress of none.

This is a book to be enjoyed, that will surprise those who believe they already know everything about their city.

– Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones London

Preface

elhi fascinated me after I had fallen in love with Agra, my birthplace. Though my second home does not have as many monuments as the city of the Taj Mahal, it is fortunate in being the capital of the country and as such the cynosure of all eyes. But its medieval edifices (despite the ASI’s efforts) are in need of better preservation. This book is a collection of articles originally written for the Statesman and the Hindu (published between 1990 and 2011), with whose courtesy they are being reproduced under one cover. It is from my father, Thomas Smith, that I inherited interest in old, half-forgotten things and the urge to celebrate ‘lost causes and forsaken beliefs’. Besides the Internet, the tendency to stand and stare is also the begetter of knowledge. This is what I, a virtual computer novice have practiced over the decades and the result is before you. My sincere thanks to Roli Books for consenting to publish a rambler’s labour of love.

– R.V. Smith

A Memorable Halloween

alloween is observed in Delhi in the Diplomatic Enclave. Some hotels have also started observing the eve of the feast of the All Hallows or All Saints.

On that night, it is believed that the spirits of the dead pay a visit to their erstwhile habitat. Since it is hard to find spirits, people dress up as wizards and witches – and some even put on pumpkin heads, complete with cut-out features of what a ghost would look like. Some children go even further and dress in black, and wear masks depicting a skeleton’s face. There have been instances in the U.S. and Britain too, when immigrants from the Orient, particularly women and kids, have gotten hysterical on answering the doorbell and seeing Halloween revelers grinning at them with ghoulish glee. A girl from Lebanon nearly died after one such encounter in New York last year.

In India, few people know about this strange observance, but some embassy staff of Western countries get together to put up a Halloween show in Chanakyapuri. This scribe attended one such show at a time when Peter Hazelhurst was a representative of the Times, London in New Delhi. Hazelhurst had just dropped in for a short while, but the AP man had come all decked up like a wizard and was among those group of people – including a few women –who seemed to be enjoying the early 1970s evening the most, with groans and screams and whistles building up a ghostly atmosphere in the dimly-lit room.

A diplomat called Smallfoot sat in a corner, regaling guests with

Afghan Amir’s Gateway

he collapse of a portion of the Sher Shah Gate opposite the Purana Qila, known as the Lal Darwaza, brings to mind the visit of Amir Habibullah from Afghanistan to Delhi in the first decade of the twentieth century. Amir, who was assassinated in Kabul in 1919, not long after he went back to his faction-ridden country, had come to Delhi for a talk with the viceroy of British India, and also utilized this time to survey medieval monuments, especially those built by Afghan rulers. Among these were monuments constructed by Sher Shah Suri, who had ousted Humayun and restored Afghan rule for fifteen years. Amir, having seen the tank which provided water to the namazis for ‘wazu’ or the ceremonial washing of face, hands, and feet before prayers at the Khair-ul-Minazil mosque and noticing the deplorable state in which it was, had it repaired at his own expense. This mosque was built during the reign of Akbar near the Sher Shah Gate by the Mughal emperor’s wet nurse Maham Anga in 1561, while Sher Shah’s mosque came up in 1545, along with his gate around the same time. On Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg is the Kabuli Darwaza, a sort of twin of the Lal Darwaza.

Within the boundaries of the Old Fort, Sher Shah built the Quila Khuna Masjid, a gem of an example of Afghan architecture, which was repaired by Lord Curzon during his viceroyship. Sher Shah’s architectural technique is said to have been followed by Akbar when he constructed several buildings of the same style in Agra. Lal Darwaza, damaged by the August rains, was one of the gates built

Armenian Seer

he Tughlaqabad railway rest house is a special place of interest for those nostalgic about times past. One may doubt the story of the Bhawal Sanyasi having visited it in the course of his wanderings for justice, which he eventually achieved when Sir Dingle Foot of the Queen’s Counsel, proved before the Privy Council, London that he was indeed the Kumar of Bhawal State (now in Bangladesh). He had been poisoned by his rani (the wife of his elder brother, whom he had married as per custom after his death). But as fate would have it, his funeral pyre was doused by a sudden thunderstorm and a group of sadhus passing by, seeing signs of life, rescued him. The grateful prince accompanied the sadhus through jungles and towns for twelve years, until he was in a position to stake his claim in the Calcutta High Court and provide proof of his royal identity to the Privy Council.

Why he came to Tughlaqabad is not known but, according to the grapevine, he had come to seek the blessings of an Armenian seer in his quest for justice. The holy man had once been a Railway employee, but a dream and a meeting with a wizard made him adopt the monastic life. But why did the Armenian seer decide to make his home in that suburb of Delhi? There are no clear answers available, though it was once believed that some Armenians had settled down in that place after the massacre of Armenians in 1739 during the invasion of Nadir Shah.

