Mirza Farhatullah Baig’s Urdu novel ‘Dehli Ki Aakhri Shama’ recreates Delhi’s lost poetic heritage

Marsiya Dilli ye marhoom ka ae dost na cher
Na sunaa jaaye-gaa hum se yeh fasaanaa hargiz

Do not strike the chords of the story of Delhi
My heart won’t bear the woeful tale of its loss

Delhi, the city of lights and poetry, has been destroyed seven times only to rise again each time from the ashes of memory, a memory painted into vivid relics and commemoratives; the memoirs of loss and longing.

The life of the last King of Delhi, the poet Bahadur Shah Zafar, took a drastic turn in 1857 when the British exiled him to Rangoon for his alleged role in the uprising of 1857. His sons were shot, his titles stripped and his poetry confiscated. Denied a pen and paper, the exiled and imprisoned poet-king used a burnt stick to write his epitaph on the walls of the small room, outpouring his desolation and heartache:

Padhne faatehaa koi aaye kyon
koi chaar phool chadhane aaye kyon
koi aake shama jalaye kyon
main vo bekasi kaa mazaar huun

The siege of Delhi marked the end of a literary epoch, but the nostalgia inspired numerous fictitious and fanciful accounts of the city, colonial rule playing an ironic impetus in this memorialisation, with its blooming print culture and a fetish for memorabilia. Among those who bled the evocation of the lost city in their accounts were Munshi Faizuddin, Rashid-ul-Khairi, Nasir Nazeer Firaq, Hasan Nizami, Arsh Taimuri and others.

Murraqa literature

Dehli Ki Aakhri Shama, written by Mirza Farhatullah Baig in the early 1900s, is considered as one of the most splendid pieces of murraqa literature, interlocking overlapping layers of lived experiences with a poetic interlude. The writer of this splendid vignette, Mirza Farhatullah Baig, is considered one of the finest satirical writers of the Urdu language, his sketches rich with colourful characterisation emanating from a sense of deprivation and despondency; a theme that is constant across the writings of the authors mentioned above.

The historical novel is a story of a fictitious mushaira (poetic symposium) held in Delhi in 1845 under the patronage of Bahadur Shah Zafar, with his son Mirza Fakhru (pen name Ramz) as its chief guest. The artistic rendition, even though an imagination, turns out to be much more than that. It draws the sketch of the culture and tradition of pre-1857 Delhi in the most ornate and poignant colours, something well deserved by the ever-persevering city of lights.

Mirza Baig mentions a portrait of the great Urdu poet Momin Khan Momin that inspires him to draw a similar portrait of all the poets in the form of a novel, something that the posterity could dwell upon and find pride in, especially when everything was marred by a sense of impotence during the worst periods of British colonial rule. The second inspiration drawn by Mirza was from the famous narrative of Muhammad Hussain Azad, called Nairang-e-Khayal (An imaginal play) and Maulvi Karimuddin’s Tabqaat-ul-shoora-hind (Biographies of the Poets of Hind).

Interestingly, Maulvi Karimuddin mentions a mushaira that is actually held in 1845 at his home and Mirza Baig redraws the same gathering, albeit at a larger scale as a key literary event in Delhi. In his debt to Maulvi Karimuddin, he makes him the sole narrator of the novel and mirthfully limns him deserving any praise and all the criticism that his account would draw from the audience. The mushaira runs across the poetic eras and exhumes characters, known, unknown and forgotten, from across the length and breadth of Rekhta (the original name for Urdu).

Delhi, a city in motion

The novel starts with a frazzled air of self-awareness of the city it is penned down in: once a patron city of arts and now a vestige of the East India Company. Molvi Karimuddin, who belongs to an opulent family of Molvis (Muslim preachers) in Panipat, now reduced to pennies, comes to the capital Delhi during the days when Delhi College is newly founded and the city has acquired printing presses for the first time. He enrols himself in the college and in order to earn a living starts publishing translations of well-known Arabic books from a rented building: Mubarak-un-Nissa’s haveli (Mubarak-un-Nisa was a courtesan in Mughal court and built a beautiful red mosque in old Delhi, that is often referred to as Randi ki Masjid) in Qazi Ka Hauz (now Hauz-e-Qazi).

However, his business fails.

Karimuddin, never fond of poetry, is left with no option but to organise a gathering of poets so that he can publish an account of the life and works of great poets based on it to get the press going. He starts his journey by meeting Nawab Zain-ul-Abideen Khan Arif, Ghalib’s nephew and Hakeem Ahsanullah Khan, the Prime Minister of Bahadur Shah Zafar.

The book gives very picturesque details of the lanes, houses and markets of Delhi. The canals in the courtyards, large platforms pillared halls, recliners, fountains, and porches. An especially opulent and splendid silhouette of the old city is drawn for the reader. The two associates of Maulvi arrange his meeting with Emperor Bahadur Shah for official permission for the gathering. The author describes the ease of access a commoner had to the royal court and the mannerisms that were prevalent among the nobility. The acronyms detailed in the book are unheard of in any book of history, with the Emperor being referred to as Jahan Panah, Zil-e-Elahi, Badshah Salamat, Fath-ul-Mulk, Hazrta Peer-o-Murshid, Zilullah, Qibla-e-Alam etc.

