Posts Tagged Delhi

Hi Raza Rumi, I wonder if you remember me. Some years back I sent my essay on Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulyia to your site, and you very dearly published it. I had found you on the net, actually I was attracted by your name due to my deep passion and admiration for Mawlana Rumi. But at that time – not a very bright moment of my life, I must say – I didn’t realise who i was sending my message to, neither where. Actually, I discovered only very recently that you really exist, and live and work in Pakistan. Your name appeared in my possible connections in Linkedin, which I joined not long ago thanks to the insistence of a friend. I clicked on your name instinctivly, and later I forgot to go and check your profile and so on. But coincidences are not there for no reason, so few weeks back, while I was travelling with my daughter Sofia in Maharashtra, I read an interesting article on Pakistan on the Hindu, and…there, your name again! Could it be the same Raza Rumi of my essay long time ago? I started to put together the pieces, went back to linkedin, and yes, here you are! Zabardast!

Kindle magazine has printed an excerpt from my forthcoming travel book. I has sent them a painting of mine to be used with the text but it was a pleasant surprise to see it as a cover for the magazine. It is an impression of Sarmad’s dargah from inside.

My contribution on Dara and Sarmad can be read here at the magazine website.

In the final part of this series, Raza Rumi recounts the last few days of the media expedition to India

Pakistani media persons landed back in Delhi after a whirlwind tour of Mumbai and Bangalore. Once back at the Maurya Sheraton, we had the last few days of the tour planned well in advance. A sizeable number of the visitors were taken to the ephemeral Taj. Thankfully this was not mandatory, as some of us wanted to stay back in Delhi, especially those who had seen the Taj during their earlier visits.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner, Mr. Shahid Malik invited us for lunch, and this was my first visit to our stunning High Commission located in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi’s diplomatic enclave. The sumptuous lunch cooked with much aplomb was preceded by a lively discussion about our trip and our impressions regarding the possibility of peace.

Pakistan’s diplomatic haven is a well-designed building merging Islamic, Indian and Western sensibilities. The blue-domed structure merges well with Delhi’s vista of monuments, some well- kept and others neglected. This is an irony, at its best! Nevertheless, this was familiar territory. (more…)

My first time in the enemy capital as a journo – Part One

Twenty-four hours before my departure to the enemy lands, I still had not received my visa. This time my rushed, jam-packed travel to India was a bit of an identity switch. From a development professional, a Sufi devotee and a culture-vulture, I was now a journalist representing none other than The Friday Times. Accordingly, I sat on a plane with pockets full of visitors cards and little idea of what this junket was all about.

Indeed, the peace industry across the globe is an unbroken series of junkets, high-sounding statements and admittedly a lot of fun. I was travelling with ten other Pakistani media persons: from Urdu, English, electronic and print varieties. Luckily, I knew Cyril Almeida of DAWN, our Shaukat Piracha (who also works for AAJ) and Asim Awan of Express-Tribune – there was little awkwardness in getting familiar with the group.

Between the two high profile visits of the Indian Home and Foreign Ministers this was a visit to give Pakistani media representatives access to the Indian mood and where it stood. Perhaps, an effort to forge a better understanding of what Indians were thinking and to hear of the Pakistani concerns from the non-state side. A tacit and slightly belated acknowledgement that the Pakistani media has arrived (perhaps nowhere) and has entered the power-game. (more…)

Book Review

The War that Wasn’t: The Sufi and the Sultan By Fatima Hussain Publisher: Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi Pages: 245

Last year I had a chance to meet Dr Fatima Hussain, a thoughtful and inspiring academic based in Delhi. We had all congregated in Agra for the SAARC writers’ summit and Hussain’s facility with subcontinental history, especially Sufism, was most impressive. This is when I found out that her book had just been published and my curiosity to read the book knew no bounds. The title of this book was even more intriguing: “The War that Wasn’t: The Sufi and the Sultan”. Essentially the title summarises a millennium of the societal resistance offered by the Sufis against state power as well as the embedded social relations in the Indian subcontinent.

Hussain teaches History at Delhi University and was educated at Lady Shri Ram College and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has also authored The Palestine Question: A Historical Perspective (2003) and several scholarly articles. An interesting volume that she edited – Sufism and Bhakti Movement: Contemporary Relevance (2008) – perhaps explains the relative fluency of her familiarity with the subject. After her marriage to Pakistan’s leading Punjabi writer and activist, Fakhar Zaman, she is now delving into documenting the history, culture and morphology of Lahore. (more…)

A beatific vision – Nizamuddin Auliya, originally uploaded by Jahane Rumi.

