Writings

Waterhole

It’s been close to five hours since social media went down globally. As I stared at that square clock with the soft edges on the bottom right corner of my undelivered WhatsApp message – never ticking, just always stuck at 3 o’clock – my frustration hopped from one suspect to another: my wifi, my sim card (I’m not the best at technology), the network, the constant London rain – till a friend iMessaged me that WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram had stopped working. My three pillars for communication were (hopefully just temporarily) gone.

I sought out the fourth, rather slower pillar. I quickly opened Gmail, and sent an email to my family.

While I spoke to them, it felt like I was sitting in the dark on a summer evening back home, with candles and hand fans, wondering when the electricity would be back. I remembered my grandmother, who used to love hand fans, especially the ones that went all the way round with just a flick of the wrist. I have a tab open, to keep checking the news about this outage – equivalent to peeking out the window, making sure yours isn’t the only one that is unlit.

Everything felt quieter, slower, smaller. While you are disconnected, you feel closer to the ones you are talking to. There is nothing else happening, nowhere else to go, it is just you and them sitting in that dark room – like animals around a waterhole – talking and making sure that the fans don’t blow out the candles. 

Sigh.

Now where do I post this? *crickets chirping*

Is This Where Humayun Died?

“Is this where Humayun…

...DIED?”

A kid chimed,

and I sighed.

It was a hot and humid afternoon,

And thirty children and I were climbing up to Humayun’s Tomb.

“Humayun died when he fell off the stairs,

When

          he

              ran

                    down fearing he'd miss his evening prayers.”

Although these weren’t those stairs – but they felt never ending,

We huffed and puffed and our backs started bending.

Where he died was Sher Mandal, it was four kms away,

And we had NO intent of visiting it that day.

Then I told them the story of how the tomb was built,

So strong it stood, that time didn’t let it wilt!

It saw the Mughals from beginning to end,

And that is how its time it spent.

It was the first grand Mughal tomb in the subcontinent,

It showed that the rulers were strong and confident!

Years after Humayun, the last Mughal found refuge here, But he was caught by the British who made him disappear.

Now it stands tall again with its finial taller than ever!

Though Humayun didn’t die here, he will surely rest here forever.

Heritage for Kids

Having been working on heritage for kids for the last four years, I have learnt three interesting things about it.

 

OWNERSHIP

First, heritage is a fun space where history comes alive, becomes relevant. Heritage is what tells kids that the past is not just a chapter in the textbooks, but is also the clothes, food, stories of their family. It tells them that history is a part of their lives. It is so important for people to feel connected to heritage and feel that it belongs to them, instead of just looking at it with a 'do not cross' railing in front of them.

The most exciting example of this was when last year I asked kids to make their own museums at home. They pulled out jewellery, utensils, old books, furniture, their parents' clothes and curated the most exciting exhibitions! They made labels, documented stories, and gave tours to their families.

 

ASK, ASK, ASK

The second thing that I learnt was that we don't have all the answers. If we haven't deciphered the Harappan script, it's cocky to imagine that we know everything about them. While it is important to tell kids what historians think, it is equally important to ask them what they think. We shouldn't restrict them by our own limited knowledge.

While taking heritage walks, the most exciting part is to hear what kids think of things! While some ideas *might* be baseless or perhaps based in some fantasy book they read (the people from this time were giants because the doors here are so big), they should be given the space to interpret things themselves. Is this a paintbrush or a make-up brush? Did the Dancing Girl dance for a living or did she have a desk job?

 

HERITAGE IS HARRY POTTER

The final one is connected to the first two: it is really important for the idea of history and heritage to constantly evolve and accommodate what is the past for newer generations. While we still talk about the 1940s and 1950s, the 1990s have quietly snuck their way into the past as well. 

We were once conducting a brainstorming workshop on documenting heritage through films when a kid chimed in with their idea. The film would be called 'Harry Potter and the Passing Generations' and would explore their mother's Harry Potter collection from 1997 which was passed down from her to her siblings, and finally to them.

I'm not sure if the film ever made it to the screens, but I was glad to know that this kid found heritage in Harry Potter.

Darrrling Buds of Indian Coffee House!

