Of History Twitter, Imagined Delhi, and Bangalore's Many Pasts

Balabrooie Guest-House, Bangalore

I should have been a historian, or at the very least, studied history in university. I instead chose to study English Literature and Creative Writing, of which I only really enjoyed the creative writing part. I soon learned that it was one thing to read for pleasure, losing yourself in these imagined worlds but another thing altogether to study literature. I was loath to analyse and mine meanings from a book when in fact, I was more interested in writing a book myself. I didn't realise back then that being a historian would have been a perfectly viable career option or that I could have written a book and simultaneously been a historian: I could have written a historical novel, for god's sake! I now wonder whether I secretly perceived history as akin to a museum, full of glorious beauties to be admired and yet ultimately belonging to that alien planet, the past. Perhaps, my eighteen year old self also perceived historians as fusty individuals imprisoned in the past, constantly trying to achieve time-traveling when in fact, they could not? And yet, the truth was also that the courses I took in history during my undergraduate and graduate years were the ones I enjoyed the most.

I have been on Twitter for a while now, largely as an observer/eavesdropper on the incredible diversity of conversations taking place among those I follow. What has really fascinated me though in the last year or so has been my discovery of History Twitter, where I have stumbled upon the most  amazing treasure-troves of threads; historian and writer, Paul Cooper is one person that springs to my mind, whose threads are a wealth of information, his 'Ruin of the Day' thread masterfully knitting the past and present in form of the intriguing ruins across the world (fun fact: we are both alumni of the same course at our alma mater, University of Warwick!) I have also admired how yesterday and today come together, as in this piece by Sarover Zaidi on Chirag Dilli where she exquisitely wrote about love in Lodhi Gardens, "a map for lost lovers" in that wondrous green space in Delhi, where sprawling, iridescent bougainvillea trees rain flowers, the ancient tombs and mosques watch, as they have done for so many centuries.

Safdarjung Tomb, New Delhi

Looking up

When I lived in Delhi, Lodhi Gardens used to be one of my favorite places to visit in the city, aligning to my imagined notion of Delhi. For, before I moved there, I had honestly and excitedly thought I was moving to the City of Djinns, the Delhi which William Dalrymple so romantically describes and evokes in his book of the same name. I imagined myself wandering through the tombs at dusk, peeling away one historical palimpsest after another, immersing myself in the drama and beauty and pathos that was the city. However, I arrived in Delhi, fell sick on the first day, and developed respiratory issues which would greatly plague me during my two year stay - and realised  the stark difference between anticipation and reality. It's not as if I didn't explore the city at all, though. My husband and I loved visiting Hauz Khas Village: I recall the domes turning lavender at night to the beat of live music, the crumbling madrasa ruins crawling with lovers, families, and instagrammers. I spent a lovely winter afternoon at Humayun's Tomb (my favorite tomb of them all), taking around out of town visitors to Sadfarjung Tomb and the vibrant Lodhi Art District, listening to a concert one almost-winter redolent October evening at Purana Qila. Yet, as I recall these explorations, I find that all of them are underscored by feelings of melancholy or lassitude or plain physical unwellness. After a while, these tombs and buildings and histories simply did not matter because there were so many things to grapple with your today; the yesterday was subsequently of significance anymore. And we ultimately left the city, having no other choice.

I sometimes like to say that I came to Bangalore for the trees - and while that still largely remains true, I have to admit that it has encouraged me to start thinking about history more consciously than ever before. Even though the skyscrapers pile up and unattractive cuboid plastic-glass buildings spring up everywhere, I see tantalising glimpses of its recent colonial past in its bungalows, government buildings, and churches along with its much older ones in inscription stones, temples, and monuments, inviting me to unearth their stories. When I recently took a heritage walk in Avenue Road in central Bangalore, I learned about its beginnings, how KR Market used to be a pond and that the aftermath of a war saw it becoming a market, and how the founder of Bangalore, Kempegowda determined the the boundaries which once defined Bangalore. During the walk, we found ourselves inside a courtyard of Mohan Building, a building which once used to be a family home, a police station, a lodge, and now a commercial market housing silk and cotton shops; a collective of Bangalore-based artists, the Klatsch Collective subsequently decided to reinterpret its multiple layers of historical avatars through a multi-disciplinary art intervention by holding on-site installations, paintings, and dialogue last year. 