Kishanganj, between Old Delhi and Sarai Rohilla stations, has

Basai Darapur and its Namesake

ld Bundu Khan long occupied a room in the Taj Hotel, Jama Masjid, Delhi and celebrated Christmas and New Year’s with the same enthusiasm as Id and Bakr Id. However, one New Year’s Eve Khan Sahib was missing, but he did turn up at Kothi No. 8 at Civil Lines, the next day to usher in Naya Saal, with a rose in the buttonhole of his favourite gray suit. After a couple of drinks the colourful man, who looked like a thinner version of Clark Gable, warmed up and revealed that a friend had taken him on a romantic rendezvous to Basai Darapur, beyond Rajouri Garden, which is now better known for the ESI Hospital than for the Nawab who once owned the place and surrounding areas. His bagh was famous in the nineteenth century as also the haveli he owned. When the Nawab lost his lands to the local government, a band of gypsies settled down there. They had fallen on bad times and people started exploiting them for their pretty girls. A clandestine flesh trade flourished for some time until the police got wind of it and the gypsies went away to another Basai, which was in Agra, close to the Taj.

Khan Sahib knew the history of both Basais. He remembered that when Basai Darapur temporarily became gypsy-land, people started arriving while the evening was still young. They came in tongas, cars, rickshaws, and some even on bicycles, ringing the bell to get some old gypsy dancing girl out of the way. The girls peeped out at the visitors from behind half-closed doors and their vigil was rewarded when a host of customers descended on them.

Bird-watching Delights

igratory birds are making a beeline for Delhi and its outskirts. Sultanpuri, Najafgarh, Okhla and the Delhi Zoo are all recent evidence of this. Surprisingly enough, local fauna too make their impact felt at this time of the year. The green belt in Mayapuri, says birdwatcher Jitender Dhir, has various species of birds. He once kept a birdhouse in his window AC, thinking that pigeons might occupy it, but he had a surprise waiting for him. Instead of pigeons, blue robins came to inhabit it. The robins have a blue body with white patches on both sides of the wings.

Green pigeons, sparrows, hawks, kingfishers, robins, Indian hornbills, parrots and sometimes even peacocks are found on the green belt. Mute bulbuls are also seen in sizable number, preening themselves on trees or electric and TV cable wires.

Talking of bulbuls, the fabled birds of myth and legend, whose songs have sustained lovesick princesses and commoners alike, themselves pine in the captivity of heartless birdcatchers. Well known birder, Dr Salim Ali has identified over twelve varieties of bulbuls. The cheery notes of the red-whiskered bulbul, the pleasant call of the black-headed yellow bulbul, the half-a-dozen tinkling notes of the ruby-throated bulbul, and the joyous melody of the red-vented bulbul are worth noticing in the capital.

Contrary to popular belief, the koel is present among Delhi gardens and groves in winter too but is largely overlooked as it calls out at the approach of the hot weather only. But the large pied

Christmastime Reminiscences

baker Abdul of Kashmiri Gate is dead and also the maker of those delicious cookies that pleased many a guest and family member in Raj Niwas Marg, and lasted well past the New Year night upto the Twelfth Night, when Christmas ended with the feast of the Three Kings at the Sacred Heart Cathedral, near Gol Dakhana.

Sometimes I wonder whether the Virgin was aware of the fact that generations to come would, besides calling her blessed, make so much fuss of her pregnancy and the delivery sans the comfort of a nursing home. Still in her teens and big with child, she did not know that the time had come for her confinement to end. There were men all around, men in robes, which many were to wear through life without so much as a change of clothing because there were no mills to make cloth wholesale. And among those men was her spouse Joseph. Middle-aged he may have been but certainly not old because the grayness of his beard was acquired through the efforts of artists down the centuries. Surely, a flowing white beard attracts more attention than a small one which struggles to make its presence felt over the chin.

Joseph was at his wits’ end too, never having helped during delivery in an age when there were no male nurses as we now have in Delhi. Whether he did succeed in getting a midwife is a debatable point, even though some maintain that not one but three midwives were present. St Luke, who describes the Nativity so profoundly does not mention midwives nor do the other Evangelists. But Christ was born and that was that.

To come to the point, nativity and motherhood establish a link so strong that not even the affection of a fond father can break it. No wonder Jesus was always closer to his mother. It was she who wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, when the family fled Egypt. It was she who held him close to her bosom lest Herod’s soldiers would get to know about his presence. Then when he was lost in the Temple and found after three days, it was the mother who was more concerned. At the marriage feast at Cana, it was his mother who came to him with a request to replenish the wine which had run out

About the Author

Ronald Vivian Smith (1938-2020), an alumnus of St John’s College, Agra began writing as a teenager in 1954. He authored a number of books, including four on Delhi, a romantic novel, Jasmine Nights & the Taj, three volumes of poetry, a collection of ghost yarns, and a profile of the eighteenth-century Smith family he was descended from. As a septuagenarian he frequented and surveyed out-of-theway places for unusual stories that form the grist for popular weekly newspaper columns, ‘Quaint Corner’ and ‘Down Memory Lane’.