Punjabi: story of a script’s decline

Delhi’s moment of cultural transition came in 1947, as hordes of Punjabi refugees streamed into the city in the aftermath of Partition. From the languid, laid-back city where the charms of Urdu held sway, the city was gradually transformed into its aggressive and boisterous Punjabi character of present-day. Today, Punjabi is Delhi’s second language (it edged out Urdu marginally in terms of number of speakers in the city in the 2001 Census), yet its imminent decay is something it shares with Urdu.

Though it is still widely spoken and can be heard in conversations, public and private, it’s decline in the written form is alarming. Today, Punjabi has all but vanished from public view – from billboards, signboards, posters and, even, graffiti on dust-weathered walls. Which is why, The Centre for Punjabi Literature and Art on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg holds a surprise.

Instead of a crumbling, sarkari building, the Centre for Punjabi Literature and Art is an impressive whitewashed structure, with well-manicured lawns and a welcoming character. Inside, the library is a cosy, elegant one with wooden bookshelves filled with titles from every genre. But, there is another surprise – hardly any readers. In the two hours Newsline spent at the library, not a single browser arrived to peruse through its shelves.

As librarian Trilok Chand Kaur informs us, the library has all of 75 members. “Every week, 6-7 people arrive. Most of them are students from Delhi University, who are pursuing a degree in Punjabi,” says Kaur. The rest of the numbers are made up by the odd academic and even rarer is the languorous reader with a voracious appetite for Punjabi literature. The visitors register for this month shows just two names, as we approach the middle of November.

This state of Punjabi saddens Pyara Singh, the 85-year-old secretary of the Centre. Singh recalls the heady days of the 1940’s, when he first arrived in the city. “We formed the Punjabi Sahitya Sabha in Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, which founded the idea for this institution. In classrooms, Punjabi used to be taught all day, without any charge,” he says. With quiet passion, Singh writes the Punjabi alphabet and talks about its “facility of script”. “It’s a fairly easy language to learn, yet no one is interested. I can teach it to anyone within a week,” he says.

What accounts for the steady decline of Punjabi as a written language? Its lack of economic status is also accompanied by the paucity of institutions supporting it. Apart from a few schools run by minority trusts, such as the Harkrishan Public School, the options for learning Punjabi at the school level do not exist. In this sense, it is probably worse off than Urdu, which still has a greater transference due to its wide network of madrassas.

The Punjabi Centre for Literature and Art, along with some branches of the Sahitya Akademi, are the last bastions holding up the vast literature of a rich and varied language. Every second Saturday, Singh, along with a few other enthusiasts, organise a workshop at the Centre’s auditorium where poetry and prose pieces in Punjabi are read.

The greater challenge for them would be to breathe life again into the written word of this language that, at least verbally, is still rambunctious and alive. What remains to be seen is whether the works of Singh’s favourite writers, like Bhai Veer Singh and Amrita Pritam, can be woken from their long hibernation within the Centre’s shelves.

A version of this piece appeared in The Indian Express.

A scattered tribe of anonymous artists

71-year-old Charan Singh’s freckles mirror the fine lines he draws to capture the elusive faces as he sits in the Tilak Marg police station. For more than 25 years, he has been drawing the sketches for the police, helping to retrieve them from the sea of anonymity through his deft craft.

Singh spent his early years painting hoardings that were transported to B-grade theatres in Allahabad, Gorakhpur and other areas of UP. With pride, he recalls making the posters of iconic films such as Bobby, Ram aur Shyam and many others. “I got many awards for my work from distributors and producers,” he says.

His services were first called upon after a robbery in Sadar Bazar, not far from his house in Jama Masjid, could not be solved. “The police came with the servant who had witnessed the robbery. I promptly drew a sketch based on what he told me,” he says.

This began what was to be a long association, as his services were frequently called upon to solve similar cases. Through word-of-mouth recommendations, more police stations began to seek his services. Soon, he was drawing sketches for police stations in Jama Masjid, Daryaganj and Civil Lines as well.

But slowly, work began to dwindle as the age of computerisation firmly set in. Today, most police stations employ the services of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and the Crime Records Office at Delhi Police headquarters for drawing computer-enabled portraits of wanted persons.