There is something unique, almost magical about this place. Otherwise a tiny space in the sprawl of urban Delhi, Nizamuddin’s shrine means a lot to me. My five years old relationship with this corner of a tumultuous globe is source of strength, peace and a connection with a bygone age.
The sad part is that I never get enough time to be there – just to sit and muse – do nothing. Even taking pictures is such a burden in a place where you want to let go – and be yourself, without any need, ambition, desire or a deadline.
When will I visit next? A question that lingers in my mind each time I am leaving this place. Wish the visa hassles were not there. But they are real and so am I.

Amir Khusrau’s lofty couplet

Abr mi barad-o man shovm-e az yar-e judaa
Choon kunam dil becheneen roz zedildar judaa.
Abr baraan wa man-o yar satadah ba-widaa
Man judaa girya kunaan, abr judaa, yaar judaa

The cloud weeps, and I become separated from my friend -
How can I separate my heart from my heart’s friend on such a day.
The cloud weeping, and I and the friend standing, bidding farewell -
I weeping separately, the clouds separately, the friend separately..

(trans. A. Schimmel)

Also see this

Ghalib the Urdu poet who  described himself as a man-bitten muse, remains  immortal by way of his Urdu and Persian poetry and his modern witty prose. His religious views were secular even by the twenty first century standards - I wrote about his eclectic  poetry and also posted a piece on his little,  neglected Haveli in Delhi. Thanks to Aniket Alam, I discovered his photograph and am posting it here.

My piece published by the Walkerly Magazine

The internet has demolished the iron curtain between Pakistan and India almost overnight, writes Pakistani blogger and writer Raza Rumi.

I don’t need to tell you about the multi-billion dollar enterprise that is the animosity between India and Pakistan. Suffice to say that the birth of a new nation-state on the Indo-Pak sub-continent was among the bloodiest of all time, entailing the migration of nearly 10 million of the wretched of the earth who had to find a new home.

Millions of deaths and three wars later, the bitterness refuses to go away and the interaction of the two countries’ populations has been very limited over 60 years. As a result, not all Pakistanis have the privilege of visiting India. I happen to be one of those who, by sheer coincidence, have been visiting India primarily for work or cultural exchange.

My forays into journalism coincided with my alter ego as a blogger. Purely by accident, I discovered the world of blogging, driven by the desire to post my pieces published by The Friday Times (TFT), a weekly Pakistani magazine. Trying to avoid creating a paid website, the blog template came to my rescue. (more…)

  Published in The Friday Times (May 22 issue)

   Raza Rumi discusses a new book on Sufism by Sadia Dehlvi

Getting a visa to India is a nightmare for ordinary mortals. My application was not very politely returned last month with technical objections. It was only when a letter from Harper Collins arrived that the High Commission rather efficaciously allowed me to enter enemy territory, that too with special instructions that cantonments were out of bounds. I guess the South Asian officialdoms have yet to discover that Google Earth has permanently altered the shape of boundaries and secrecy. (more…)

Finally Sadia Dehlvi’s book, Sufism: The Heart of Islam (HarperCollins), is published and was launched last week in Delhi. India’s eminent writer Khushwant Singh and historian Mushirul Hasan launched the book while Vidya Rao and Oroon Das rendered Sufi verses with music  and subtle intonations befitting the Sufi path.

Tariqa – the Way of the Sufi

Read this excellent piece by Bilal Tanweer published in DAWN, Pakistan on one of my favourite characters:

Among recurring motifs in Sadequain’s work is the image of a headless man holding his lopped head in his hand. The dislodged head, sitting on the palm of the man’s hand, is studying a beloved subject, while the other hand sketches the subject on canvas.

In another variation of this motif, the severed head is looking back at the vacant spot, while the brush is drawing the self-portrait of the head in blood. In all these versions, the lopped head is an unmistakable symbol of ecstatic transcendence: the head is dismembered from the body but is reunited in the subject, in the act of creation, in the contemplation of the beloved. (more…)

My new piece for The Friday Times

South Asian history is a tale of capitulation of local elites before external invaders. Be it the Aryans, the Mongols or East India Company officials, we have always relented, and sometimes quite painlessly. This is an area of history that remains less explored as it conflicts with the grand narratives of ‘resistance’ and nationalist myths we love to construct.S

A phrase locked into our cultural memory – Hunooz Dilli Door Ast (Delhi is as yet far away) explains this historical pattern. It has become a metaphor for the insularity of the elites and the powerlessness of the common people. The complacency that Delhi, the capital of the Islamic empire was not accessible to the hordes of invaders, was the tragic reaction by debauched kings, local Rajas and their henchmen who were either men of straw or active collaborators. (more…)