February 16, 2003

Mullah Vahidi, whose real name was Syed Muhammad Irtiza Vahidi, had already made his name in Delhi as a writer and politician before he migrated to Karachi at the age of sixty years. For the next thirty plus years that he lived in Pakistan he wrote prolifically in various literary journals. He had his own characteristic style of writing in a language that reminded us of the prose of Ghalib and Khawaja Hasan Nizami.

Vahidi’s narration directly touched the sensibilities of the readers. His writings transported the reader back to the period of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Abul Kalam Azad, Khawaja Hasan Nizami, Allama Rashid al Khairi and Deputy Nazir Ahmad. All these personalities as well as other well-known people who had come to live in the Delhi of yore have been discussed in this book. But by far the most profound influence on Mullah Vahidi was that of Khawaja Hasan Nizami, a nephew of Khawaja Nizamuddin Aulia and a writer with a distinct prose style.

“I met Khawaja Hasan Nizami in 1907 and have seen every period of Khawaja Sahib’s life except his childhood and not from far but from close proximity,” writes Mullah Vahidi. Hasan Nizami was a respected personality throughout the Subcontinent and Vahidi has written an interesting account of a week that he spent with him in Sikandarabad Deccan in the house of one Seth Musa. Vahidi writes, “For lunch and dinner we were served with 20-21 dishes and a dish once served was not repeated. I can say without exaggeration that in eight days we ate more than 300 dishes of different kinds. Khawaja Sahib knew how to dine with the richest rajas and nawabs and the poorest of his disciples.”

Khawaja Sahib was not aggressive by nature but for inexplicable reasons he got embroiled in differences with Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar and Deewan Singh Maftoon. Vahidi writes that Khawaja Sahib’s behaviour was intriguing. He would go to the parties where his rivals were also invited and dine with them but would not utter a word to them.

“After I shifted to Karachi Khawaja Sahib would go to my Delhi residence on every Eid and would touch the gate of my house and weep. I received his last letter two and a half months before his final illness. He died on Eidul Azha,” Mullah Vahidi writes.

The author has divided his book into 26 chapters and every chapter in itself is important because it throws light on a facet of Delhi’s society and the personalities of that period. In one of the chapters he writes about people who were Ghalib’s contemporaries and had observed the poet closely. Commenting on Ghalib and Maulana Altaf Husain Hali Vahidi writes, “What a pity that Ghalib did not enjoy the status during his lifetime that Zauq enjoyed. Ghalib was friendly by nature and was seen presiding over functions but being the mentor of the King, Zauq had an upper hand...The generation preceding mine knew more of Momin’s verses by heart than of Ghalib and Zauq...Maulana Hali presented a look of depression and frailty. During my student days I used to often see Maulana Hali who used to stay at Maulvi Abdul Ahad’s house. I was then seventeen or eighteen years old and did not have the courage to do anything beyond saluting him...Hali was such a pupil of Mirza Ghalib that Mirza Sahib said about him, “I don’t advise people to write poetry but about you my opinion is that if you would not write poetry you would be doing a disservice to yourself.”

All the chapters of Vahidi’s book have apt and pithy titles. There is for example “Dilli’s last poet-mentors”, and “Illiterate poets of Dilli”, or “Three brave dervishes of Dilli”, “Three Punjabi lovers of Dilli” and “Three historical figures of Dilli”, etc. Under the title of “Makhzan ke teen editor” Vahidi discusses Sir Abdul Qadir, Maulana Rashid Alkhairi and Sheikh Mohammad Ikram. It is interesting to note that Makhzan actually began its publication in Delhi and these three stalwarts edited it at different times.

Among them Sheikh Muhammad Ikram made quite a name as a researcher of Ghalib. The editor of Lahore’s famous paper Paisa Akhbar was also a Dehlavi named Mir Bahsharat Ali Jalib Dehlavi. According to Vahidi he raised the status of Urdu journalism to new heights.

Vahidi also writes about Mir Baqar Ali Dastan Go who was an expert in storytelling. He reproduces a specimen of his story- telling. There is a chapter on “September and October of 1947” in which he describes the conditions in Delhi at the time of partition when communal riots broke out and under the orders of Sardar Patel, the Indian home minister, even kitchen knives were confiscated from the Muslims by the police and they were left at the mercy of the Hindu rioters.

Mullah Vahidi was not at all keen to leave Delhi after partition but in September and October of 1947 people had no clue about Gandhi and Nehru’s policies. Patel was the predominant political figure. Day and night government trucks were announcing on loudspeakers that the Muslims should collect in the old fort where the transit camp had been set up for Muslims migrating to Pakistan. There they were packed into railway trains and martyred on their way to Pakistan.

In the book Vahidi discusses numerous historical events and personalities but the entire narrative is dominated by one personality, that is Khawaja Hasan Nizami. He is the subject of a separate chapter and there is a reference to him in every chapter. He has been profusely quoted. Mullah Vahidi wrote this book in 1969 and has opened the book with the remarks, “These articles have been written in the same way as a railway passenger collects and rolls his baggage one or two stations before his destination but keeps on conversing with his fellow passengers.”

This collection of articles will be widely welcome since it provides an insight into the atmosphere of the Delhi of yore as well as some of the personalities who are now a part of our literary and political history. The foreword of the book was contributed by the well known critic and fiction writer Hasan Askari.

Dilli Jo Aik Shehr Tha (Memories)
By Mullah Vahidi
Oxford University Press, Plot #38, Sector 15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi
Tel: 111-693-673
Email: ouppak@theoffice.net
Website: www.oup.com.pk
ISBN 0-19-579706-X
196pp. Rs295

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