Men like Singh, earlier an invaluable asset, have now become a scattered tribe of artists who are called upon rarely. It is not surprising, then, to hear Singh being dismissive about technology. “Computerised sketches are not the real thing,” he says.

This argument is not entirely without merit. In June, a toddler named Gungun was kidnapped outside India Gate, with computerised sketches proving inadequate. After Singh’s sketch of the kidnapper was published in newspapers, the girl was dropped outside Jhandewalan.

Singh still makes about 3-4 sketches a day. “Sometimes I copy something off the newspaper. If a friend or relative drops in, I make a sketch of him. It is important to stay in touch with one’s art,” he says. In fact, the striking thing is that they see themselves primarily as artists. “Writers, musicians, sportsmen – all need to practice their craft to remain sharp. It’s the same for me,” says Singh.

Yet, the public acclaim of artists forever eludes police sketchers like Singh. In fact, it is a necessary condition for their existence. Even today, he has lost none of the shrewd instincts of earlier years. He never lets an autorickshaw drop him outside his house, or divulge any personal details to strangers.

What gives him the most satisfaction is helping people. “Sketching is a passion, but I need to remain invisible. It is my sketches that must continue to speak.”

Today, he is one among a dying breed of anonymous artists, whose deft craft may not exist for much longer, replaced wholly by technology.

A version of this piece appeared in The Indian Express.

Closing of abattoir butchers many livelihoods

As Idgah closes, butchers and meat sellers fear an uncertain future

As the MCD sealed the buffalo section of Idgah, it meant curtains for the abattoir that has been the source of many livelihoods. By afternoon, Idgah resembled a small township, deserted and abandoned. In small corners, men sat idly, drinking tea and anxiously wondering what lay ahead. Mohd Jameel Qureshi, who has been working at Idgah for the last two decades, said, “I used to buy 2-3 goats every day and sell them in the market. With the new slaughterhouse in Ghazipur more than 15 kms away, whatever I earn will be lost in transportation.”

Small-time traders and butchers in the meat trade, like Qureshi, will bear the brunt of the move to Ghazipur. About 3000 people are expected to lose jobs as the result of this move. The question most of them ask – why has Idgah not been modernised? “For years, we’ve been asking for facilities. At the time of elections, they promise improvements but nothing has materialised for the last 10 years,” said Nadeem Qureshi, a butcher who slaughtered buffaloes at Idgah.

Most of these butchers live in Quresh Nagar, a cramped neighbourhood located a stone’s throw away from Idgah. Most of them are employed in the meat trade, and have been for generations. There is not a family here that doesn’t live under a cloud of anxiety, most of them stunned by this disruption to even begin thinking ahead.

65-year-old Sarvar Qureshi is almost on the verge of tears – she lives with her grandson Hashim, who was employed at Idgah. “We had a little bit – now even that is being snatched away from us,” she said. “We have nowhere to go, as my grandson is not skilled in any other profession. Our whole community’s bread and butter is tied to this profession.”

On a weekday such as this, Quresh Nagar would usually be absorbed in the business of buying and selling meat, and other activities that revolve around the trade. But this is not an ordinary day, and at every small corner, newly unemployed men sit. Most of them agree that crime is likely to increase in the area. 72-year-old Ziauddin Qureshi, one of the ‘elders’ in the area, said, “Our children have been rendered useless. How should we go on – should we burgle and steal?”

A version of this piece appeared in The Indian Express.

In Old Delhi, 1984 was a narrow escape

Every day at 5 am, 56-year-old Karnal Singh begins his day’s work at Sisganj gurdwara. For 15 years now, he has been selling devotional CD’s of all hues and colours, including one that narrates the 1984 massacre. But he doesn’t need it to remember the evening of November 1, 1984, when hordes of hooligans attacked this very gurdwara. “Acid bottles were thrown, stones were thrown. I don’t know how we survived,” he says.

