October I often accompanied Olivia on her expeditions into the alleys of Old Delhi, once Shahjehanabad, the capital of the Empire of the Great Mogul. It was an area I had always loved, but there was no denying that it had fallen on hard times. The Old City had been built at the very apex of Delhi’s fortunes and had been in slow decline virtually from the moment of its completion. The final and most dramatic wrecking of its fortunes had, however, taken place in 1947.
Just as Partition resulted in prosperity and growth for the new Delhi, it led to impoverishment and stagnation for the old. The fabulous city which hypnotized the world travellers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the home of the great poets Mir, Zauq and Ghalib; the city of nautch girls and courtesans; the seat of the Emperor, the Shadow of God, the Refuge of the World, became a ghetto, a poor relation embarrassingly tacked on to the metropolis to its south. Since 1947 the Old City has survived only by becoming one enormous storehouse for North India’s wholesale goods; one by one the old palaces and mansions have been converted into godowns (warehouses) and stores. It has become more remarkable for its junk markets and car parts bazaars than for any fraying beauty or last lingering hints of sophistication. The crafts and skills developed over the centuries for the tastes of the old Urdu-speaking Delhi élite either adjusted to the less sophisticated Punjabi market, or simply died out.
Near the Ajmeri Gate lies the old Cobblers’ Bazaar. Most of the Muslim shoemakers who worked here fled to Karachi in 1947, and today the Punjabis who replaced them sell mostly locks and chains and hardware. But a few of the old shopkeepers remain, and among them is the shop of Shamim and Ali Akbar Khan. Despite the position of their workshop, the father of Shamim and Ali was no cobbler; he was one of the most famous calligraphers in Delhi. Shamim continues his father’s trade and still lives by producing beautifully inscribed title deeds, wills and marriage documents.
I met Shamim in a chai shop outside the Ajmeri Gate mosque. He was a tall and elegant man in his early fifties, dressed in an immaculate sherwani frock coat and a tall lambskin cap. He had high cheekbones, fair skin, and narrow, almond-shaped eyes that hinted at a Central Asian ancestry. On his chin he sported a neat goatee beard. He sat down beside me at a table in the rear of the shop and over a glass of masala tea we began to talk.
‘My forebears were writers at the Mughal court,’ said Shamim. ‘And before that we were calligraphers in Samarkand. My family have always been in this business.’
‘And you illuminate your documents in exactly the way your father taught you?’
‘My father was a very accomplished man. He knew the shikastah script as well as the nastaliq; he could write both Persian and Urdu. I learned only the nastaliq. Slowly the skills are dying. Today there are only two other calligraphers in Delhi and they are of inferior quality.’
Shamim called the chai-boy over and asked for the bill. When it finally came he totted it up, checking all the figures in a slightly pedantic manner.
‘Today most of the work is in Hindi,’ he said. ‘Because of this there is little demand for our skills.’
‘Can you not learn the Hindi script?’ I asked.
‘I know it. But with the change from Urdu has come a loss of prestige. Earlier it was a highly respected job that few people were qualified to perform: you had to be familiar with Islamic law, had to know the old Delhi customs, and most of all you had to be a talented calligrapher. Now I am just a clerk; most of the work is done quickly on typewriters.’
He downed the rest of the tea in a single swallow and swirled the dregs around in his glass: ‘It is because of the newcomers. They have a very different culture; they have no interest in fine calligraphy.’
We walked together through the jostling crowds to his office; and while we walked he told me about Ali. With his share of the inheritance, the raffish younger brother had, it seemed, started some sort of shady photography studio at the front of the shop.
‘My brother cannot write in Urdu,’ said Shamim. ‘Like many of the young men he has no knowledge of his own culture. Only he is interested in photography.’ The calligrapher’s face set in a deep frown. ‘Ali got involved with men of very bad character,’ he whispered. ‘Photography was the only way we could divert his attention from even worse occupations. Still I am very ashamed. How can you explain these pictures?’
We had arrived at the shop—little more than a small cavity in the street-frontage—and Shamim was pointing to a frieze of pin-ups cut from Indian magazines. It was quite a collection: voluptuous actresses lying scantily-clad on tiger-skins, topless white girls posing on the beaches of Goa, a selection of portly Egyptian belly-dancers covered with earrings and bracelets; diamonds flashed from the folds around their belly-buttons. Beyond the counter in the studio I could see Ali taking passport photographs with a new Japanese camera. He was dressed in cream-coloured slacks and a polyester shirt.
‘These pictures are the concern of my brother,’ whispered Shamim, still grimacing at the pin-ups. ‘They are not my business. But because of them I cannot invite to this office any of my religious-minded relatives. Because of these pictures no good Muslim will come near this shop. It is all most unIslamic.’
‘Maybe in time Ali will take them down,’ I said.
‘Maybe,’ agreed Shamim. ‘When men are young they are getting involved in photography, beer-drinking and nudity. But,’ he continued, ‘when they are older they return to Islam.’
‘When people get older they decide to wear the long beard and to look very pious,’ said Ali. He had come over to the counter and overheard the end of our conversation. ‘But people do not change. I know several men who look like Shamim—with beards and sherwani— yet they run brothels in G.B. Road.’
Shamim frowned, but Ali had not finished.
‘The problem with people around here is narrow thinking,’ he said airily. ‘They are not broadminded. They are not reading magazines from Bombay. They do not know what is happening in the world.’
‘You obviously read a lot of Bombay magazines,’ I replied, pointing at the pin-ups.
‘You like them?’
‘I’m not sure about the Egyptian ladies.’
‘I put them up to attract the customers,’ replied Ali. ‘My brother is unhappy with me only because I am doing much better business than he. Today no one wants a calligrapher. Even in a town like Delhi.’
Ali stepped out on to the pavement and made a disdainful gesture out over the street: ‘Look! This city is now so dirty. Everything is old and falling down. Why should I stay in a place like this? One day I will leave and go to Bombay. Delhi is finished.’
A black silk bundle walked into the shop accompanied by her heavily bearded husband. The man talked to Ali and all three headed off into the curtained booth reserved for taking passport pictures of women in chador.
‘This family were clients of my father’s,’ said Shamim, trying to explain why any decent Muslim families would dream of using his brother’s services.
‘Don’t your father’s old customers support you too?’ I asked.
‘There was much bloodshed in this area in 1947,’ replied Shamim. ‘Most of my father’s customers are either dead or living in Karachi. The old Delhi-wallahs continue to come here, but now they are so few.’
‘So your skill will
