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.