Lakhbir Singh was at the frontline as Sisganj was in a state of siege. He lifts his shirt to show me a stab wound mark that he bore during that time, as a 30-year-old man. “We stopped them from entering the gurdwara. I sustained this wound as I was trying to push them back towards that fountain,” he says, pointing towards the white marble structure facing Sisganj.

The pain may have receded with the passing of time, but the resentment still lingers. Even today, he goes every time when Tytler is produced in court. “Why don’t they arrest and punish him?” he says, trying to contain the anger in his voice.

What do they think of Manmohan Singh as PM today? Words of praise flow out at the honesty and the integrity of the man. In some ways, does it assuage some of the anger and the pain of 1984? “Ek mahaul tha, khatam ho gaya (It was an atmosphere which has got over now),” says Lakhbir Singh. Karnal Singh can’t forget the feast prepared in anticipation of 1 lakh devotees (as Guru Tegh Bahadur shahid divas was approaching) that was later dumped into the Yamuna. But both thank providence and believe good fortune saved them during that tumultuous time.

But the question remains – why did a communally sensitive flashpoint such as Chandni Chowk managed to stay more or less clear of the violence? There are many theories. Karnal Singh says he firmly remembers Kiran Bedi arriving and securing the area. Others say there were few policemen and the resistance from the gurdwara repelled the aggressors.

What is likely to have happened is that, following the first tidal wave of resistance, the aggressors simply realised it wasn’t necessary to win this battle when there were far easier targets elsewhere. Instead of trying to locate the odd Sikh family huddled somewhere within the labyrinthine maze of Old Delhi, mostly in Dariba Kalan and Sitaram Bazar, most of them left for east Delhi where a free-for-all massacre was taking place.

An atrociously edited version of this piece appeared in The Indian Express on November 2.

Resting easy with the Booker

The lack of ‘Indians’ in this year’s prize race should provide cause for introspection

In late July, one news item largely escaped attention, making a fleeting appearance in the inside pages of our newspapers. The Booker longlist was out, and not a single Indian author had featured in it. The national media just as easily ignored it, moving on to other things. For someone not particularly clued in to the literary scene, it would seem that the Booker Prize is not taking place this year at all.

For long, our engagement with the Booker Prize has been defined by this sort of inconsistency. Our frenzied reactions to a Booker win, making no qualms about appropriating the success of an immigrant elite as unmistakably Indian, only make the task of a critical engagement more difficult. In the event of an Indian winning the prize, as Adiga last year did, the otherwise indifferent attitude to the prize transforms into another opportunity to beat up our chests with proud nationalist fervour.

This is particularly silly, because every artistic achievement is, first and foremost, an individual one. Writing is even more so – it is an act of solitary cultural production, the fruit of the labour of hours spent alone. At times, this alliance with nationalism can also backfire spectacularly, when writers are unwillingly bound to the metanarrative of a rising nation. The most obvious example is Arundhati Roy, whose oppositional politics surprised those who were quick to anoint her the darling of a resurgent India.

Far more alarming, though, is the reluctance of the literary intelligentsia to contest the politics of the Booker Prize. The prize now has been awarded to diverse writers from many parts of the world (within that relic called the Commonwealth), imbuing the Booker with the appearance of radical qualities. Yet despite 40 years of the prize, the category of the so-called ‘universal’ writer is still occupied by the white Christian male. The rest can all be slotted in a ghetto of their own – women writers, Asian writers and so on.

Especially in the case of Asia and Africa, the writers function as imperial ethnologists, representing their ‘native’ lands in forms that must both entertain and elucidate. It is not surprising, then, that while the prize-winning citation of predominantly white writers is framed in generally vague liberal humanist terms, the Indian and African writer usually finds his work slotted in particular terms, representing a country or continent.

Another aspect that makes the evaluation of the Booker problematic is the debate within Britain as to what purpose the prize must serve. A substantial section of the literary establishment believes that the Booker is essentially a ‘British’ prize, reflecting the country’s values and ideas of literature. Not surprisingly then, in the year after the prize has gone to an ‘outsider’, the Booker finds itself responding to a backlash that exhorts it to return to its origins as an upholder of British literature.

