Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest |

DOWN MEMORY LANE

Archways to oblivion

The Tripolia gateways on the Grand Trunk Road near Rana Pratap Bagh have suffered serious damage after being hit by a heavy vehicle, probably a loaded truck. These gateways were built by Maldhar Khan, Nazir during the reign of Mohammed Shah Rangila. Maldhar Khan also built a gateway for his garden. This gateway has now become a residence with rooms having been built on top of it. The garden has disappeared. This gateway dates back to 1710 during the time of Bahadur Shah I, who had succeeded his father Aurangzeb to the throne of Delhi. The damaged Tripolia gateways were built in 1728, in the ninth years of Mohammed Shah's reign and 11 years before Nadir Shah's invasion. Maldhar Khan was obviously a very rich and influential nobleman and a noted architect.

The gates of Delhi are part of the fascinating history of the Capital. Shah Jehan built 14 in the wall surrounding his city, which had a circumference of seven miles. The New Delhi of Lutyens, with a circumference of 11 miles, did not have a wall to protect it and hence hardly any gates, except India Gate, which was built as a memorial to the members of the British Indian Army who fell in World War I. Nine of the old gates have disappeared and only five remain: the Delhi, Kashmere, Turkman, Ajmeri and Lahori Gates. These along with the Kabuli, Mori, Calcutta, Raj Ghat and Charsoo were the 10 main gateways or darwazas for entry into the city. The other four were among the less important ones. Manning these doorways were Moghul sentries who had the power to detain suspicious characters, among whom were criminals, spies, foreigners and fugitives from justice.

A veteran photographer, Harbans Mody, some years ago held an exhibition at Triveni Kala Sangam, titled “Gateways of Delhi”. The exhibits included the Tripolia Gate of Sher Shah near the old Subzi Mandi, which incidentally had a twin in the old city wall. Mody's photographs focus attention on the present condition of the city gates. Having outlived their utility, they are now just relics of a bygone age in which the porter, rickshaw-puller, refugee, beggar, and vagabond find shelter. Despite being protected monuments, the gates are now neglected corners of a city bursting at its seams.

The Kashmere Gate, through which DTC buses passed until about three decades ago, is better preserved now than before. Paradoxically enough it was to protect the gate that the plying of buses through it was stopped and a part of the city wall demolished to provide easy access to the ISBT and beyond.

Each monsoon leaves its mark on these gates, making them more vulnerable to the onslaughts of man and nature. And yet there were times when they played a vital role in the history of the city. The blowing up of the Kashmere Gate broke the resistance of the freedom fighters in 1857, just as the storming of the Raj Ghat Gate by the sepoys from Meerut had heralded the outbreak of the Uprising in Delhi. The Kabuli Gate witnessed a massacre during Ahmad Shah Abdali's invasion; the Calcutta Gate marked the arrival of the East India Company in the Moghul capital; the Turkman Gate commemorated Baba Bayabani; and the Delhi Gate saw the infamous Major Hodson carting in the bodies of the princes slaughtered by him at the nearby Khooni Darwaza. Now part of the surviving wall of this gate is going to the demolished by the MCD for better traffic movement.

Within the gates of Shahjenanbad the Moghul empire reached its zenith. The old fort of the Afghans made way for the Quila Mualla. The Jhojala and Bhojala paharis or hillocks were cut down to make room for residential buildings and the Jama Masjid, respectively. The gates of Delhi saw pomp and splendour and also the flowering of a unique culture which gave birth to the poetry of Mir, Zauq, Ghalib, Momin, Dagh and many others. Today the gates of Alam mein Intikhab, the premier city of the world have been reduced to little more then dustbins of history. Surely the time has came to restore them to something more worthwhile so that they continue to exist for posterity and not just disappear like the nine other gates, leaving a bigger void in the many-splendored story of Delhi.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail