Where are the djinns?

From a window in my 5th floor office in Qutab Institutional Area, I could see the green spread of Sanjay Van, a city forest in the heart of Delhi. The forest canopy stretched across the horizon for almost as far as the eye could see, broken only by two tall turrets that stood tall – forgotten, forlorn and proud.

These turrets are all that now remain of Lal Kot/Quila Rai Pithora – remains of the city that the Tomars established and the great Prithviraj Chauhan extended. Something about these ramparts drew me toward them. On misty winter mornings, they would seem to rise through the mist and call out my name, gently. So one empty Saturday, I strode off through the mist toward the great towers. To reach them, I had to walk a kilometre or two along a trail through the forest. Part of the Delhi Ridge, this patch of green is a world away from the busy bustle of one of the biggest, noisiest and most polluted metropolises of the world. The trail descends into a pan that is surrounded by trees and tiny hill. There isn’t a man-made structure in sight, and buffered by the trees, there isn’t a sound to intrude into the stillness either. Throw in the haunting beauty of a peacock’s call, carried along by a gentle breeze, and just yards away from civilisation, the sense of desolation is complete. The two towers, both about 30 metres tall, stood less than 20 yards apart and were connected at the top by a narrow crumbly bridge. Through thorn scrub and brambles, I finally made my way to the top of the taller of the two towers and then tried to make my way to the other over the bridge. While walking across the bridge, barely 10 inches wide, I noticed that it opened into an archway under my feet, or what must once have been a gate into the ancient city. Thick thorn scrub had blocked out the way but a yard away lay twin graves with a chadar in green and gold covering one of them. It was quite breezy that day – and yet, the wind around the graves was as still as death, as if out of respect for the dead. That was many moons ago, and I’ve walked those trails many a time since, but be it eerie or divine, physics or metaphysics, the wind continues to pay its quiet respect to the holy pir and his wife who lie there, whose graves I’m told are as old as the stones of Lal kot.

Sanjay Van is dotted in corners with forgotten graves from the time of Mohammed Ghori and Qutab-ud-din Aibak and has a couple of cremation grounds around it. It is also I’m told, an inviting dumping ground for headless and chopped up bodies, and so it was no surprise to come across a website that marks it as one of the 10 most haunted locations in India. Unlucky or not, I’ve walked across nearly every inch of this forest, from late evening to early morning, and unless a reverential breeze counts, I haven’t really seen enough of the place to vouch for it’s reputation. Honestly, I’m not complaining. The lyrical William Dalrymple, a Delhiphile if there ever was one, calls it the capital ‘The City of Djinns’. So where are the djinns? Old Delhi, it seems is a popular haunt. Almost every old building in the neighbourhood, including the Red Fort, boasts of a resident ‘ghost who walks in anklets’. The Bhuli Bhatiyari Masjid and Salimgarh Fort have their own tales of resident spirits, while Delhi Cantonment and some South Delhi houses are also apparently home to souls that refuse to rest in peace. I’ve often wondered why, if there is a soul, would it want to while away its time spooking out people? I’m sure there is more to do after one dies than just playing ‘peek-a-boo’.

For some strange reason, ghosts and apparitions choose to become apparent only in dark and lonely corners. But why would they be bothered by the presence of light or crowds? Or is it our mind that plays tricks on us when we are on our own, hemmed in by the dark?

Perhaps, instead of fearing a paranormal experience, we should welcome the possibility as affirmation of the fact there really is a possible life after death. Religion suggests that the souls that haunt the earthly realm are a bit like the lame child from the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin – laggards who couldn’t make it to paradise in time. Maybe a haunting, if there is such a thing at all is a plea from the disembodied to the bodied, to help them get across. So the next time you come across a bodyless soul, remember to ask if you could help. What I’m more likely to encounter though, are living, waking soulless bodies, and for them, my advice is – write your own column. It requires a lot of soul-searching, I assure you.