The Beauty of Space: Ambara, Bangalore

Balabrooie Guest-House

Over the years, I have come to appreciate more than ever at how heritage structures are finding new, alternative, exciting contexts in which to reincarnate. Bangalore has been no exception at this front and I am glad to see how beautifully restored and renovated mansions are enjoying a new avatar as hip boutiques and cafes and art spaces such as Cinnamon, Raintree, and Ambara and of course, the magnificent structure that is NGMA Bangalore. Yet, I am also painfully aware of the numerous heritage structures which are being demolished or under threat of demolition every day, the colonial bungalows springing to my mind, for instance. The other day, after I chanced upon and explored Balabrooie Guest-House, which was built in 19th century, I learned that it had been rescued from being destroyed thanks to the valiant efforts of local activists back in 2014. The demands for its demolition. had been made so that something more useful could spring up in its place. Does history always have to be useful? Can one not appreciate history for what it is: history?

There is no singular past just as there is no such thing as history; our many pasts are full of both his-stories and herstories. Last November, I greatly enjoyed participating in a mapping walk led by Aliyeh Rizvi of Native Place. As we walked from Cubbon Park to MG Road (the boundaries which once marked that of the erstwhile British Cantonment), we heard stories about what it once was, what it was now, and what it could become; we participated in constructing new stories about the city while reinterpreting the old, mapping a new atlas upon that of the old. And it struck me that I too was doing the same in a sense through my daily documentation of my experiences in the city on Instagram, a city which I was now starting to call home. With the exception of Muscat, I had never stayed long enough in all the other cities I had lived in to call them home - and if I forever remained a migratory bird of sorts, how could I invest myself in the city and its stories, let alone begin to narrate them?

Yet, in Bangalore, I have found myself wanting to narrate its stories of its past and people and architecture - and realise that there lies the making of a historian somewhere anyway. I place my ears against these ancient walls, like one does with shells, conjuring up the sound of the crashing waves and wind. And I try to hear what once happened inside those walls, what secrets I can persuade the matrix of stone and cement and design to reveal to me if I am patient enough - and how they will color in the blanks of a city which is only just beginning to take shape for me.

Dubai Musings 1: Touching History

Old City Wall, Al Fahidi Historical District, Dubai

Do you know what it is like to touch history? Do you really think that you are touching history or just its cosmetic surface? Do you know that it is actually history? How do you know it is real and not just manufactured history? How do you know when history is history? When I touched what is the last remaining section of Dubai's Old City Wall, constructed in 1800 from gypsum and coral for defensive purposes, it didn't register, to be honest. I instead saw the wall as a conveniently interesting backdrop for a photo, rather than it being the subject of the photo. I focused upon the visual contrast of my silver jewelry, my ineptly applied mauve-pink nail-polish, and the textures of my hand-skin against the bumpy, chunky, ochre coral-studded surface. How do you distinguish between what is history and what is not? I once wanted to become a historian. Scratch that, I still have aspirations of becoming one. Yet, I think, I can't be much of one if I experience so much difficulty imagining what this place, what this space, what this wall must have looked like when its first inhabitants were once present there. I can only see its today, not yesterday. How can I be a historian if I can't imagine yesterdays? All I see is the present, an inescapable present, which clouds my vision and renders the yesterday and tomorrow superfluous, non-existent even. And wait – was I even supposed to touch this wall? But that's the thing. If you can't touch, all this is just thin winter air, a mirage, pretty much what Dubai is all about. Touching this wall makes it all real, even if faintly so.

*This short, stream of consciousness, staccato-toned vignette is the first part of my series about my recent visit to Dubai, word mosaics seeking to distill the essence of the picture accompanying the text

Pinning Ancient and New Earrings: The Histories and Personal Stories of Objects

I have become a relentless pinner these days. I pin delectable recipes that I will never cook (ok, I lie, I have baked one version of a moist banana bread recipe I found there!) and fiercely calibrated outfits which I am never going to wear. I pin complex smoky eye tutorials although I still do not own a smoky-eye palette and DIY projects which I know are beyond the scope of my artistic and creative capabilities despite their helpful, hand-holdingly reassuring step by step photographs and instructions (it's a bit like seeing Nigella Lawson cook and no matter how much she charmingly conveys that her recipes are so easy-peasy to prepare, I feel that it's her culinary magic which is entirely responsible for transforming a mostly quotidian collection of ingredients into dishes that are midnight-fridge-raiding worthy and finger-lickingly good). But I nevertheless immensely enjoy it, this act of pinning. It's ultimately not so much about the pins as this admittance into a veritably magical, exciting visual universe, where you never quite know what gorgeous, strange planet or personality or plant you are going to discover. One day, I find this incredible installation artist recreating and freezing the sinuous curve of sea waves in glass. For some time, I virtually grew succulents after succulents in the little boxes on my moodboards. There are scores of hugely talented visual, design, jewelry, and book artists whom I am just learning about and from. I have even found a new preoccupation: collecting obscure words; did you know that I am a solivagant soul? And yesterday, I wrote a poem inspired by a wall-hanging called The Taste of Petrol and Porcelain.