It was after work on a Friday evening, that I decided to walk along the horse-shoe shaped market of Delhi — Connaught Place. The place is charming. Maybe not after dark, but till the time the sun is up, it is Delhi. Delhi, as the travellers wrote about it. Delhi, as a space where every second person is connected to the city with an umbilical cord. The cord could be anything. It could be a mutton patty from Wenger’s. Perhaps an Ichhadhari nikkar from Janpath — which ensures all your wishes to come true, once you wear the underwear. It could be a movie at Rivoli. Maybe the second-hand book from the shop without a name because it got rubbed off over the years, but where the shopkeeper insists ‘Darrrling Buds of May toh badi achhi book hai!’. Or it could even be, as my dad insists I add to this list, greeting cards from Giggles. All these emotions for Delhi emerged in me when I nearly bumped into this man in his early old-age, walking purposefully around the corner of — was it Wenger’s? That wrinkled man looked like he was walking around the Connaught Place of his youth. In the two seconds that I saw him, I painted a past for him. For me, he was now a young man enjoying a morning walk on a day off from work, holding a newspaper in his hand, picking up a loaf of bread for breakfast. He looked like he belonged in Delhi, to Delhi, and Delhi belonged to him. Where he went after that, I don’t know. Maybe to pick up his grandkids from Cha Bar, or for a cup of coffee with his comrades to Indian Coffee House, depending on which era he was treading.

A Shiv in Each Hand

More than a century after it was last inhabited, I see a large army standing outside the Red Fort, in a line. They look a bit tired, probably tired of standing there for so long under the scorching sun, sweat dripping down the back of their necks, tickling their backs on its way down, getting absorbed on the tops of their tightly buckled up pants. But why is there an army standing?

I look closer, I realise that it is actually a long queue of history enthusiasts standing in line, waiting for it to take them inside the Fort. Any loose fabric, paper, book in their hands had turned into a temporary hand fan. The other hand shading their eyes, they stood there, persistent. That is some dedication. The things we hear about Apple stores in New York can be applied to monuments here. I feel proud, after which I join the army.

After this long walk to the entrance of the Fort – which I think can easily substitute going to the gym – we witness the Fort in all its glory greeting the crowd, feeling as royal as it was built to be. Perhaps it doesn’t know that the dynastic rule is over, and now we are a democracy. It still believes that it is the home to the Mughal emperor. Inside, I see various places which have often appeared in our school history books. I walk around the Fort, admiring the architecture, while in my head I imagine living there.

I come across this little room. Dark, slightly dingy, smelling of damp air, the coolth – a relief to my sweat clad torso. I stand there for a little while longer. I spend this extra minute inspecting the walls, and I come across something rather odd. Something definitely not from the Mughal period. The feeling of having made a discovery lasted for a micro-second. I move to let the little sunlight that entered the room touch that portion of the wall and I see it. “S ♥ A”. Right there. Posing to be an inscription, it sat there slyly pretended to have been sitting there for the longest time possible. Acting Mughal. But unlike this ‘inscription’, I wasn’t born yesterday. I knew this didn’t belong here. But who was its creator?

I step out of the room with the purpose of finding the parent of this artwork. Disgusted that anyone would do this, I look everywhere. I am horrified to see many more such inscribed declarations of affection. I go on, onwards on my search. But I am soon stopped, hit by a large wall of people. Faces, the same as those who stood in the army outside. Loyal to the Fort then, now they stood against it. A shiv in each hand, and the alphabet in each head, the heart their symbol – it was mutiny.

Taj - A Mausoleum

After 19 years of my existence, I finally got the chance to go to Agra. Home of one of the Seven Wonders of the World. No picture or photograph of The Taj can do justice to the regality of the large, white mausoleum. In the middle of the often cluttered, road-blocked city, stands The Taj. Seemingly unaffected by the paparazzi-like crowd, it stands erect looking at its appreciators.

In the middle of this huge, multiplying crowd and the excitement of finally having seen this Wonder of the World, one forgets the significance of the structure they now enthusiastically photograph.

At night, it’s as if The Taj goes through a personality change. With no crowd around, it’s no more the celebrity it was in the face of the sun – it goes back to what it was built to be – a mausoleum. It stands there, shining in the often underestimated full moon light. The bodyguards of this part-time celebrity switch off all the lights, and we all look gape, with our mouths wide open.

The view is hauntingly beautiful. The scene is eerie. The white monument silently stands as its patrons lie inside, a lonely lantern burns on top of where they sleep, cutting through the fog, piercing our eyes, telling us that they’re there. The Taj is now their’s.