Travel Author William Dalrymple: Bringing History to Life through Travel
December ended as it had begun, both bleak and cold.
On New Year’s night the poor huddled in primeval groups under the flyovers. You could see them squatting on their hams silhouetted around bondfires; sometimes one of the figures would throw a lump of dried buffalo-dung on to the flames. Nearby, the Golf Links and Chanakyapuri, the rich were celebrating. As midnight drew near, they burst balloons, popped champangne corks and tore around Delhi honking the horns of their new Marutis. At the traffic lights, as outstretched palms were thrust through open car windows, the two worlds briefly met. (Indian Edition, 151)
For the last month or so I have been hooked on William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi. This book is an autobiographical account of a Scottish man’s time in modern Delhi where he lived with his wife and investigated the history and culture of the city. As I am living in Delhi I can relate to his experience as a foreigner and I am intrigued by his explorations. But anyone who is interested in travel, history, and enjoys a clever prospective would enjoy this book. Each day I am taken back into the Mogul period and am shown why things are the way they are in modern India. Dalrymple points out that “All the different ages of man were represented in the people of the city. Different millennia co-existed side by side. Minds set in different ages walked the same pavements, drank the same water, returned to the same dust.”
Then today I went to the English Book Store at Connaught Place to search for a copy to send to my brother who is living in China (English books are so hard to come by there that the ex-pat community passes around every book they find) and found Dalrymple’s first book In Xanadu: A Quest. Dalymple
wrote In Xanadu while he was still studying at Oxford…he received a grant from the institution and went on journey following the quest of Marco Polo from oil from the lamps at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to Kaunas Kan in Xanadu (North East China).
Grandpa Ali and Partition: Untold History
Grandpa Ali grew up in a small town in what is now known as Pakistan. The independence of Hindustan (India) was bitter sweet. According his grandson (a friend of mine who is a middle class guy educated at St. Columbas’ high school, St. Stephen’s College of Delhi University, and currently in law school) the British relinquished control of the subcontinent in 1947—but not without first pulling the carpet from under her. His version of the story goes like this: Two leaders were identified by the British as potential leaders of the country, one Hindu leader (Neru) and one Muslim (Jinnah). Then the British realized that both leaders were expecting the first prime minister appointment. And instead of choosing one over the other, they appointed each of them to their own country—one Muslim and one Hindu. Thus India and Pakistan were born.
If the Muslims lived in the region that became Pakistan and the Hindus lived throughout the rest of the subcontinent, this might have been a good idea in order to prevent conflict. I am not sure we should give the British the benefit of the doubt… The Hindus and Muslims had been living in harmony throughout the Subcontinent for hundreds of years! Suddenly the Muslims were told that Pakistan (holy-land) was their home and the Hindus were told India was their home.
Partition began. The Muslims migrated north and the Hindus south. The Muslims got greedy and ceased non-Muslim-owned land. But the Muslims are not the villains in this story. They were forced out of their homes in Delhi and the high Urdu culture developed in the Mughal Empire died with their exodus.
And, that is where Grandpa Ali comes in. He was the youngest brother of a faithful Muslim family. The oldest brother was working and living with his wife and kids in Delhi. All of the sudden, they lived in different countries. On the same road the Muslims moved one way and the Punjabi’s the other way—they got rowdy and attacked one another. So, Grandpa’s father sent him down to escort his brother’s family to safety. He arranged a car, but there was not room for him to join them. He was stuck in India. He was forbidden to contact his family and was under suspension for being a spy. A Methodist minister took him in and hid him until the violence subsided. The next two generations in that family now consider themselves Christians.
After twenty years Grandpa Ali was finally granted the visa to visit his family. When he got down from the bus and saw his family after twenty years, everyone who had come to meet him wept with joy. He was also weeping. This caused such a scene that his son told me that the guards let him through in front of everyone else without even checking his papers.
(This family’s name has been changed for their privacy. For more for a more exact report of the horrors of partition see this article in the economist.)
The Moguls:Untold History
The more time I spend in India, the more I realize the defincency of world history classes in the American school system. I visit ancient ruins built by kings I have never heard of. I think we spent a week maximum on Asian history, a week on the ancient Middle East and then spent the rest of the year on European and American History. Maybe a sentence or two was added in regards to the British Empire and World War II. But, that was it. So one of my new hobbies is learning Asian history.
The City of Delhi is an ancient city that has been destroyed and rebuilt over and over by empire after empire. The last great empire before the British was the Mughal Empire. But they should not be confused with the Mongol(ian)s led by Gingus Kan The Moguls came from over the Himalayas through what is now called Afghanistan and Pakistan from central Asia, although the first Mughal Emperor did claim to be the greatgrandson of Gingus Kan! The Moguls brought with them a high culture of design, poetry, dress, food, and Islam. But they are most famous for their architecture —the Mogul King Akbar had Agra Fort (Palace) and his grandson Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal and had the peacock throne contructed. More on Shah Jahan at a later time.