These are the times when what was once referred to as Lal Qila (Red Fort) or The Qila Mubarak (The Sacred Fort) is referred to in an ironic diminutive Haveli or Lal Haveli (red mansion), implying a shrinking influence of the Mughal family in the backdrop of growing colonial power. The book mentions the scheme of the fort, its Islamic, Persian, Timurid and Hindi styles, and details the conduct of personal and public life there. The physical sketches of kings, princes, ministers and poets are intricately penned down giving the reader a tactile presence of each of them. Baig writes that it had become customary in the last days of Mughal rule for princes to swear by the throne or the crown, political conditions being so uncertain that every potential heir thought he might be the next king.

A culture of poetry

The author profiles the three great poets Mirza Ghalib, Ibrahim Zouq and Momin Khan Momin with such eloquent artistic ingenuity that the reader is teleported to Ballimaran, Kabuli Gate and Cheelon ki Ghali in the very presence of Ghalib, Zouq and Momin, witnessing their aristocratic styles and patrician demeanour. The lanes leading to their houses, the shops en route, their mansions, their taste in dressing and most of all their behaviour towards the guests and strangers are detailed lucidly with an immaculate imaginative prowess that gives the book an exquisite artistic life of its own.

The Mughal empire was a great admirer of art which is evident in its marble and sandstone. However, it did not only leave stones and sand, its high culture left us a wealth of disquisition: poetry, prose and letter. A simple mushaira would be a central event receiving an inordinate state patronage. The alleys leading to the venue would be strung with coloured glass lamps, the roads would be cleaned and sprinkled with water for the guests and volunteers would offer water to the passersby. The whole city would be abuzz with the news and the lights (described beautifully as qandeel, jhar, fanoos, qumquma, deewar gir, hoondi, shama) would dazzle the eyes.

The poetic symposium, mushaira, was a cultural institution unlike any other with etiquettes of its own. It would also serve as a testing ground for the abilities and talent of the poets. The poets critics attended to evaluate the standard of poetry, rhetoric and prosody. Not only the use of language or the contents of poetry were subject to meeting certain standards, but the mannerism, the delivery and traditions too counted a lot. Even saying “Waah, waah” and “Subanallah” had limits and rules, and the tonality of each would convey a different intent every time. Mirza Baig defines these limits for the reader, “The ghazal that should not be praised is not praised”. The culture of starting the gathering with “Fatiha”, reading the poem of the patron (usually the emperor) by his emissary and then commencing the event by moving a lamp/candlestick/lantern among the poets as described in the book was prevalent until the late 20th century.

The author brings nearly 60 poets, a gamut of eccentric and interesting characters from different eras, on a same dais. The leading names of sukhan (narration) like Ghalib, Dagh, Momin, Bedil, Zauq and Aish are put up against the forgotten masters like Yusuf Tamkeen, Ghulam Ahmad Tawseer, Mohammad Jafar Tabish, Syed Mohammad Tashuq, Haji Beg shohrat, Nawazish Tanweer, Mirza Mahir, Najmuddin Barq, Mirza Pyare Refat and others whom Baig digs out from the antediluvian. Every poet is introduced with a physical sketch and his profession and interests, his expertise in poetry, his teachers and his immediate friends and foes. Then each of them uses the medium of the ghazal in exquisite ways to articulate complex human thoughts, philosophical concepts, revolutionary ideals, and, of course, the universal emotions of humankind. Some of the finest ghazals find their way in the book, becoming the vehicles of rebuttal, reconciliation and revenge between the poets.

The poets chant the withering of the rose of happiness. They echo the transitory nature of life in numerous metaphors and combine it with a desire for immortal beauty, strongly influenced in their world view by the imagery of Muslim mystics. The beloved to whom the poets refer to is always considered cruel whom one only knows by hearsay: a noble virgin living in purdah, a coy courtesan, a despotic ruler whose will is inscrutable and who is beyond the reach of a common man. The “rival and the reproacher”, so closely associated with the love drama, fit as well in the scenery of court intrigue, the ambiguity permitting numerous interpretation of an outwardly simple verse.

This is the time when Persian poetry, which according to Ethe had lived through the Mughal court its “Indian summer”, was burning its last embers. Other than a few masters like Mirza Ghalib hardly anyone would write in Persian. The fact is alluded to when Maulana Sahbai recites a Persian ghazal, and in the words of Karimuddin (Farhatullah Baig), “Persian ghazal is imposed on the Urdu mushaira”; and everyone is left blank faced: unable to appreciate the profundity of the dying language. The mehfil and its labyrinth of poignant inventiveness go on the whole night in a sublime poetic ecstasy, occasionally marked by twangs of jealousy and rancour that were prevalent among the poets of past and often served as a goad for improvisation.

The mushaira and the novel end with the the word of God just as they had started, remembering the bygone era in all its lost glory. Drawing upon the living memories the book blends fact and fiction seamlessly keeping alive the high culture of old Dilli. Conscious of the decline and defeat of the cultural sophistication, Mirza Baig, like many of his times, seemed to be living somewhere between the struggle of two worlds: A world of poetry and a world of ashes.

Ab kharaba hua Jahanabad
Warna Har ek qadam pe yahan ghar tha

Now Jahanabad (Delhi) has become a barren land
Otherwise every footstep was a home here.

The English translation of Dehli Ki Aakhri Shama is available as The Last Mushaira of Delhi translated by Akhter Qamber (Orient Black Swan) and The Last Light of Delhi translated by Parvati Sharma and Sulaiman Ahmad (Penguin India).