While the Delhi winter is still playing hide-and-seek with its denizens, the cultural calendar of the city is in full bloom. On a nippy Saturday afternoon, I am part of a motley group of people on a heritage walk fashioned around Hazrat Amir Khusro Dehlavi's life. Giving me company are history students, research scholars, poetry lovers and architecture enthusiasts. Bustling along in six rickshaws decorated with marigolds, we make our way to the first stop.
The walk is being conducted by 40-year-old Pradeep Sharma 'Khusro', a self-taught scholar of one of medieval India's greatest artists (such is his passion that he has appended the Sufi mystic's last name to his own for the better part of a decade). This Sufi trail starts at Imamuddin Firdausi's dargah located across the road from the Oberoi hotel. Sharma shares little nuggets of history about Gayaspur village, present day Nizamuddin Basti, where many dargahs of the contemporaries of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and Khusro are located.
Firdausi's dargah was built on the order of Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq in 1325 AD. He was the disciple and successor of Sheikh Ruknuddin Firdausi of the Firdausi Sufi order. "Amir Khusro used to come here to meet Imamuddin Firdausi and engage in spiritual discourses," Sharma tells the group, most of whom are fascinated by the inexplicable deposits of salt on the ceiling, a peculiar occurrence that Sharma claims has been witnessed in other dargahs around the world.
From there we jump back on the rickshaws and head to Shamsuddin Ataullah or Patte Shah's dargah, barely a kilometre away. Also built in Gayaspur village on the order of Tughlaq in 1325 AD, the Pir got his name from covering himself with leaves whenever Hazrat Nizamuddin would pass by. There is an 800-year-old gnarled tree which has an interesting story behind it. One day after cleaning his teeth with Meswak datoon, Patte Shah baba buried the datoon under the ground of the dargah compound. After a few months a Pilu darakth or tree came out. Patte Shah used to eat leaves of this Pilu tree that still survives in the dargah beneath which lies his grave, and we nibbled on a couple as well.
There's an idol of Sai Baba of Shirdi, a Shiva linga and a Buddha statue sharing space on the same pedestal in the middle of a dense green cover on the way to our next stop, Dada Pir's dargah. Just another fascinating reminder of why the Nizamuddin Basti is considered the syncretic centre of India's modern capital.
We arrive at the grave of Dada Pir of the Chishtiya Sufi Silsila, who lived here between the 13th and 14th century. There is a hollowed underground cavern below the saint's grave where he used to meditate and where today, followers burn incense and light lamps. "This structure was built by al Ghari, with whom Ibn Batuta, the flamboyant 13th century Moroccan traveller, lived for several months," shares Sharma. At this point, Richa Singh, a PhD scholar of Islamic culture at Jawaharlal Nehru University, tells me that it was a good decision to choose the Khusro walk over a guided tour of Humayun's tomb as she had never even heard of Dada Pir's dargah earlier. The wealth of anecdotal knowledge that Sharma possesses makes this walk more than just a medieval history lesson.
The penultimate stop is Chilla Nizamuddin of Khanqah, the residence of Nizamuddin Auliya, built by his disciple Ziauddin Wakil. Taking a short tour of the Khanqah, we are told of its many units - a langar khana, a sima khana, aam mehfil khana and khas mehfil khana. At the dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya, beyond the south wall of its enclosure, is the tomb of his favourite disciple, Khusro. Paved with red sandstone slabs, it is connected to Nizamuddin's grave by an arched doorway.
The walk comes to an end with a musical dastangoi on Amir Khusro's relationship with Nizamuddin Auliya as part of Apni Basti Mela organised by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. The story starts on a playful note and then blends beautifully into the Khusro composition, Aaj Rang Hai. The beautiful juxtaposition of narrative with music told of the legend where an adolescent Khusro was on a quest for his Pir and when he finally chanced upon the saint, he sang a song to his mother to describe his feelings of pure bliss. Although the word rang stands for colour, here it signifies a glow, a much higher sense of beauty. When Khusro finally meets his Pir, Nizamuddin Auliya, such is his joy that he refers to the saint as his mehboob (beloved).
Sharma's own romantic tryst with Khusro began almost 18 years ago, through a chance purchase of a gramophone record, "The Multifaceted Genius of Amir Khusro Dehalvi"; the first bandish left him captivated for life. The Aga Khan Foundation has even found him to be the single largest owner of Khusro literature with over 900 books, 100 audio-video recordings and copies of over a 100 of his paintings. The former journalist quit his job at a national daily to devote more time to his passion and now works as a teacher at a New Delhi school and has published four books on Khusro.
Sharma rues the dearth of research done on Khusro, especially in his homeland. Even after 700 years, none of his books in Persian has been wholly translated into Hindi or English, and the existing incomplete translations are contradictory. The bulk of the multi linguist's work in other languages continues to remains untranslated or obscure. Towards that end, Sharma has successfully initiated the first full translation of Masnavi Nuh Sepehr (Nine Skies) from Persian to Hindustani by Tanveer Ahmed Alvi, a professor of Urdu and recipient of the Urdu Academy's Bahadur Shah Zafar Award. Sharma's lifelong aim is to locate and translate the rest of Khusros's various works.
Sharma conducts the Amir Khusro walks, which cost about Rs 1,000 per person, twice a month. If you are more of a chai-and-charcha than walk-the-talk kind of heritage buff, he also conducts a Sufi Sima or a mystical Music Workshop, where he plays his Khusro records and talks about their significance. He also invites the more ardent followers of Khusro to a special tour of the Amir Khusro museum that he has built in his residence.
