Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange

Text and Image: Sarita Manu

Housed in a quiet corner of the Kharegat Parsi Colony, the Alpaiwalla Museum of Mumbai opens its doors willingly to all curious visitors. And there can be no better guide than Ms. Nivedita Mehta, the curator, who took me through each exhibit in detail and entertained all my queries, patiently.

The museum is named after Mr. Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla, a Parsi, who collected several items in the early 20^th century. Ms. Mehta recollects that typically collectors would spend around 10 to 15% of their income on collecting, but Mr. Alpaiwalla who worked in a bank, put everything into building his collection. His passion for collecting overtook all other interests, and it is said that he eventually lived in his kitchen after he ran out of space in his 11-room home, where he housed the collection. Alpaiwalla first set up the museum at his home and following his death, his entire collection was handed over to the Bombay Parsi Punchayat (BPP). The BPP started a Parsi Punchayat Museum in 1954 at the Kharegat Memorial Building; this was reorganised and renamed Mr. Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum in 1981. The museum was established under the guidance of Alpaiwalla’s friend, Dr. Jamshed Unwalla, a well known religious and Avestan scholar. An archaeologist who trained at the Louvre School of Archaeology, Dr. Unwalla also worked for ten years at the historical city of Susa, in Iran. His archaeological collection from Iran is also housed at the Alpaiwalla museum.

While the museum today highlights the rich history and heritage of the Parsi community, Alpaiwalla collected not only Parsi items, but many others. He was most interested in items that reflected the new and changing ways of the world, and bought frequently from art and antiquity dealers. Among other items, he collected stamps, coins, solar water bottles and perfume bottles from across the world, Indian art pieces, Egyptian antiquities and books. When his collection was bought to the museum, one of the nicest things found was a picture of Dhobi Talao, Mumbai before it was filled up. A huge collection of picture postcards of old Mumbai, India and the world beyond is present in the museum. The collection also includes the calling card of Dadabhai Naoroji, when he was elected to the British House of Commons between 1892 and 1895. Within the collection lies a manuscript of ‘Ijashne’, one of the most important Parsi ceremonies. The manuscript is in Gujarathi, and dated 1850 C.E. The museum also includes the Vendidad Avesta, a sacred book of Zoroastrianism dated 1816 C.E. One treasure is an original firman of Emperor Jahangir issued in 1618 C.E. granting a jagir (a type of land grant) of 100 bighas (4 bighas = 1 acre) to Chandji Kandin and his nephew Hoshang Ranji; Dadabhai Naoroji was their descendent.

Ms. Nivedita Mehta, the curator of the museum, has been collecting material on the Parsi history herself. This includes several photographs of Parsi families, portrait and family paintings of Parsi families, traditional Parsi clothing and photocopies of portrait images of important Parsis that are exhibited here. Although the museum draws only a handful of visitors, it is an effort that will go a long way in sharing the history of the small but influential Parsi community.

By: Haroon Khalid

Lahore, the city of gardens, has lost most of its gardens. The few that have remained have been abandoned out of fear of dengue fever, a disease that haunts Lahore after the monsoon rains. It’s a congested city now, with millions of cars. It is the second most populated city in the country. Millions moved here after the Partition of 1947, changing the landscape of the city forever. Sporadically, in between several commercial plazas, one may notice a historical monument, built during the colonial era or even before that. But in the modern Lahore they seem to be out of place, lacking context. It is impossible to visually imagine the city as a spacious one, with plenty of gardens, and aesthetically pleasant buildings. Project Lahore is aiming to do just that.

“It’s a visual history of Lahore,” says Siddique Shahzad, a 35 year old, IT professional, co-founder of Project Lahore, along with Qasim Khan. “I have always been fascinated with vintage photography. It’s very popular in the West. I have been collecting old photographs of Lahore since the past many years. Recently I decided to put them all together for the people of the city,” says Shahzad. Launched in February 2010, the Facebook page titled “Lahore – the city of gardens” now has almost 6000 ‘likes’ or followers. The group’s various albums have over 500 vintage photographs of the city. It is a collection of old maps, monuments, activities, statues, and paintings, among others. The collection depicts a Lahore that no longer exists. There are several other photographs that will be put up soon. The entire collection is digitized.

