Monday, September 03, 2012

Enter the gates of Shahjahanabad

Amidst the bustle of Old Delhi, Shahjahanabad’s soul stays alive in the buildings and ways of the people...

The dusty, ancient and perpetually crowded streets of today’s Old Delhi are a glaring contrast to the infrastructure surrounding their New Delhi counterparts. The streets of ‘Shahjahanabad’, once rich, vibrant and fit enough to entertain royalty, today lie bruised and battered owing to their constant mutilation by locals and tourists, and the apathy of the government and civic bodies. But walking along these streets is nothing short of a history lesson as a crescendo of culture stares back at you through the Mughal architecture and the bustling markets.

Shahjahanabad, founded in 1639 by Emperor Shah Jahan, was a city built on 1600 acres of land. One could enter this walled city through its many gates – the Kashmiri Gate, Ajmeri Gate, Lahori Gate, Delhi Gate etc. that allowed entry from the North, South East, West and South respectively. The city was planned lavishly with the main street boasting lines of pulchritudinous fountains and exquisite flowers at its borders whilst a stream of sparkling water ran right through the heart of it. The same street, now over-flowing with flower-vendors, sweet shops and textile merchants, is ironically known as ‘chandni’ chowk.

The walled city, the symbolic capital of Mughals until their fall, has hosted some episodes of disgraced conflict and shambolic display of power. The ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, for instance, was mercilessly decapitated on the orders of the ruling Emperor Aurangzeb on 11th November, 1675 AD for refusing to convert to Islam.

Gurudwara Sis Ganj stands at that site today. Another obnoxious episode of brutality was when Persian invader Nadir Shah commanded and watched as his troops massacred 3,000 citizens of Shahjahanbad in 1739. Up until the time of India’s struggle for independence, Old Delhi was witness to much bloodshed. 9th September, 1947 was one such abysmal day when violence gripped the sensitive area in the form of Hindu-Muslim riots. So much so that the police and military were forced to use hand grenades to curb the chaos. Of late, violence has become rare and such communal tensions have become equally uncommon as the same place once considered insensitive towards contrasting cultures and religions, is now home to mosques, temples, a gurudwara and a church, and all are at very close proximity to one another too.

Purani Dilli is a wonderland for aficionados of Mughal history. The dedicated travel guides may be blazing with vivid descriptions of Jama Masjid, Red Fort and other such monuments, but a keen traveller might also fancy the Gauri Shankar Temple, Feroz Shah Kotla and the relatively lesser known mosques within the vicinity. Consecrated in 1836, St. James Church, built by Scotsman Col. James Skinner, is one more such destination. The oldest Church in Delhi, the elegantly poised pale-white structure, surrounded by the lush-green of grass, looks almost otherworldly in the harmonic-pandemonium of Old Delhi. But its significance cannot be undermined.


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