The walk is being conducted by 40-year-old Pradeep Sharma 'Khusro', a self-taught scholar of one of medieval India's greatest artists (such is his passion that he has appended the Sufi mystic's last name to his own for the better part of a decade). This Sufi trail starts at Imamuddin Firdausi's dargah located across the road from the Oberoi hotel. Sharma shares little nuggets of history about Gayaspur village, present day Nizamuddin Basti, where many dargahs of the contemporaries of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and Khusro are located.
Firdausi's dargah was built on the order of Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq in 1325 AD. He was the disciple and successor of Sheikh Ruknuddin Firdausi of the Firdausi Sufi order. "Amir Khusro used to come here to meet Imamuddin Firdausi and engage in spiritual discourses," Sharma tells the group, most of whom are fascinated by the inexplicable deposits of salt on the ceiling, a peculiar occurrence that Sharma claims has been witnessed in other dargahs around the world.
From there we jump back on the rickshaws and head to Shamsuddin Ataullah or Patte Shah's dargah, barely a kilometre away. Also built in Gayaspur village on the order of Tughlaq in 1325 AD, the Pir got his name from covering himself with leaves whenever Hazrat Nizamuddin would pass by. There is an 800-year-old gnarled tree which has an interesting story behind it. One day after cleaning his teeth with Meswak datoon, Patte Shah baba buried the datoon under the ground of the dargah compound. After a few months a Pilu darakth or tree came out. Patte Shah used to eat leaves of this Pilu tree that still survives in the dargah beneath which lies his grave, and we nibbled on a couple as well.
There's an idol of Sai Baba of Shirdi, a Shiva linga and a Buddha statue sharing space on the same pedestal in the middle of a dense green cover on the way to our next stop, Dada Pir's dargah. Just another fascinating reminder of why the Nizamuddin Basti is considered the syncretic centre of India's modern capital.
We arrive at the grave of Dada Pir of the Chishtiya Sufi Silsila, who lived here between the 13th and 14th century. There is a hollowed underground cavern below the saint's grave where he used to meditate and where today, followers burn incense and light lamps. "This structure was built by al Ghari, with whom Ibn Batuta, the flamboyant 13th century Moroccan traveller, lived for several months," shares Sharma. At this point, Richa Singh, a PhD scholar of Islamic culture at Jawaharlal Nehru University, tells me that it was a good decision to choose the Khusro walk over a guided tour of Humayun's tomb as she had never even heard of Dada Pir's dargah earlier. The wealth of anecdotal knowledge that Sharma possesses makes this walk more than just a medieval history lesson.
The penultimate stop is Chilla Nizamuddin of Khanqah, the residence of Nizamuddin Auliya, built by his disciple Ziauddin Wakil. Taking a short tour of the Khanqah, we are told of its many units - a langar khana, a sima khana, aam mehfil khana and khas mehfil khana. At the dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya, beyond the south wall of its enclosure, is the tomb of his favourite disciple, Khusro. Paved with red sandstone slabs, it is connected to Nizamuddin's grave by an arched doorway.
The walk comes to an end with a musical dastangoi on Amir Khusro's relationship with Nizamuddin Auliya as part of Apni Basti Mela organised by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. The story starts on a playful note and then blends beautifully into the Khusro composition, Aaj Rang Hai. The beautiful juxtaposition of narrative with music told of the legend where an adolescent Khusro was on a quest for his Pir and when he finally chanced upon the saint, he sang a song to his mother to describe his feelings of pure bliss. Although the word rang stands for colour, here it signifies a glow, a much higher sense of beauty. When Khusro finally meets his Pir, Nizamuddin Auliya, such is his joy that he refers to the saint as his mehboob (beloved).
Sharma's own romantic tryst with Khusro began almost 18 years ago, through a chance purchase of a gramophone record, "The Multifaceted Genius of Amir Khusro Dehalvi"; the first bandish left him captivated for life. The Aga Khan Foundation has even found him to be the single largest owner of Khusro literature with over 900 books, 100 audio-video recordings and copies of over a 100 of his paintings. The former journalist quit his job at a national daily to devote more time to his passion and now works as a teacher at a New Delhi school and has published four books on Khusro.
Sharma rues the dearth of research done on Khusro, especially in his homeland. Even after 700 years, none of his books in Persian has been wholly translated into Hindi or English, and the existing incomplete translations are contradictory. The bulk of the multi linguist's work in other languages continues to remains untranslated or obscure. Towards that end, Sharma has successfully initiated the first full translation of Masnavi Nuh Sepehr (Nine Skies) from Persian to Hindustani by Tanveer Ahmed Alvi, a professor of Urdu and recipient of the Urdu Academy's Bahadur Shah Zafar Award. Sharma's lifelong aim is to locate and translate the rest of Khusros's various works.
Sharma conducts the Amir Khusro walks, which cost about Rs 1,000 per person, twice a month. If you are more of a chai-and-charcha than walk-the-talk kind of heritage buff, he also conducts a Sufi Sima or a mystical Music Workshop, where he plays his Khusro records and talks about their significance. He also invites the more ardent followers of Khusro to a special tour of the Amir Khusro museum that he has built in his residence.
For details, contact Pradeep Sharma at ragdarpan@gmail.com or 09711247587