R V Smith - Delhi: unknown tales of a city

About the book

Ronald Vivian Smith is an author of personal experiences a rare breed to find in a time when even journalists hesitate to put pen to paper without scanning through the internet. A definitive voice when it comes to some known and unknown tales and an inspiration to a new generation of city-scribes, Smith is a master-chronicler of Delhis myriad realities. Among the capitals most ardent lovers, Smith believes in the power of observation and interaction. His travels across Delhi, most often in a DTC bus, examine the big and small curiosities seamlessly juxtaposing the past with the present. Be it the pride he encounters in the hutments of one of Chandni Chowks age-old beggar families, or his ambling walks around Delhis now-dilapidated cemeteries, Smith paints with his words a city full of magic and history. This anthology features short essays on the Indian sultanate, its fall after the British Raj, and its resurrection to become what it is today the National Capital Territory of Delhi.

No amount of bookish knowledge can compete with the sort of insights and real, lived memories he [Smith] has. Rakshanda Jalil, LiveMint

When it comes to writing on monuments of Delhi known, little known or unknown no one does a better job than R.V. Smith. Khushwant Singh, Hindustan Times

ROLI BOOKS

This digital edition published in 2015

First published in 2015 by
The Lotus Collection
An Imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd
M-75, Greater Kailash- II Market
New Delhi 110 048
Phone: ++91 (011) 40682000
Email: info@rolibooks.com
Website: www.rolibooks.com

Copyright R.V. Smith, 2015

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Roli Books. Any unauthorized distribution of this e-book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

eISBN: 978-93-5194-096-8
Cover: Sneha Pamneja

All rights reserved.
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publishers prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published.

Dedicated to Joseph Lawrence Tobias
(1935-2013)
more than a friend, a brother,
whose interest in the history of Agra (where he was born),
along with Delhi and Kolkata (where he died) was phenomenal.

Contents

Foreword

am delighted to introduce this new book by an old friend, R.V. Smith, whose writing and general knowledge of Delhi, his adopted home, is legendary. History runs in the Smith family, who are descended from Salvador Smith (1783-1871), the soldier who trained the troops of Daulat Rao Scindia.

R.V. Smith is the son of the late journalist Thomas Smith (1910-1995), whose articles in numerous newspapers were always full of interesting snippets about the bits of history that historians usually neglect. His book, Agra: Rambles and Recollections was republished in 2007. R.V. Smith is a worthy successor to his father, and is the author of eight books on Delhi, of which, The Delhi That No-One Knows has become a bestseller.

During his career, R.V. Smith worked for the Statesman, and since retirement has continued to pen articles for the Hindu and the Statesman. He began writing articles on monuments, historical places and the social life in the Walled City of old Delhi in 1958. He also writes poetry and romantic novels, including Jasmine Nights & The Taj. Another novel, on the eighteenth-century courtesan who became the empress, Qudsia Begum is underway. His interest extends to Egyptology, the occult, which led to a book of ghost stories, The Veiled Shadow, and mysticism.

He came to Delhi over fifty-two years ago and slowly grew to love the city. A born romantic, he attended mujras by dancing girls and sat at the shrines of Sufi saints late at night to hear qawwalis. Born in January 1938, he was educated at St Peters College, Agra, from where he did his Senior Cambridge and later received the MA degree in English literature at St Johns college. His liking for Delhi was heightened by the fact that it is almost a twin of Agra, his beloved home town, where he still goes to recharge his batteries. The old-world ambience of Delhi intoxicated him and he tried to merge it with his Anglo-Indian antecedents, researching poets like Alexander Heatherley Azad, a pupil of Ghalibs nephew, and Benjamin Montrose Muztar, a pupil of Ustad Daagh Dehlvi.

As a regular Sunday churchgoer, he found that many of the earlier Italian Capuchin fathers had written treatises on Mughal history, medieval life and manners, right up to the aftermath of Great Uprising of 1857. This also gave him material for his own articles. In his long career he has won a Rotary Club award, the Michael Madhusudan award for journalism and the Canon Holland prize for general knowledge. For him Delhi is not a city but a timeless begum who excites love, devotion and nostalgia. She is truly the beloved of all Delhiwalahs but mistress of none.

This is a book to be enjoyed, that will surprise those who believe they already know everything about their city.

Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones
London

Preface

elhi fascinated me after I had fallen in love with Agra, my birthplace. Though my second home does not have as many monuments as the city of the Taj Mahal, it is fortunate in being the capital of the country and as such the cynosure of all eyes. But its medieval edifices (despite the ASIs efforts) are in need of better preservation. This book is a collection of articles originally written for the Statesman and the Hindu (published between 1990 and 2011), with whose courtesy they are being reproduced under one cover. It is from my father, Thomas Smith, that I inherited interest in old, half-forgotten things and the urge to celebrate lost causes and forsaken beliefs. Besides the Internet, the tendency to stand and stare is also the begetter of knowledge. This is what I, a virtual computer novice have practiced over the decades and the result is before you. My sincere thanks to Roli Books for consenting to publish a ramblers labour of love.

R.V. Smith

A Memorable Halloween

alloween is observed in Delhi in the Diplomatic Enclave. Some hotels have also started observing the eve of the feast of the All Hallows or All Saints.

On that night, it is believed that the spirits of the dead pay a visit to their erstwhile habitat. Since it is hard to find spirits, people dress up as wizards and witches and some even put on pumpkin heads, complete with cut-out features of what a ghost would look like. Some children go even further and dress in black, and wear masks depicting a skeletons face. There have been instances in the U.S. and Britain too, when immigrants from the Orient, particularly women and kids, have gotten hysterical on answering the doorbell and seeing Halloween revelers grinning at them with ghoulish glee. A girl from Lebanon nearly died after one such encounter in New York last year.

In India, few people know about this strange observance, but some embassy staff of Western countries get together to put up a Halloween show in Chanakyapuri. This scribe attended one such show at a time when Peter Hazelhurst was a representative of the Times, London in New Delhi. Hazelhurst had just dropped in for a short while, but the AP man had come all decked up like a wizard and was among those group of people including a few women who seemed to be enjoying the early 1970s evening the most, with groans and screams and whistles building up a ghostly atmosphere in the dimly-lit room.