The paths of glory, a poet has said,
lead but to the grave. What the poet may not have imagined is the
path that leads to the actual graves of famous writers. Certainly, Thomas Gray would have had
some experience of inglorious pathways. Nineteenth century England
was no stranger to rubbish dumps and the poet would certainly have
corresponded with the occasional turd, an open sewer, or a bit of
bone sitting quietly in narrow alleys. One must go down one such a lane
to reach the grave of Meer Anees, one of the most celebrated Urdu
poets.
This part of Lucknow is not unlike the
ailing heart of India's grand old cities. The streets are
narrow, the houses crumbling, and infrastructure is rather hit and
miss. To visit Meer Anees, you'd make your way to Chowk, and then to
a small, elegant mosque called Tahseen wali masjid. You'll find a
book shop at street level (and dark whispers of a campaign to force
the owners out of business through the persistent dumping of rubbish
above) and then a lane as narrow as the waist of a beloved, though
less perfumed. You'd do well to send word to the descendants of the
poet before you found the grave.
Anees was buried on private land and
though a considerable tomb has been built, it is encircled by a metal
fence and the door leading to it is locked. Apparently, “anti-social”
elements had begun to frequent the place, so locking up was the
simplest way to keep them out.
What made me really sorry, though, was
that there wasn't a signboard in sight to point tourists and lovers
of literature in the right direction.
On my first visit to London, I had very
little money and not much time to look around. However, I was
determined to take in a visit to Charles Dickens' house. The writer had shaped more than just my literary tastes; he also gave me a moral view of
the world and, in that sense, his work finds a home in me. Even so, I
wanted to see one of the houses he lived in. It was listed on the
tourist map and there were at least three street signs pointing the
way. But more than three were not permitted by the city and, to
my dismay, I realised that a fourth sign was desperately needed.
After wandering in circles for an hour,
I nearly gave up. No passersby helped; many seemed not to know who
Charles Dickens was! Eventually, I stopped to buy water at a
department store where a schoolboy came to my rescue.
In India, we tend not to preserve
writers' homes as living monuments. The houses are inherited by
families who can't always afford to preserve them. Even so, it would
be useful if the state put up a few signs that informed and
encouraged visitors who came looking for the city's cultural
heritage.
At any rate, a culture that celebrates
poetry is neither built in stone nor buried in stone. It is found
half lying in a bright yellow kurts, smoking a cigarette with the
mosque to his left, garbage dump to his right, and couplet by Anees
on his ready lips.
I have now forgotten the verse he sent
up into the overcast afternoon. But another will serve just as well:
Ahtiyat-e-jism kya, anjaam ko socho Anees
Khaak hone ko ye
musht-e-ustukhwan paida hue
Worry less about this body, Anees,
think of what comes after,
This bag of bones was meant to be
ground into dust.
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