[Reader-list] Of Arab ki(and other) Sarai(s)...and on silence

[Anand Vivek Taneja]

Of Arab ki (and other) Sarai(s) – a lament for much that has gone


Jahan-e-Khusrau, the much hyped Sufi extravaganza happened in the ruins of Arab ki Sarai recently. The minimum price for listening to the eclectic blending of voices and rhythms from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Sudan was 200 rupees an evening. The chatterati of Delhi flocked to the location, which does not detract from the value of the event. For despite an American hack Sufi dishing out syrupy platitudes in TV Evangelist style about the nature of ‘love’ in Sufism (and that, less than a quarter mile from the dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya – oh, the irony of it!) there was something of great importance happening. When regally white robed Sudanese musicians blended their voices and rhythms with Indian manganiyars and Iranian percussionists in the ruins of a traveller’s sheltering place more than four centuries old, it was an evocation of worlds that have been forgotten by the convenient silence of school history text-books. And the ectoplasm of whose faint ghosts fades a little more every time a Godhra-Ahmedabad-Gujarat happens. 

In Gujarat a few centuries ago it probably wasn’t so uncommon for Africans and Rajasthanis to make music together in sarais. Or at least, to meet. Around the time Arab ki Sarai was built in Delhi, there was already a well-established trade network linking Gujarat and the Deccan to East Africa and the Middle East and of course, to North India. The Habshis(Abbsynians) formed a substantial chunk of the Deccan nobility. Till today, some trace of the Habshis having been here (in fair numbers) can be found in the Sidd(h)is of Gujarat, a marginalised ‘Scheduled Tribe’ of Indian negros. That the Habshis (and as the term is a loose generic for ‘Black’ as well, probably Sudanese also) came to India (like many other groups) as soldiers, as slaves as merchants, as musicians
 and often chose to settle here on fairly equal terms is something too easily forgotten.

As is the fact that the first great ‘freedom figte
Deccan wasn’t Shivaji, but an Ethiopian, a Habshi, a one-time slave who preceded Shivaji by about half a century.

Malik Ambar was born in Ethiopia and landed up in the slave markets of Baghdad. From where he eventually reached India, the Deccan Sultanate of Ahmednagar to be precise. His talents saw him rising to great power in the Sultanate, at the time when Ahmednagar, and the rest of the Deccan were under tremendous pressure from the expansionist Mughal empire of Akbar and Jahangir. For twenty five years, from the fall of Ahmednagar Fort to the Mughals till his own death, Malik Ambar led a courageous campaign against the Mughals, preventing them from moving further into the Deccan and saving Ahmednagar from complete dismemberment. The guerilla warfare that everyone attributes to Shivaji was in fact a  Malik Ambar speciality. Malik Ambar was the leader of a motley bunch of Afghan And Maratha soldiers and was known as ‘Peshwa’. Malik Ambar also introduced reforms in the revenue collection and local administration of the areas of the Deccan(and they were large) that came under his control.

No one tells you about Malik Ambar in Ellora. There’s a road leading up from the Hindu and Buddhist temple caves to the top of the cliffs into which the caves have been carved in. That road also gives you a more spectacular view of the dramatic landscape around Ellora because of its higher elevation. Despite all these advantages, the road is essentially used as a walking shortcut by locals to get from Ellora to the nearby town of Khuldalabad. Zero tourists. On one side of this road, near a precipice with the most spectacular view of the dramatic Maharashtra landscape, is a not-so-small, extremely elegant tomb. Not on the same scale as, say, Humayun’s tomb, it is still magnificently large, and elegant in a style very different from the Mughal aesthetic. The most striking thing about it is that the geometrical carvings of the window lattices and the  honey-coloured walls and turrets seems to be inspired by the carving one has ju
e ago, though that is largely figurative and this is geometrical. Inside stands a large, neglected cenotaph of polished black granite. This is the tomb of Malik Ambar, one of the most colourful personalities in Deccan history. Unlike in the caves just below, there is no ASI board speaking of the historical significance of the place. No tourist guide or brochure mentions it. 

No tourist guide or book mentions the first recorded instance of ‘tourists’ visiting Ellora, either. An account written by Muhammad Qasim Ferishta of the political intrigues and happenings surrounding the marriage of Dewal Rani, the daughter of the Rai Karan of Gujarat to Khizr Khan, the son of Ala-ud-Din Khilji, mentions how three to four hundred soldiers of the Khilji army, under the generalship of Alp Khan, took his permission to visit the famous caves of Ellora. (c.1300) They were presumably Muslims. 

Somehow it all seems to come back to Gujarat.
The study of history at times seems to be a constant battle with the conspiracy of silence. 
A battle fought, and often lost, on the quicksands of  public (and personal) memory.
A battle that has to be joined, by each one of us, to fight the silence, to reclaim our lost histories.
To rehabilitate the sarais of the world, (and of course, to build new ones), to restore them as spaces where all fellow-travellers can find refuge, without necessarily being charged exorbitant entry tickets. 

Viva le Sarai!