Siddique explains how he collected the photographs from different sources, including the British Library, the Columbia University Collection and other sources on the net. His aim has been to put all of them in one place. He has visited antique shops all over the city, purchasing old paintings of Lahore, which he has now also put online. “I always contact my sources and assure them that we will give them the required credit, which helps in convincing them to allow us to use the photographs. We use watermarks to make sure that these pictures are not used commercially from our end, as most of them are commercially protected or have copy rights,” he says. Another project that they launched recently, called “Lahore Memories” aims to use family albums of residents to offer insight into the past.

By: Laxmi Murthy

Attupurathu Mathew Abraham (‘Abu’) was born in Tiruvalla, Kerala, on 11 June 1924. He began his career as a reporter at the Bombay Chronicle and the Bombay Sentinel, and later in Delhi worked as a staff cartoonist and caricaturist at the satirical English-language journal Shankar’s Weekly. In 1953, he moved to London, to receive immediate acclaim from widely respected publications in the UK such as The Observer and The Guardian. Abu Abraham returned to India in 1969 to work in Delhi as a political cartoonist at the Indian Express (1969-81), where he earned a reputation as one of the most hard-hitting cartoonists anywhere in the modern era. In Abu’s own words, he was out there “bursting bloated bladders of lies and pomposity, cutting people down to size; these are the purposes of satire.”

 Abu devoted the last three decades of his life to keeping politicians on their toes, offering up at least one cartoon per day. His unique minimalist style, coupled with acerbic wit and astute political analysis, make him as relevant today as during the decades in which he lived and worked. Abu died on 1 December 2002, thus putting to rest “the conscience of the left and the pea under the princess’s mattress” as The Guardian once described him.

 The precious original works of this prolific cartoonist are held by his daughter Ayisha Abraham in Bangalore. The humungous task of cataloguing and digitizing the cartoons and illustrations has begun.

For more samples and a piece on Abu Abraham’s work, do read “The Pea Under the Matress” (Himal, December 2008)

Satish Sharma is an Indian photographer and cultural critic with a background in the fine arts and journalism. In conversation, writing, and exhibitions, he has frequently spoken of the need for new ways of looking at the world around us — premised on the belief that how we see (which is intertwined with how we interpret what we see) is often determined by our understanding of (and integration in) the culture that surrounds us. Satish gained prominence through his curatorial skills, and his book, Rotigraphy, or Rotiography, a collection of images from small studios around Delhi.

In this interview with Kabita Parajuli of the Hri Institute, Satish answers questions about his work, his philosophy on visuals, and some ideas on how to shake up the world of Southasian photography.

Read more at Himal Southasian

 

Text and images: Sarita Manu

 

When a friend asked me why was I traversing half-way across the city only to look at a wall-painting, I had to admit that it was because (in no specific order) a) there is only much I can stand in Mumbai these days, so I need to move around and find things that can make me like the city again and b) my boss asked me to.

Bollywood Art Project (BAP), a public art project celebrating hundred years of Bollywood,  has reiterated for me that Bollywood is indeed larger than life. Conceptualised and executed by young professionals and artists, Ranjit Dahiya,  Mallika Chabra and Swati Rao from Chandigarh Art School, together with Tony Peters and  Sruti Viswesaran,the BAP aims to create several works of street art across various Indian cities. Their first venture is a mural created on a wall on Chapel Road. When Ranjit said we could meet at the mural, I was hoping I didn’t miss finding it on Chapel Road, the narrow street connecting Mount Carmel Church with Hill Road in Bandra, Mumbai. It was, of course, impossible to miss this enormous hand-painted poster screaming ‘Anarkali’.  The pretty Bina Rai and the handsome Pradeep Kumar with a thin moustache lost in her gaze (yes, I think moustaches are handsome) epitomise ‘love’ – the single most popular emotion in Bollywood ruling the viewers’ hearts and minds. Keeping in line with the spirit of Bollywood it should really have been called the ‘BA(a)P’ (with “baap” meaning father), and not just B A P.

The setting for the poster itself is absolutely marvellous: the wall of a two story building across the Lala Lane compound that serves as a fantastic viewing gallery. I could totally imagine myself spending hours staring at the lovely poster and dreaming. In Mumbai, where millions eat and breathe only ‘Bollywood’, this poster is their chance of owning Bollywood. I could almost hear myself say, ‘This is my/our Bollywood’. After all what is Bollywood without its billions of fans, and what are stars without the stardom bestowed upon them?  The poster offers every viewer a sense of ownership – of the city and its cinema.

Based on a still of the film Anarkali, the poster made passersby wonder aloud, ‘Hmmmm, Looks like from Mughal – e – Azam …’ Anarkali, starring Bina Rai and Pradeep Kumar, was released in 1953 and based on the legendary love between Salim (Akbar’s son) and Anarkali, the beautiful court-dancer. Mughal –e – Azam was a film made in 1960 based on the same theme. Both the films were commercially and critically acclaimed and remain popular to date. It was not until the letters A N A R K A L I were painted that people realised this poster was not from Mughal-e-Azam but from Anarkali. One gentleman did insist that Bina Rai’s smile was similar to that of Madhubala, says Sruti.

Dahiya (as Ranjit is affectionately known), with his 18 years of experience in hand painting posters in varied sizes and scales, finished this mural in just 14 days.  Tony recollects that it was not easy for Dahiya to be perched on this high ladder on a busy street; credit goes to the city and the local residents for their undying support and enthusiasm: the affectionate chai-wala who was ready with the chai all the time; the panipuri wala who was so overwhelmed with the poster that he offered the B A P team, a life-long supply of free pani-puri at his stall; the passerby who stood smoking a beedi and comparing the still image to the painting only to point out that a particular spot needed more light and many such others.

B A P also held a screening of Anarkali at the venue. The response to it was outstanding. Kids from the neighbourhood landed with big bottles of water and a packet of chips, an old woman stood for more than an hour watching the film from a shy corner despite being offered a seat and told that the screening was for free, another gentleman travelled from a distant suburb only to look at how things were being set up. The team had a blast organising the screening despite running around frantically to put it together. The kudos pouring in from all corners has given B A P the much needed momentum to realise their dream of completing many such murals until next year and in many cities.

A fully-self funded initiative, the B A P is now pitching in for funding and hopes to receive maximum financial support. Also, the team is slowly expanding and soon there will be more hands holding up the ladder and setting up the screens. B A P is open to receiving exciting ideas and collaborating with more artists. While the B A P is about celebrating Bollywood cinema’s hundred years, it is important to note that it takes art to the streets and into the public domain. Sruti recounted an experience of working with an artist at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where patrons paid 20 dollars each to watch art. Any art becomes ‘high-art’ when patrons have to pay or when they are screened in closed spaces, she says. And it is this idea that they want to challenge in letting every viewer on the street enjoy art.

Coming up soon: an even bigger mural of Bollywood’s eternal dancing queen, Helen.

By: Daljit Ami

Revisiting Sadayat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) on his birth centenary turned out to be an experience which cannot be described by a single adjective. It was not just a return to Manto but also a home-coming to my associations with him. I was introduced to Manto in the 1980s during my graduation in A S College Khanna, in Ludhiana district of Punjab. There, I could immediately relate Manto’s Toba Tek Singh, as the prevalent vicious communal atmosphere and brutal state response was nothing short of insanity. After graduation I came to Chandigarh which, despite being the capital of Punjab was aloof from the madness reigning in the countryside. Here, Manto again helped me to understand how the same situation could have different impacts. The massacre of April 1919 of Jalianwala Bagh, Amritsar had changed the life of Udham Singh and Sadayat Hasan Manto in different directions. Udham Singh became part of history as Ram Mohammad Singh Azad when he avenged the massacre of Jalianwala Bagh and was hung by the British. In another but equally powerful trajectory, Manto wrote his first short story, Tamasha, using the backdrop of the Jalianwala Bagh massacre, and went on to become one of the most acclaimed story tellers of the Subcontinent, with prolific writing until his untimely death at forty two.

In Chandigarh I learnt that Manto belonged to Papraudi, a village near Samrala in Ludhiana district. We Punjabis have a fluid definition of the term ‘village’. Whenever a Bihari labourer received a visitor, we used to say that someone had come to meet him from his village. It did not matter that one was from Gopalganj at the western end of Bihar and the other from Kotihar in the east. Similarly, when we move out of our villages the concept of village expanded along with the distance from native place. Living in Europe or North America, someone from Bahawalpur (West Punjab) and other one from Patiala (East Punjab) can comfortably claim that they belong to same village. Manto’s village is just 15 km from my village, Daudpur — in the same district and tehsil. This piece of information made me feel closer to Sadayat Hasan Manto. From a mere reader I became his garain or someone from the same village.

