Big City Blues

Noted young artist Gigi Scaria writes on William Dalrymple’s ‘City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi’ and explains how this treatise has influenced his creative thinking.

A great doubt came to my mind when I was reading the book ‘City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi’ by William Dalrymple. How was it possible to experience that much about a historical city in a ‘short’ span of one year starting from the summer then through the monsoon till the end of winter, completing a full circle of Delhi’s climate chart? Probably keeping this in mind Dalrymple has mentioned in the acknowledgements that “this book, the story of one year in Delhi, has taken nearly four times that long to complete”. While reading this book, apart from the historical inputs and the striking inside stories, it goads the reader to travel through the writer’s mind, his thought process, his engagements with a foreign land and his immediate reactions to its surroundings. As his journey proceeds, time to time he takes out historical research material to prove his arguments or to compare it with what has been seen around.

As an artist who tries to engage with the city of Delhi I found the method Dalrymple followed fascinating. He investigates history with the mind of Sherlok Homes. The conclusions might be reveled at the end through a gripping fictional narration. The order of events is placed in such a way that the difference between authentic academic research and the author’s own daily experience with the city and its people vanishes into a thin air. Result is a passionate story based on history which might have been told and retold through out generations for hundreds of years. But we as the recent “occupiers” of the city have missed it totally.

A work by Gigi Scaria

Historical figures like Ibn Battutta, Muhammad bin Tugklaq , Dara Shukoh, David Ochterlony, Charles Metcalfe, James Skinner, William Frasner and Edward Lutyens  are given flesh and blood by the author to reveal the tragic drama of  our city. Where he narrates the story of Dhara Shukoh I was imagining, what would have happened if Dara was the successor of Shah Jehan? Would it have helped the Mughals to rule Delhi for another two hundred years? Or would it have perished much before because of the weak defensive system like that of Wazir Ali’s Avadh? We never know. But this narration can initiate an alternate probability of what would have happened. It gives us a clue to develop a parallel story line which can be carried out till now. It also means stretching ones own imagination from areas where written and oral history gets into a mute stage. Yet Dalrymple’s story is not centered on the great heroes of history. It always comes back from the individual tragedies to the “collective tragedy” of his great super hero, that is the city of “Delhi”.

The life style and the architecture of the city are detailed in analytical accuracy throughout the book. As a constant observer of the ever-changing character of Delhi, my art engagement largely deals with the conceptual thread of the visual narratives. I was overwhelmed by the visual depiction of the historical narratives of the city of Delhi through different times. Each time a new city of Delhi appears in front of us as Dalrymple gathers his relics from the site; it collapses when he places another set of collections from a different era. The city has been mutilated and crumbled throughout the history and has reborn from within its ruins and out side the walls it has attained a new form and character. While interviewing Iris Portal a friend of Dalrymple’s grandmother who had spent her 20 years in colonial Delhi between 1920s and 1940s she shared a stunning observation about Delhi. She said, “If ever anybody raised the subject of New Delhi my father would always quote the Persian couplet in a most gloomy voice. And of course it did come true. Whoever has built a new city in Delhi has always lost it: the Pandava brethren, Prithviraj Chauhan, Feroz Shah Tughluk, Shah Jehan…they all built new cities and they all lost them. We were no exception.” If we seriously consider the truth in this Persian couplet and think about the near future of Delhi as a city preparing for the commonwealth games a city within the city unapproachable to “common man” will soon be erected. But I don’t think the one who builds it will ever loose it rather one who makes his/her life around it will definitely loose it.

Finally Dalrymple comes to the myth and reality of Indraprasta, the city built by the Pandavas in 900BC. Proffeser B.B.Lal took him to the excavation site of Indrapresta. As the story unfolds we come to terms with a reality of Indraprasta where Dhuryodhna got confused and hurt his ego by the architectural wonder of Maya which had been built with mud. The story of an internal family conflict got into violence and murder, told through the centuries of oral excellence, transformed into a great saga. Where history ends there story begins. Is there an end of history? With a frown on forehead one could ask. The answer is simple; where story begins there history transforms (not necessarily ends; just to make historians a bit relaxed) like the life transforms to make “art” possible.

History is also the story of the one who writes it. It is also the story of the one who imagines it. In both cases Dalrymple has contributed immensely to the history of the city of Delhi.