This is as true of 2009, as it has been of previous years. Let us consider the books that won the prize in 1982, 1998 and 2007 – years after Rushdie, Roy and Desai won respectively. Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark (1982), Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam (1998) and Anne Enright’s The Gathering (2007) are books that share a convention of form, theme and narrative. All are defined by a sedate, conservative way of storytelling, centred on events distinctly European. This is offset against the tumultuous narrative energy and radical formalism of at least two books that preceded them – Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.

A look at the 2009 shortlist is revealing, yet entirely predictable, with its abundance of quintessentially British novels. The Booker favourite, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, is a tale about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s trusted adviser, as he tries to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. The Booker website calls it ‘that rare thing: a truly great English novel’. Adam Foulds’ The Quickening Maze is a historical reconstruction of the meeting of the poets John Clare and Alfred Tennyson at a lunatic asylum in Epping Forest, while Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger is a ghost story set in post-war Warwickshire. Add to this, AS Byatt’s The Children’s Book, a ‘vivid, rich and moving saga taking us from the Kent marshes to Paris and Munich and the trenches of the Somme’.

It is during years such as this that the Booker’s relevance as a global literary prize comes severely under question. Therefore, this is a time good as any to examine the Booker Prize in its historical context and redefine the terms of our engagement. One of the most heartening aspects of The White Tiger win last year was the vibrant cultural dialogue and spirited debate that followed. It is a dialogue that, in a mature literary milieu, we must now seek to begin on our own. The Booker may then become an event to which we pay attention, but it does not define our sense of literary worth.

The old in the new

By subverting popular idioms, a new wave of filmmakers are redefining Hindi cinema

Once again, we have arrived at a moment in our cinema when the seemingly distinct categories of ‘arthouse’ and ‘commercial cinema’ are collapsing. In the ’80s, when the chasm between these two categories was at its zenith, socially meaningful cinema flourished. Yet apart from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, a scathing satire on the embedded web of corruption, it is hard to recall a film from that period that has survived into mainstream consciousness today. This was after an extraordinary spell in the ’70s, when fuelled by the masterly screenplays of Salim-Javed, films like Deewaar made such categories redundant.

Over the last year, a number of films have challenged those notions, rejecting the ghettoisation of ‘arthouse’ cinema in order to effect change from within the mainstream. Films such as Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D, Dibakar Banerjee’s Oye Lucky Lucky Oye and, now, Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey have unlocked the potential within popular idioms of Hindi cinema. Contemporary interpretation of the proverbial tale of twin brothers or the story of Devdas for these filmmakers allows easy translatability, giving them a mainstream platform while leaving room for avant-garde expression. Thus, subversion of popular idioms becomes the conduit to weave tales of modern India.

One of the ways in which this subversion is achieved is by privileging disjunctions over continuity. In the original Devdas, for example, his death serves the purpose of preservation of the patriarchal order. However, the subaltern narrative of society’s suppression of women in Devdas is given agency in Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D. Kashyap’s target is the hypocrisy of patriarchal structures that finds itself in crisis when faced with a more assertive female sexuality. Thus, the lead protagonist played by Abhay Deol encourages sexual liberalism in Paro, but is unable to respond adequately when it threatens to outgrow patriarchal consent. Chanda’s father, on the other hand, commits suicide when shown a mirror to his participation in society’s collective lust which invokes morality while it receives gratification.

In an iconic film such as Ram aur Shyam, the twin brothers are united in pursuit of a common goal— the return to rightful inheritance and restoration of a slightly readjusted feudal order. In Kaminey, for the most part, they engage in a clash of competing self-interests — it seems inevitable that one’s happiness must come at the cost of the other. In earlier versions, the filial bond was sacrosanct, yet Kaminey repeatedly violates this maxim to portray a society getting rapidly atomised. Fittingly, Bhardwaj sets his tale in the brutally competitive world of Dharavi.

Another common thread in these films is the dark, dystopian urban vision, revolving around themes of alienation. The city does not exist as a singular entity — it inhabits diverse worlds, the distance between those is immeasurably vast. This is only too evident in Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, a film almost entirely set in the capital that steers clear of Delhi’s dominant representation in cinema. Instead, Banerjee focuses his lens on the claustrophobia of growing up in a west Delhi ghetto, the narrative of people excluded from centres of power. Similarly, the ubiquitous pictures of Marine Drive and Bandra that populate films set in Mumbai are largely absent from Kaminey.