In the 1990s Lal Singh Dil, a revolutionary Punjabi poet was running a roadside tea stall in Samrala, from where I used to change my bus while commuting between Chandigarh and Daudpur.  Mostly, I used to stop at his tea stall to talk about poetry, politics and literature or sometimes just to chat. It was a great feeling that Manto, Dil and I are garain.

I went to Lahore in 2003 to attend the Punjabi World Conference. In a parallel program on the Seraiki language someone told me that Hamid Akhtar was also in the gathering. Hamid Akhtar is an old friend of Manto and Sahir Ludhianvi and his ancestral village is also in Ludhiana district. They all migrated to Pakistan after Partition but Sahir eventually returned to India. Hamid Akhtar was looking very frail, as he had just recovered from throat cancer. I was told that his hearing was very weak so he would not be able to understand many things and, furthermore, he could not speak very easily. However, I was sure that he could listen to his garain. I touched his feet and greeted him with folded hands, “Sat Sri Akal.” He looked at me and I introduced myself, “Mein Samrale toh ayan.” (I have come from Samrala.) In a trice, Hamid was on his feet. He hugged me and announced, without the help of a loudspeaker, “Eh mere pindo aya. Manto de pindon. (He has come from my village, from Manto’s village.)” He made me sit next to him, all the while holding my hand. His first question: “Samrale vich kithon ayan.” (From where in Samrala do you come?) I replied, “Daudpur.” With a few explanations, he could understand the geography as well as roads from Daudpur to Papraudi and to his native village near Jagraon. Hamid subsequently recovered from cancer and has visited Chandigarh twice, thereafter. He would call and ask, “Mein aa gayan, sham nu tun meinu sharab pilauni aa.” (I am here. In the evening you will take me for a drink.) We would end up discussing Manto, Sahir, India and Pakistan. This is Sadda Gran, our village.

Recently, I visited Papraudi to make a special program for the news channel Day and Night News, on Sadayat Hasan Manto’s birth centenary. One of Manto’s contemporaries, Ujjagar Singh, remembers having played with him when they were children. At the age of ninety plus Ujjagar Singh has memories of Manto and his family. He identified Manto’s house, which was auctioned after Partition by government as ‘evacuee property’. I asked him if he had read Manto’s writing. He replied, “I have not read him as I can’t read Urdu. I have heard that he is a renowned writer. He has made our village proud.” I talked to at least half a dozen people but none of them was familiar with Manto’s writings.

Then we went to the village Gurudwara where the Punjabi Sahit Sabha, Delhi, opened the Manto Memorial Library two years ago. The caretaker of the Gurudwara, Lakhwinder Singh, looks after the library as it is housed in his one room accommodation. The bookshelf carrying 200 books has two translated volumes of Manto’s stories. The library attracts not more then a couple of readers a month so Lakhwinder Singh has not felt the need to unbundle books. Now Punjabi Sahit Sabha Delhi is planning to shift this collection to Samrala. Hopefully Manto’s writings will have more readers in his home village.

Continuing my quest for Manto the person, I went to Amritsar to film the places he is supposed to have frequented. One such place is Katra Sher Singh where he lived. The demography of this area has changed, as it was a Muslim dominated locality before Partition, and witnessed remorseless killings and brutality of untold magnitude. Katra Sher Singh now has a Hindu-Sikh population. No trace of its bloody past or its displaced populace is visible to an observer.

Manto might have got his characters of Khol Do and Thanda Ghosht straight out of these environs, I imagine as I walk the streets. Since I had been steeped in Manto for many days, I could feel the traumatized young Sakina’s presence. As in Khol do, she is not confined only to being Sirajudin’s daughter, but symbolizes the vulnerability of women subjected to sexual violence during Partition. Even after 65 years, it is scary. I do not want to dwell on what Manto had gone through while witnessing and then recording these details. He took refuge in Toba Tek Singh’s Bishan Singh, who says, “Aupar di, gargar di, bedhiyana di, annex di, mungi di daal of the lantern of the Hindustan of the Pakistan government, dur fiteh munh.” All the words of this sentence are familiar but still it is an enigma inviting silence.  Manto too, is such an enigma who may have grown out of words so he chose silence at the age of forty two. As a garain of Manto I am unnerved by his silence, Sakina’s predicament and Bishan Singh’s gibberish. Oh, when Manto is not confined to any one village, why should I think that I am the only one who is scared while revisiting him? It leaves me with a final question: can scared people celebrate birth centenaries?
For more, watch Part 1 and Part 2 of Daljit Ami’s special programme on Manto.