Brothers, up in arms

It is easy for an Indian to hold the world against a Bangladeshi. Switch on a TV screen and there are images of marauding cricketers in yet another shade of green, taking our ‘men in blue’ to the cleaners. Then there are images of beady-eyed jihadists, caught on the verge of shedding innocent blood. Most Bangladeshis in India are illegal immigrants, at best, disliked for eating into an Indian’s resources and opportunities, but more frighteningly, many have been found guilty of indulging in subversive activities that range from petty crime to terrorism.

I am what one might call a probasi (non-resident) Bengali. I was born in Delhi, 31 years ago. I missed the passionate protests that followed Lord Curzon’s religious division of Bengal in 1905. I missed the ‘tryst with destiny’ that promised to define a nation and a generation oh-so-long-ago. And I missed the whole ‘jai Bangla’ fervour that seized not just the two ‘Banglas’ on either side of the border but even the rest of India during the Bangladesh Liberation movement in 1971. I’ve grown up believing that Bangladesh owes India and her soldiers an incalculable debt for liberating the land and its people. And yet I’ve grown up reading about how almost every terrorist outfit that operates in India uses Bangladeshi soil as a launching pad for its missions. Incidents like the one near the border with Tripura, where a BSF officer was abducted and hacked to death in April 2005 would leave me seething in impotent rage. Leaders like Khaleda Zia, with their anti-India rhetoric didn’t endear Bangladesh to Indians either. With Bangladesh consistently topping the charts as the most corrupt nation in the world for almost half a decade, it only seemed like just vindication of our collective sensibilities. I could not relate to the nostalgia and strong sense of being ‘one people’ that defines my parents’ generation. My maternal grandparents and their children were refugees from Bangladesh who were forced to leave a land they called their own because they prayed to a different God. And yet, while they were grateful to India for giving them shelter and sustenance, their heart seemed to beat for the banks of the Padma, where the paddy grew sweet and the hilsa ‘so’ big. Their children, including my mother, and perhaps their entire generation speak of Bangladesh with a wistful longing that I couldn’t relate to. I couldn’t understand why they would stop and talk to a Bangladeshi rickshaw puller or a maid, for in whom they saw a fellow ‘Bengali’, I saw a potential terrorist. As a child growing up, I did not dislike Bangladeshis because most of them were from a different faith. Nor did I hold a grudge against them for driving out my grandparents, for I did not inherit that hate and also realised that the same fate or worse would’ve befallen many Muslim families from West Bengal. What I couldn’t stomach was the apparent ingratitude and apathy.

Then I met a Bangladeshi. Not in Kolkata or Khulna, but by the Trevi fountain in Rome. My wife and I had escaped from a party, and were taking in the sights before ending up at the fountain where we were approached by a little man – from his accent – apparently fresh off a plane from Dhaka, selling souvenirs. As we got talking, with some trepidation, I told him we were Indian Bengalis. Immediately, he called out to his mates, five of whom came running in. I didn’t believe they would have the gall to raise a finger but I was on my guard. But instead, he smiled, handed me a ‘Roman Holiday’ T-shirt and then ushered us into a cafe. Some one brought us coffee while another brought us ice-cream. They wanted to know about Kolkata and Delhi, Amitabh and Aishwarya, Sourav and Sachin. They kept talking about shared pride in India’s successes and how nice it was to speak to someone in Bangla in Rome, so far away from home. In the warm after glow of a setting sun and rising sentimentality, while leaving, I insisted on paying for the coffee and the ice-creams, but couldn’t refuse them the souvenirs they presented or the beautiful flowers they gave my wife. In New Jersey, a few months later, I was dropped off at the hotel by a Bangladeshi taxi driver who insisted on not taking more than $30 for a $60 ride from New York City. And he kept saying, “Aamra aki toh!”(we are the same). I was mystified. Here were a people I had abhorred without knowing, and expected them to do the same but all I got from them wherever I met them was affection bordering on the fraternal. In these often terrible times, we often become victims of a ‘fear and hate’ psychosis that divides the world between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the only way around it is to get to know ‘them’ better. I realise that there is only one world, and there is one only one ‘me’, and every association of mine is a question of chance or choice. And since chance is no one’s fault, one could at least choose to view the world with an open mind . . . and heart.