The decade-long reign of the banners of Yash Chopra and Karan Johar, beginning with DDLJ in 1995, came at a moment when the middle classes were grappling with identity — the new wealth could not make them overcome a lingering unease with modernity. Their films celebrated this fraught coexistence, by effortlessly merging regressive values with consumer culture. In Oye Lucky, the protagonist is a victim of both — he seeks to firmly abandon the former, while wanting to conquer the latter. Oye Lucky replicates some aspects of the loud, baroque film with Punjabi characters, only for it to serve as a form of critique. Lucky is the antithesis of the archetype Punjabi lead in, for example, Karan Johar’s films. He never completely belongs in a consumerist milieu while the ‘native culture’ so beloved of their films is, for him, a prison that he must escape.

Another remarkable aspect is the astute skill with which these filmmakers have incorporated contemporary events, without appearing contrived or cynical. From the right-wing politics of Raj Thackeray’s MNS to the DPS MMS scandal, their interpretation has taken the form of progressive interventions.

Vishal Bhardwaj, Dibakar Banerjee and Anurag Kashyap are at the forefront of a new wave of filmmakers reshaping popular Hindi cinema, merging tribute with critique. Their films have served as expressions of dissent in a cinematic culture veering towards lazy self-congratulation. Contributing to constructive change from within mainstream cinema, they have taken up old chestnuts and infused them with radical energy, opening up new horizons in which we can re-imagine the popular Hindi film.

This piece appeared in the op-ed pages of The Indian Express on August 20.

Discourse on freedom

I can’t remember the last time I read something so singularly infuriating and astonishingly puerile. Here Aakar Patel in Mint -

The British left in 1947, and they left too soon. We celebrate Independence Day, but another six decades of dependence as Great Britain’s colony would have been good for us. We could have learnt how to run cities. No harm in admitting what is obvious for all to see: We cannot even manage traffic.

I don’t mind satire, in fact, I relish it, but this is such mindless expression. There are so many things wrong with this post – the equation of the long, painful history of colonisation with the concerns peculiar to a merely vehicle-owning class. There’s more to follow -

Delhi would have more bits like the ones the British built, the only elegant parts of the city, just as British South Bombay is the only elegant part. Cities such as Surat and Ahmedabad and Hyderabad and Indore would have become civilized.

I can understand that Patel never read Fanon, by the above extract. But here’s another gem – the colonial economy destroyed indigenous scholarship, but Patel clearly thinks we could done with a bit more of Macaulay.

The great German tradition of Indology continues through men such as Heinrich von Stietencron, but a sustained engagement through colonial government would have resulted in more attention to Indian studies…What else would be better? Education, through the Macaulay plan.

This is irresponsible journalism at its worst. I agree that being politically engaging isn’t a priority for Mint Lounge, yet we could do without this tripe.

Hungry, and without a vote

It is early morning in Chandni Chowk, and the poll booths do not show encouraging signs of activity. The only people at work are the pavement barbers, trimming with mechanical ease. In a small alley off Nai Sarak, kids have never found playing cricket on the street so smooth and uninterrupted as all the shops are closed. This scenario of deserted streets and uncharacteristic calm replicates itself everywhere else in the walled city on this sluggish morning. The enthusiastic voting that will eventually push up the turnout to 50 percent is a story for the latter part of the day.

However, this day is no different from any other for Mohammad Ali, a 45-year-old daily labourer from Murshidabad in West Bengal. He is one among hundreds of men that squat outside the numerous food stalls in Matia Mahal waiting for his first morsel of bread. “Some wealthy man usually comes from Jama Masjid after the morning prayers to feed us, especially after some wish has been fulfilled. On a few lucky days, we are able to eat. Otherwise, we have no option but to go hungry.” On being asked whether he had voted, he replied, “I am homeless, therefore I cannot vote. I have no passport, no ration card to prove my existence.”

