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METRO
FEATURE
Writer's
Residence
You
could never believe Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan, aka Mirza Ghalib (no self-respecting
Urdu poet is ever without a nom de plume), lived here. The 250 sq yard
dwelling in Ballimaran, an architecturally mutating cluster in Delhi's
historical Chandni Chowk, has the facade of an upstart townhouse with
spindly, post-1980s balusters and neo-Moorish brickwork from a prosperous
factory in Haryana. But what would have definitely pleased the famed 19th
century poet (1797-1869) is the decision of the Delhi Government's Department
of Archaeology to partially salvage the insulted structure (previously
used as a coal dump), restore some of its original sections and finally
throw it open to the public as it did last week.
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| Merajuddin's
STD booth and a portion of the restored courtyard |
The arched
entrance to the house is the same as the one used by Ghalib when he lived
here as a tenant during the last four years of his life. So are some of
the arches and pillars in the foreshortened courtyard and in one of the
rooms towards the right of the entrance. But Ghalib's bedroom on the first
floor, where the master wrote some occasional ghazals and some pro-British
panegyrics (he was disturbed by their use of violence but generally favoured
their rule), has yet to be acquired by the Government.
That's the
other story. Merajuddin, who runs an std booth in the condensed courtyard
and whose family has been tenants since 1910 and owners since 1962 after
the government sold them the property for just Rs 22,000 (the original
owners, the family of Hakim Mehmood Khan, left during the Partition) claim
that the compensation they got for giving a portion of the house, Rs 6
lakh, was inadequate. "That section is worth over a crore,"
he says "and if the Government had to take it away from us why did
it sell it to us in the first place?"
Point. That's
the Indian Government for you. But at least there's some effort to correct
the foolish boners of the past and mend a truncated heritage. There are
about a thousand more to go.
more...
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METRO TODAY
As
the Government brings in more people and mops more money in taxes, it
must be seen to be rewarding those who come forth and pay up, writes India
Today Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in 