Chintan Girish Modi

As a boy born and brought up in Mumbai, I have had little acquaintance with the tale of Sohni-Mahiwal other than stray references to this couple in Bollywood films and Hindi television serials replete with love stories, often involving transgression of norms about whom one is allowed to love or/and get married to. I remember hearing Sohni-Mahiwal in the same breath as Heer-Ranjha and Romeo-Juliet. While I had no introduction to the stories of these lovers, I recognized that they were legendary and spectacular. Indeed, it appeared as though passionate lovers who dared to defy social norms seemed to be inspired by these precedents.

I had a closer encounter with Soh(i)ni and Mahiwal (also called Mehar) a year ago, as a researcher with the Kabir Project. Filmmaker Shabnam Virmani narrates the story during a festival of Sindhi Sufi poetry, ‘Seeking the Beloved’. The festival celebrated the verse of 17^th century Sufi Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai who weaves spiritual allegories around the tales of legendary lovers like Sohni-Mahiwal, Sassi-Punhoon, Umar-Marui, Leela-Chanesar and others.

Shabnam’s narration is inspired from Shah Adbul Latif: Seeking the Beloved, a book by Anju Makhija and Hari Dilgir, which features translations of Latif’s Sindhi verse into English for contemporary readers. The book was published by Katha in 2005. In this festival video we get to hear this narration, followed by a soul-stirring musical rendition of this story by Sumar Kadu Jat and Mitha Khan Jat from Kutch. This article by Namrata Kartik from the Kabir Project archives hosted on Open Space India’s Tana-Bana platform describes Shah Latif’s quest for the beloved.

As I watch the video again, the music and the narration inspire me to share the basic elements of the story before I proceed to share what meaning I make of it.

What I find amazingly progressive here is the fact that the agency in this love story is not with Mahiwal and Tulla alone. Sohni too is a strong, powerful figure. She knows what she wants. Her faith is unflinching. She cares little for the social mores that she is required to follow as bride, daughter and daughter-in-love. She is not bothered about “log-kya-kahenge”. She is drenched in her love for Mahiwal.

 

One of Anju Makhija and Hari Dilgir’s translations says (the numbers in brackets refer to Shah Latif’s Sindhi original Shah Jo Risalo):

those who got a glimpse

abandoned their homes

and husbands

even without matkas

in the whirlpool they swirled

(79/5)

 

Another one states:

beseeching god’s help

sohini journeys on a matka

ornaments sink

sharks

crocodiles encircle

whales threaten

to tear limbs apart

(81/15)

 

Yet another stanza states:

she jumps in

to choose safe waters

is the route of impostors

those who love

take on the mighty river

(86/4)

And yet another:

mehar

is

sohini

so is the river

an unfathomable mystery

(83/34)

 

These stanzas, coupled with the intensity of the Waee performance in the video, give me gooseflesh. There is something utterly mad and moving about this intensity. The waves lash at you. They slap you in the face. They take you along in the current. They embrace, envelop and elevate you. They seem to tell you that you are a fool caught up in pleasing the world, that you should just follow your bloody heart because there is nothing wiser than that.

In the video, Shabnam says, “The river has flowed for centuries between desire and fulfillment. What lies on this side of the banks of the river is the status quo, the establishment, the structures of containment, and the plunge is transgression. And I think Sohini’s failure perhaps lay in her return at dawn to keep up the pretence. And in a sense, in Sohini’s failure, lie all our failures as we struggle to move between this bank and the other, between had and anhad.”

Perhaps there is some truth in this. I am not sure if I want to see Sohini as a failure though. It is easy to think of her as some kind of tragic heroine punished for the fatal flaw of having courted the forbidden, dreamt outside of what is permissible. Why the gooseflesh then? Why don’t I feel repelled by her? Why do I find her incredibly attractive? I may not make the kind of audacious choices that Sohni and Mahiwal made but their story inspires me to stand up for what I believe in, despite the hurdles that might come my way. And this is not just about matters of love. It extends to the kind of work I want to do, the people I want to be friends with, the places I am comfortable in, the questions I allow my students to ask in the school where I teach.