Sonu, who migrated to Delhi a decade ago still hadn’t got his vote. He said, “I tried to contact the authorities but they say that you have no residential address. Does it mean that I cannot vote?”

This was a problem in the slums opposite Meena Bazaar as well, where most people had no voter ID cards. Residents of the colony told The Indian Express that no one from the Election Commission had contacted them and helped them register as voters. Surprisingly, most people who had not been able to register seemed eager and enthusiastic to vote.

Ashok Kumar Rawat, 43, had been able to secure breakfast but was still looking for work near the Dojana House polling booth in Matia Mahal. He said, “Of course, I would love to vote if I get the chance. Maybe it can make some difference.”

I wrote this story while covering the 2009 general elections for The Indian Express.

Facing extinction

Despite the odds, DU’s vendors have stayed on. Now they fear an uncertain future

Rajkumar at his stall outside DU's Faculty of Law

Every day at 7 am, 42-year-old Rajkumar Suri sets off from East Delhi’s Vivek Vihar for the hour-long journey to North Campus. For four years now, his stall has been a fixture outside DU’s Faculty of Law. For a decade before that, he sold vegetables at the Azadpur Mandi. “The money wasn’t steady, so I left,” he says.

Selling banta in the summer and making hot tea for students during the chilly months of winter, Rajkumar feels content. “There is at least some form of regular income. My children are able to study well,” he says.

However, every month he has to give a thousand rupees to the extortionist institutions of state – the police, the MCD and anybody else who can claim to be from the government. Most vendors, like Rajkumar, are resigned to their fate. “Kya karein? (What to do?),” they say.

Lal Singh, 35, has been working outside Ramjas College for the last 17 years. This native of Faizabad says, “I have no choice but to pay the money. I have a wife and three children, and it is hard to survive on the Rs 2500 I’m left with.” However, he is more worried about a change of guard. “Every time a new officer comes, there is trouble.”

Early last year, the police ordered all the stalls shut. “I didn’t know what to do, many times I was close to tears,” says Rajkumar. After repeated requests from vendors, the authorities relented. But after things became normal, the monthly rates were raised. Many vendors would be happy to pay a similar amount to the government, in return for accreditation. “They can give us a private lease, or a contract. At least, we won’t be harassed,” he says.

The government, though, has other plans in store. A large number of venues for the Commonwealth Games in 2010 are in the campus, which means that the vendors will be kicked out. “I may have to move to some other area, or find another job,” admits Lal Singh. “Nobody can stay hungry.”

Rajkumar has some suggestions. “They can make nice stalls for us, give us proper facilities,” he says. “Koi bahar se aa raha hai, to apne ghar ke aadmi ko bahar nikal do? (If a guest comes from outside, do you kick your own people out?)”

This story appeared in Real Page 3 in The Sunday Express on July 26.

Notes in a courtroom

Buried in the crime briefs of last week’s papers was the story of Arvind Kumar. In Tis Hazari’s Room No 238, Kumar was sentenced to life imprisonment for a crime committed on a frosty December day 15 years ago.

In 1994, following a protracted period of tension and animosity, Kumar had shot his fellow constable Mohd Rashid with his service pistol. Sitting behind me in the courtroom as the judge pronounced the verdict, Kumar sat holding his wife’s hand on one side and a cop clutching his hand on the other.

The cop’s firm grip seemed incongruous, almost unnecessary. Arvind looked a man utterly defeated, his crime of passion in one stroke had taken all life out of him. Despite having the burly physique typical of cops, standing was too much of a strain and he needed help to do so. He looked tired.

Since the age of 27, Arvind has been behind bars. In these 15 years, his brother has died, his two young children are on the cusp of adulthood while he has lived under the fear of having to stand at the gallows one day. And it has taken 15 years for a district court to get to the end.

It is possible that once he may have had the swagger and authority of Delhi cops, but that was not the person I met. His eyes were empty, beyond regret, beyond longing, removed from any sense of time itself.

I tried talking to him, but it was similar to flogging a dead horse. Words had taken flight – he searched for them, but they were no longer there.