Gold earrings, 2-3 BC,  Archaeology Museum, Istanbul

My method of pinning is a quick, efficient affair though; I usually immediately jump to another pin as soon as I have pinned one, not really choosing to linger. I don't know then what it was about these super-long, below the shoulder grazing gold earrings dating from 2-3 BC that made me pause longer than normal today. I suddenly and intuitively saw a woman with very long, very straight black hair wearing these earrings; in fact, I simply saw her wearing the earrings, I couldn't even see her face or any other features. She wore them during the day, her dress was snow-white and sleeveless. I wondered what occasion it was that warranted the donning of such gloriously extravagant, excessive jewelry; weren't her ears simply exhausted from cargoing all that weight around? The more I coaxed my imaginative faculties, the more vividly the scene came to life: the woman at a festival or a wedding or a celebration, the earrings reaching just below her bust-line, shearing through the crowds, the earrings simultaneously commanding attention yet discouraging too much intimacy, ordering a distance. I am in the middle of reading the massive tome, Memoirs of Cleopatra and perhaps the descriptions I have encountered there of her magnificent costumes and jewelry may have influenced my imaginings of this particular woman and her history. However, whatever the reasons, the earrings had firmly taken root in my mind. 

When I was a child, I wanted to grow up to be an astronaut and an archaeologist; apart from their spellings being coincidentally identically bookended, perhaps the two occupations were not so radically dissimilar. Becoming an astronaut necessitated you to explore the outer space, a vast, mysterious realm, which was still largely unknown, only beginning to become knowable, populated with planets, galaxies, and even extra-terrestial beings, both whose existence and finer details we were just starting to learn of and comprehend. As for archaeology, was the very distant past too not akin to outer-space? The stars we see in the sky are long dead, their twinkling only deceiving us into thinking that they still live; similarly, the still existing structures and objects that we encounter of those long extinguished civilisations remind us at once that they both flourished - and yet are no more. The earliest human civilisations are as tantalisingly mysterious as the furthermost edges of outer-space: there is only so much we can imagine after a certain point after all in absence of data and empirical information and tangible objects, literature, art, and language.

However, whenever I saw myself as an archaeologist during my childhood, I was at a site, surrounded by layers of soil, unearthing an object - and placing it against my ear and asking it to speak its story, as if it was a conch-shell telling me how the sea sounded when it pounded against the beach.** When I was ten years old, my family and I had visited the ancient city of Qalhat near Sur in Oman; we had stood in the dusk shadows of the domeless mausoleum of Bibi Maryam, thousands and thousands of ceramic pottery shards littering the stony ground around us. I recollected picking up one of the shards, the glaze still glossy and vivid - and trying, trying very hard to visualise it as an entire pot. I couldn't: I never have been particularly skilled at seeing the bigger picture. 

My preoccupation with intuiting, imagining, and coaxing stories from objects has remained till this date though. I see objects transcending mere functionality into becoming signifiers, signs, and Russian dolls of memories and stories. I am currently working on a short story collection which revolves around a chest of objects dispersed across the world from a haveli in Rajasthan, each object becoming an alternative story and narrating new ones in its new homes. I am still working on my personal text-photography project, Object Stories, where I assemble story-portraits from an individual's specific collection of much loved objects. And I delightedly chanced upon Aanchal Malhotra's project, Remnants of a Separation, in which she uses precious objects that were brought over during Partition as alternate mode of narrating the stories of that climatic historical event.

Minutes after I had pinned the ancient golden earrings, I saw these contemporary statement earrings in gold and cobalt blue. They made me think of similar ones I had received as a 22nd birthday present and which I decided to wear at a birthday dinner with close friends. In those days, I normally did not wear such conspicuously statement earrings; I preferred to over-dress my wrists or neck, rather than my fingers or ears (as I am inclined to do now) - and I hesitated before eventually putting them on, telling myself that it was my birthday dinner, after all, and I could surely cope with the attention the earrings would presumably attract. On the bus en route to the restaurant, I met an acquaintance from my college and as we made requisite small talk, I noticed him closely observing my earrings, making me feel self-conscious. "Nice earrings!" I still recall him saying as he got off at his stop. I don't think I ever wore those earrings again but they are still sitting somewhere in one of my jewelry boxes - and whenever I come across them, I am reminded of that birthday dinner many years ago.

Will someone find those earrings years later and wonder about their story? That's for future to contemplate and decide. For the present, though, I will continue to ponder about the woman who wore those ancient golden earrings, where, why, when...

 ** I highly recommend Kamila Shamsie's novel, A God In Every Stone, which recounts among st other stories the tale of a London archaeologist and so took me back to my childhood yearnings to be an archaeologist