Tag Archives: Umrao Begum

DOWN MEMORY LANE – Revisiting the poet’s hearth

Agra, UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

AT HOME Visitors at Ghalib’s Haveli | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
AT HOME Visitors at Ghalib’s Haveli | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

We know Mirza Ghalib as a Dilliwallah, but the bard had a strong emotional connection with Agra as well

Mirza Ghalib’s death anniversary on 15th February did not evoke the same interest as his birth anniversary two months earlier. Of course, there was a literary festival in Connaught Place and another in India International Centre, one can say the 210th birth anniversary drew greater public attention than probably that of any other Urdu (or Hindi) poet. The haveli he lived in and the Town Hall were the main venues of the functions then, along with the Subz Burj Park in Nizamuddin, now named after him. But nobody thought of holding a function at Kala Mahal in Agra, where Mirza Nausha was born on December 27, 1797 and of which he was so nostalgic because of childhood memories. Just goes to show how possessive Delhiwallahs have become of Ghalib and of Mir Taqi Mir, who was not only born in Agra but also had an affair with his cousin in the vicinity of the Taj. An enraged family then shunted off the Mir to Delhi where he attained great heights before moving to Lucknow at the invitation of the Nawabi Court of Awadh, where his outdated attire provoked him to recite his famous introduction: “Dilli jo ek Shahr tha alam mein intikhab…/Jisko falak ne loot ke bezar kar diya/Hum rehne wale hain usi ujre dayar ke” (I’m a resident of the same looted garden, Delhi, devastated by heaven).

Incidentally, it was the Mir Sahib who had predicted that the boy Ghalib (whose early recitals he had heard) would one day become a big shair. But Yours Truly spent a whole afternoon in and around Ghalib’s haveli last week and wondered at the sudden twist of destiny that has brought it into the limelight again. The area of Ballimaran, of which Gali Qasim Jan is a part, got its name (there are other versions too) from the boatmen who once inhabited it. Thereafter, it saw a sea-change with the high and mighty deciding to build their havelis there. It is after Nawab Mir Qasim Jan, an Iranian nobleman, that the gali is named. Qasim Jan at first lived in Lahore, where he was attached to the court of the Governor, Moin-ul-Mulk, in the 1750s. That was the time when Ghalib’s grandfather also migrated to India from Turkey.

Qasim Jan was an influential man and a great friend of the Governor. But when the latter fell fighting Ahmad Shah Abdali, who had invaded Punjab, Qasim Jan helped Moin-ul-Mulk’s widow, Mughlai Begum, to rule the province in the name of her infant son. He seems to have been particularly close to the begum, who admired his sagacity. But the admiration was mutual for Qasim Jan could not have been immune to the charm of the begum who continued to defy Abdali despite losing her husband.

It was during the reign of Shah Alam that Qasim Jan joined the court at Delhi. He was conferred the title of Nawab, and in order to be close to the Red Fort built his haveli in Ballimaran. After the death of Qasim Jan, his son Nawab Faizullah Beg resided in the haveli. Ghalib also lived in Ahata Kale Sahib for some time after his release from debtors’ prison and that is the time he is said to have remarked that after being an inmate in the “Gora” (white man’s) jail he had moved to Kale’s (black man’s) jail.

Ghalib subsequently moved to the haveli in Qasim Jan Street. But during the First War of Independence of 1857, he lived for some time in Sharif Manzil where Hakim Ajmal Khan’s father used to reside. The reason was that Sharif Manzil was a protected place in those days because its owner was the personal physician of the Maharaja of Patiala, who was on good terms with the British. After the upheaval, Ghalib went back to his house, where his wife Umrao Begum held sway and made it into a virtual mosque.

However, there is still a mosque next to Ghalib’s house. An old bearded man, wearing a brand new sherwani and with a stick in hand, was standing next to it. Asked if Ghalib ever visited the masjid, he shook his head and declared, “I don’t think so, unless when he became old. What else can you expect from a man who wrote: ‘Masjid ke zer say ek ghar bana liya hai/Ek banda-e-qamina hamsaye khuda hai” (I have set up abode in the vicinity of a masjid so a wretch is now God’s neighbour). As one walked away after hearing him, the first “degh” of biryani was being opened by the roadside seller and the smell was too appetising to resist the temptation of tasting it. Ghalib too must have eaten like this sometimes or sent his faithful servant Kallu to buy the stuff.

Before settling down in Gali Mir Qasim Jan, Ghalib lived in the house of his in-laws, where several mushairas were held. Why they were discontinued at the haveli is not known but one reason may have been the opposition of his puritanical wife. So the mushairas the poet attended were generally the ones held at the Red Fort and Haveli Sadr Sadur in Matia Mahal. In Agra, of course, he was too young to take part in poetry recitation and instead flew kites with the son of Raja Chet Singh at Kala Mahal, where some claim that his spectre is still seen on moonlit nights. He, no doubt, missed Kala Mahal and the Redstone Horse at Sikandra, Agra, to which he always sent greetings through his friend Mirza Tafta Secundrabadi. The Ballimaran haveli somehow did not evoke the same nostalgia in him, probably because most of his children died in it in infancy. Wonder if he would have approved of the museum set up there! But at Kala Mahal fateha is still offered for his repose.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture> Down Memory Lane / by R.V. Smith / February 26th, 2018

Remembering Umrao Begum

Basti Nizamuddin, NEW DELHI  :

RAVE CONCERN Umrao Begum’s grave, covered in green cloth in Nizamuddin | Photo Credit: V. Sudershan
RAVE CONCERN Umrao Begum’s grave, covered in green cloth in Nizamuddin | Photo Credit: V. Sudershan

The unmarked resting place of Miza Ghalib’s wife deserves an epitaph

The grave of Mirza Ghalib’s wife, Umrao Begum, in Basti Nizamuddin, just at the side of her husband’s tomb, lacks an epitaph, probably because nobody tried to inscribe one on it in 1955 (when the poet’s memorial was built) or because she preferred anonymity as per the strictest tenets of Islam. Even so she deserves one for posterity’s sake. Umrao Begum was a pre-teenager when she married Ghalib, who himself was just 13 at that time, and the two shared conjugal bliss for nearly 57 years.

Umrao Begum was a kinswoman of the Nawab of Loharu, an erstwhile State now merged with Rajasthan, and her cousin was Bunyadi Begum, Ghalib’s sister-in-law. The begum, who was the Nawab’s sister, gave her haveli in Gali Mir Qasim Jan to Ghalib when he was in need of accommodation.

Umrao Begum bore seven children, all of whom died in infancy, leaving her and the poet heart-broken all their lives. Even the nephew, Nawab Zainul-abadin Khan Arif, whom they adopted, died young at the age of 18, though he had made his mark in Urdu poetry by then.

Strict lady

Umrao Begum was a strict Muslim lady, whereas Ghalib was not at all orthodox. After the First War of Independence of 1857, the poet was accosted by an English officer who asked him if he was a Muslim (as most members of the community were suspects in the eyes of the British). Ghalib replied “Half”. The officer sought an explanation to which Ghalib said that though he drank, he did not eat pork. The amused officer, marvelling at his wit, left him in peace.

Once Ghalib came home with a man carrying a basket full of wine bottles, bought with his first pay. Umrao Begum asked him why he had spent all the money on liquor, to which his reply was that God had promised to feed everyone but had not made any provision for drink, for which one had to make one’s own arrangements.

At another time he entered the courtyard of the house with his shoes on his head. To the Begum’s query, he replied that as she had made the whole haveli a masjid by her piety he had no other option. Umrao Begum died in 1870, a year after Ghalib, when Mahatma Gandhi was only a few months old and was buried according to her wish next to the poet.

Unfortunately, the Ghalib memorial built 85 years later became a barrier between the two graves, both of which should have come within its ambit. But it’s never too late to make amends for an oversight — if need be with Government help.

Her love for Ghalib was intense or he wouldn’t have been able to lead the carefree life he did. She was the one who took care of the house despite the poet’s love for gambling and dance girls, one of whom took undue advantage of him. Despite mischievous gossip by mohalla women, Umrao Begum was unruffled because she was convinced of her husband’s goodness of heart. Even when there was paucity of funds, she managed to see it to that Ghalib and nephew Arif got three square meals a day.

After the death of her children, she was the one who comforted her Mian Nausha so that the misfortune did not affect his mental equilibrium, without which his wit would not have continued to flow like the sparkling Thames.

Facing the music

Ghalib spent most of his time outside the haveli, except when he was writing poetry, having his meals or resting. So it was Umrao Begum who faced the creditors as she was the one who responded to the knock on the door in the absence of a regular maid. When the fat Kotwal of Delhi tried to bully Ghalib, as he disliked the poet because of their love for the same tawwaif and considered him a potential rival (as he always stole the limelight at the kotha), his wife was the one who confronted the Kotwal’s importunate minions at the haveli’s entrance and sent them away with the proverbial flea in the ear.

When Arif was grooming Alexander Heatherley “Azad” as a shair, despite his Anglo-Indian antecedents, Umrao Begum took it upon herself to see to it that they were not disturbed and had some refreshments too during the long hours of coaching. Ghalib who had earlier imbibed the love for shairi in Arif, also fawned on him and when he died an untimely death, poured out his grief in a heartfelt elegy (quoted from memory) that is among his best poems: “Jatey huey kehtey ho qayamat ko milenge kya khoob, qayamat ka goya din hai koi aur!” (While departing you say will meet on the Last Day of Judgement, what an excuse on the pretext of a reunion on a vague day in Eternity).

Reading the elegy Umrao Begum burst into tears and told Ghalib not to rub salt into her raw wounds, according to Arif’s pupil, Alexander Heatherley’s descendant, George Heatherley who died in Perth a few years ago. Umrao Begum’s grave close to Ghalib’s is testimony enough, if one were needed indeed, of the emotional link between the two. Then why deny her the courtesy of an epitaph to seal the bond for the benefit of future generations? No matter how distant may be Arif’s final place of repose.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> Down Memory Lane – History & Culture / by R.V. Smith / November 27th, 2017