‘Reading the Red Fort— Architecture as History’

‘Reading the Red Fort— Architecture as History’

Text of Talk delivered to The History Society, Miranda House 

Thank you for inviting me. I'm very happy to be here. 

A couple of clarifications and caveats before I begin. My 1st degree is in architecture — not in history. And so, as the only architect amongst all of you, I am probably the outsider in this room.

My professional connection with history is through my specialisation — which is that of Architectural Conservation. Therefore, my training in looking at history is primarily as a guide to devising appropriate principles and ways of conserving historic architecture. 

However, through my practice and my research, I have been led to look at history beyond just the objective of understanding historic architecture. As also to look at historic architecture beyond just the specific objective of figuring out how best to conserve it. 

I’m going to speak to all of you today about the Red Fort, which has been — and continues to be — a source of great interest and learning for me. The Red Fort, as many of you would know, is a very large and very complex piece of architecture. It has also been the focus and the setting of numerous significant events in history. It has been variously known through different times as: the Qila-e-Mualla, Qila-e-Mubarak, Lal Haveli, Dilli ka Lal Qila, and so on. It was given the epithet of ‘The Most Magnificent Palace in the East’ by James Fergusson (the British writer who gave primacy to architecture as history); while being brusquely titled ‘The Fort’ in official British records after 1857. All these different names reflect the different associations of this piece of historic architecture — whose foundations were laid in 1639 CE. In an interesting coincidence, it was inaugurated formally on 18 April 1648 CE, so exactly 377 years ago to the month.

What precisely am I going to pick out from all the history contained in the almost 400 years of the Fort’s existence, in the 40 minutes or so that we have available today? The title of my talk, which is ‘Reading the Red Fort— Architecture as History’ encapsulates what I am going to speak about. So, the first part of my talk is to do with ‘Reading the Red Fort’.

Here I imply two things when I use the word ‘reading’. The normal sense of the word is to ‘understand the meaning of (written or printed words or symbols). And therefore, how do we ‘Read the Red Fort’ using written or printed words or symbols as primary sources? This is the method foregrounded in the conventional approach to architectural history — and is something that I will talk about. But I will also use ‘reading’ in its larger definition, which is to ‘interpret in a particular way’. The particular way that I follow, stems from my training in architecture — and consists of reading the architecture of the Red Fort itself as the primary source of its history, in order to extract the information encoded in it.

That leads me to the phrase Architecture as History that figures in the title of my talk. I examine the premise of looking at architecture itself as the major primary source of history — perhaps the only source of history that can be directly accessed, approached and experienced by practically everyone. This is bound to be a contentious claim. And I look forward to further discussion on this. In short, I hope to help you to make sense of the Red Fort as it exists today. And through the example of the Fort, I hope to explore how architectural forms and spaces of earlier times can help us to comprehend history.

IA: Reading the Red Fort: architecture as the primary source of history

To do this, I am going to take you back to my own first visit to the Red Fort, when I was a student at the School of Planning and Architecture and had a few years of architectural education (which included the subject of architectural history). I recollect that this is what I saw then: 

1. The towering red boundary walls of the Fort with its two large public Gateways of which the Lahori Darwaza is where I entered from
2. A high vaulted Bazaar Street (called Chatta Bazaar) after the Lahori Gate 
3. Ahead of the Chatta Bazaar, a Gateway called the Naqqar Khana — and some tall barracks
4. The Diwan-i-Am pavilion in axis with the Naqqar Khana
5. Finally, some seemingly haphazardly placed pavilions behind the Diwan-i-Am, with a masjid within its walled enclosure: the Moti Masjid
6. And adjacent to the Masjid, the Hayat Baksh garden with a few pavilions.

Many of the parts of the Fort that I have listed above, were either barred to the public or were difficult to access for multiple reasons. There were also a few signages put up by the ASI at site, which gave some basic information about the buildings. That’s really quite little to go on. You’ll discover this for yourself when you visit the Red Fort, since in that sense it has not changed much since then. 

Seen from outside, the Fort’s boundary walls seem more or less complete; and we expect to see a grand interior within them. When we actually move into the Fort from the Lahori Darwaza, we initially do get a sense of a planned and formal place. But beyond the Chatta Bazaar, the sequence of buildings falls apart. There is nothing to orient us about how to proceed — even the new signages do not help, and many of the buildings are in very bad shape. Though the barracks are closest to the Bazaar, the arched Naqqar Khana gateway with its red carved panels straight ahead seems the most likely place to go on to. Beyond this we can see the Diwan-i-Am, and half-hidden by it are several buildings — run-down, but with elegant proportions and forms. Some are in red stone and some in white marble, but they all generally have large open arches, and their quality of light and space is very different from buildings constructed today.

All in all, it is difficult to reconcile these intriguing disconnected buildings, some of which are so delicately crafted, with the regal splendour associated with Shah Jahan and with his other magnificent acts of patronage. It is also impossible to figure out how the Mughal emperor — arguably one of the richest and most refined individuals of his time — lived in the Fort? Indeed how did anyone live in the Fort? As an architect, this was my main question. 

If I was to continue the analogy of ‘reading’ the Fort, I would thus liken it to a book with a hard-bound, more or less intact cover. When you open the book you find many pages missing, and those pages that are still there are faded, torn, moth-eaten — with a few words here and there in a half-familiar script. Given this paucity and confusion of material, how do we read its history? 

Well, in a way this paucity itself alerted me to some significant features — the most important being the evident transformation of the Fort. I could grasp this, even in the absence of other records on site. This was perhaps due to my architectural training of assessing the possibilities of different places for habitation. So I could sense that what I saw within the Fort was incomplete to cater for the functions that a complex of its scale ought to satisfy. I could also make out that the British barracks were later intrusions, even though there was no specific information on this at site. I could therefore, dimly read what was there, and also what was not there.

I B ‘Reading the Red Fort’: written/printed words/symbols as primary sources.

This sense that there was something significant that was missing at the Fort, led me to start ferreting around and ‘reading up’ on it. On doing so, I found that, despite the Red Fort's iconic cultural and political importance; despite there being so many accounts and explanations of it, no one seemed to have seriously tried to answer the question of how it was used and lived in! 

Therefore, since my objective was to understand how the Fort functioned and appeared in its original form — and these had obviously changed (as I could tell from my reading on site) — my research was directed at finding records of its establishment, construction and use in the reign of Shah Jahan. However, I found that such records were few and far-between; and some were in languages that I could not read. They were also fragmented, incomplete, and scattered in museums in different parts of the world, ranging from Delhi to Dublin.

So, I modified my approach. I looked for whatever I could find of the Fort from any time of its existence — in the hope that it would aid my understanding in some way or the other. Here again, I found that even later records depicted very few parts of the huge Fort and that too during just some specific periods of its long existence — and these were generally from a time when it had already transformed a lot. Additionally, many of these sources took a great deal of artistic license, or were unclear about details — and often even directly contradicted each other! So the challenge for me was to visualise and reconstruct from the erasure and reordering of the architectural remains of the Red Fort — and from scattered and contradictory textual and visual records, how the Fort was lived in and how it looked when it was established almost four centuries ago. Thus, Reading the Red Fort (in both the meanings that I outlined in the beginning of the talk) was a very difficult task.

Despite this, by thoroughly studying the existing architecture on site — not just through repeated observations and measurements, but also by an analysis of its buildings from the point of view of geometry, proportions, spatial attributes, etc. — in conjunction with different historical records, I could extract important clues. These are some of the drawings I made as part of my analysis, published in my book on The Red Fort of Shahjahanabad. 

Through all this I discovered:

1. That large swathes of the Fort, more than 90 percent of it had been destroyed by the British in 1857 and after. (This is the reason why what we see at site today is so confusing);
2. That the British had not only constructed buildings inside the Fort for their own use, but had also reconfigured practically all of it so that it looked and worked as a cantonment
3. That the few Mughal structures that they did not demolish had been vandalised by them, and misused and altered to a great extent
4. That the original design of the Fort had a unique architectural quality, where the open areas and the buildings in it worked in harmony to efficiently cater for an astonishingly diverse array of activities, and accommodated many different kinds of people.
5. That these open-areas of the Fort were sub-divided into a series of walled streets, courts and gardens with water-features, amidst which the Mughal buildings were devised as pavilions. Space, as it were, flowed effortlessly between inside and outside along with beautiful views, scents and sounds.
6. That this permutation of pavilions interlinked with walled streets, courts and gardens did many things: they generated a comfortable micro-climate; they allowed for multiple functions in the Fort ranging from imperial residential, formal ceremonial, manufacturing, military, commercial, administrative etc.; they created specific ‘domains’ hidden behind the walls and screens accessible only to certain people, and virtually 'invisible’ to other people.
7. VII) And therefore, that by knocking down the walled streets, courts and gardens, the British literally amputated these pavilions — and destroyed the Fort’s original permutation of buildings and open spaces.

It was because of such examination and analysis that I also uncovered the spatial and geometrical relationship between the extant Mughal structures on site. And therefore, despite the limitations of information on the original design of the Fort, I was able to ‘predict’ the location, dimensions, forms and uses of the buildings and spaces destroyed by the British. Having done this, I could utilise my reading of the original design of the Fort to reconcile contradictory secondary sources, and to put their incomplete information into context. Additionally, through this process, I was also able to identify important secondary sources as well as primary evidence at site — some of which were in plain sight of everybody! The use of such a methodology in reading historic architectural sites was the subject of my thesis in Architectural Conservation, where I proposed spatial exploration as a way to better understand historic sites preparatory to conserving them in a holistic way. I’ll explain this through a couple of examples. 

1. This is a hitherto unrecognised record from the ASI archives that I came across when I was appointed Conservation consultant to the ASI. At first glance this plan looks incomplete and unimportant. However, it is an extremely important document. It is a measured plan outlining the boundaries of various sectors and buildings of the Fort, many of which were demolished by the British — recorded by them prior to the demolishment. This shows that the demolishment was deliberately planned by the British — to erase even the architecture which fostered the way of life they had already erased. And if you look carefully — as I did — you can spot some traces of that architecture even today on the walls of the British barracks showing they were built with the rubble of the destroyed Mughal buildings. The plan is also of great significance, since other available maps of the Fort, even if richer in detail have inaccuracies in  measurements and locations of the Mughal buildings. It was interesting for me that this map — the only record of the state of the Fort just before its destruction — corroborated the spatial reconstruction I had arrived at — derived from the locations and dimensions of the existing Mughal buildings at site.

b) This is a much reproduced record in the public domain: the Italian photographer, Felice Beato’s photograph (shot in 1858) of the Forecourt of the Naqqar Khana, captioned: ‘Inner Gateway of Palace, with the tree under which the Christians were massacred’. The photograph, deliberately highlights a tragic episode, as part of the memorialisation of the British version of 1857, to justify their violence towards Shahjahanabad and its people and ruler. The visual composition and the wording of the title of this photo is such that it makes the Naqqar Khana recede into the background, and makes us miss the connecting arcades on either side of it — which formed the boundary to its Forecourt, a very important part of the Fort demolished by the British. The photograph is invaluable as one of the few records that documents the presence and proportions of these arcades, and that I registered the presence of these architectural components — and could use them in tracing the original conception of the Red Fort — is only because of my sustained engagement with the primary resource of the extant Mughal buildings in the Fort. 

c) And this is a fragment at the plinth level between the Moti Masjid and the Bhadon pavilion. This is easy to miss. The geometrical, spatial and functional analysis I did directed my attention to it, and its great significance in marking the position of the wall originally between the imperial Hayat Baksh garden and Diwan-i-Khas Forecourt. This fragment thus helps to corroborate information in archival maps; and gives evidence of the limits of the Diwan-i-Khas Forecourt.

To reiterate, the primary record of the Fort yielded clues to what it was, as well as what it may have been. As I have explained, even the absence of certain architectural features on site furthered my understanding. It was the realisation that there were something significant that was missing, that directed my search to other sources. And it was because I had the reference of the primary record of the few extant Mughal structures, that I was kept on track to uncover the relationship between them. This then helped me to correctly position and comprehend the missing parts of the Fort. And consequently, to also recognise the value of documents that recorded evidence of this vital relationship.

Let us now return to the Red Fort as it is today through a tour of its extant parts, in the nature of a flash-back to understand how these would have worked in its original form. Of the different parts that I had listed out earlier:

1. Let’s start with the circuit of its towering red boundary walls. These walls were of course damaged in 1857, and the British also reduced the height of the ramparts in front of their main Gates after they took over the Fort. Then, some 10 years later, in 1864-65, more of the Fort walls were knocked down by the British along with a substantial part of the city, to insert the railway. What has changed the most however, is the area around the walls. Where we presently have the busy Ring Road (Mahatma Gandhi Marg) was where the Yamuna river originally flowed — right in front of the eastern boundary of the Fort with an intervening sandy bank. The remaining boundary walls of the Fort had a moat full of water connected to the Yamuna. Beyond the moat, there were beautiful orchards and gardens — except right in front of the Lahori and Dilli Darwazas where there were chowks. All these areas around the Fort: the sandy banks, the orchards, and the chowks were open to the public, and were used by people to bathe, to stroll, picnic, watch performances, to view the Emperor every morning in his public balcony, gather. Directly after the chowk and the gardens were the houses, temples, mosques, shops and sarais of the city.
2. Thus, there was a very close relationship between the Fort and the city. The Lahori and Dilli Darwazas (which have to be now entered through smaller sidegates) were originally entered directly through drawbridges from the chowks in front of them. Ahead of these chowks, the two main streets of Urdu Bazar and Faiz Bazar ran west and south to the Lahori and Dilli Darwazas of the city. This visual and spatial connection between the Fort and Shahjahanabad — where the Fort’s two public gateways opened out into the city, and the people of the city came right upto the gardens around its walls — was a very important part of the original design.
3. So much so, that when Aurangzeb after taking over as emperor, ordered that the straight entry into the Fort should be blocked, Shah Jahan, reportedly wrote to him from Agra Fort where he was imprisoned: ‘Dear Son, you have made the fort a Bride, and put a veil upon her face’. 
4. Now, what about the interior of the Fort? How has that changed? Well, everything was originally much grander, including the Chatta Bazaar Street where the best products of the empire were displayed: its finest artefacts, brocades, embroideries. If you were an ambassador or an important person, you would have been treated to the sight of all this in the Bazaar. However, if you were a soldier, an attendant or a craftsperson working in the Fort, you would have been allowed entry from the Dilli Darwaza. This led into the Fort through the Rastah Dilli Darwaza. Now, the Dilli Darwaza is barred to the public — unless you have a special pass!
5. But apart from reduction in grandeur, the important things to keep in mind when you visit the Fort today are the reduction in the number of buildings of the Fort, the reduction in their accessories of screens, awnings, qanats, fountains; the complete removal of their connecting walled courtyards, gardens, etc. and thus the reduction not just in formal splendour but also in  the complex and diverse activities that once took place here, and made the Fort virtually a city-within-a city.  
6. So, for instance, the undefined area ahead of the Chatta Bazaar that we see today originally had the big walled Naqqar Khana chowk. This was the heart of the Fort, cooled by a canal down its centre traversed by all occupants of the Fort, and inhabited by court-officials transacting work in its arcades. Anyone entering here from the Chatta Bazaar and the Rastah Dilli Darwaza could move into the Fort only through the other two darwazas of the Naqqar Khana Chowk. One of these, the Darwaza Rastah Salimgarh led north towards the area where the soldiers stayed and to the island fort of Salimgarh beyond that. The grandest and largest of the darwazas, the Naqqar Khana itself, which was directly opposite and in line with the Chatta Bazaar Darwaza, led to the even larger rectangular walled chowk of the magnificent Diwan-i-am. The emperor sat on his throne here to give public audience everyday.
7. As an inhabitant of the city, this was as far as you could come. Entry into the Fort behind the Diwan-i-Am — which was where the private apartments were — was only for the emperor, for members of his family, for their special attendants, or for noblemen or ministers.
8. This was through guarded gates at specific points, which led through several chowks and beautiful walled gardens to the pavilions where the Emperor and his family stayed, or to the kitchens and service sectors of the Fort. This labyrinthine quality of the Fort with gardens within gardens and Forecourts inside forecourts, ensured security and privacy. From Shah Jahan’s time to Bahadur Shah Zafar’s, we find references to this aspect. 
9. One of these is a story about a young man who tried to get into the zenana area. This is related in the memoirs of Francois Bernier, a French traveller who lived in Shahjahanabad for some years shortly after its establishment. He heard it from a Portuguese servant who used to work in the Fort. So this young man did get in, apparently with the complicity of Princess Roshanara, Emperor Aurangzeb’s sister. But getting out was a different matter. Try as he might, he could not find his way out of the maze of gardens and pavilions — and he was finally discovered by the emperor’s guards and punished by being thrown over the Fort walls. 
10. We find indirect evidence of how this maze divided the Fort into different domains and gave its inhabitants security and privacy, through another source: a Plan of the Fort in the National Archives, drawn by Ensign Peter Lawtie in 1812 CE. This plan only plots certain buildings within their walled Forecourts with the rest shown as a blank! What was really interesting was that this plan was very similar to a drawing I had made as part of my reading of the Fort, where I deduced how the Fort would have looked to different users — the Emperor, his family, noblemen and favoured visitors, and ordinary people. Familiarity with the primary record of architecture through a close scrutiny of its explicit forms and its implicit systems, helped me to understand Lawtie’s ‘eye-witness map of 1812’ and why he had drawn it in this way — which was that he probably had no access to the rest of the Fort!

II Architecture as History

Thus, we realise that the original design of the Red Fort was a refined resolution of space; of buildings not used as sealed objects but interlinked with open areas and each other: flexible, permeable, efficient and adaptive to different seasons and multiple use by a wide number of people across the social spectrum. It reflected notions of kingship where the Emperor as king and father catered for different social groups to exist in proximity in his imperial Fort  — while allowing them privacy and individual expression. This in turn was the embodiment of the underpinnings of life in the sub-continent with coexisting cultural and spatial identities. This brings me to the second part of my talk where I contend that architecture is its own primary source in reading its history, of ‘chief importance’. But not just that, architecture, is also a primary source of history in general.

Let me clarify why I say this, since this is not the conventional view. 

My first point is that historic architecture (along with archaeology) constitutes the only record that we can all come close to perceiving in a primary way and experiencing through practically all our physical senses. We can view and touch it, be enclosed and encompassed in it, hear the sound of our voices and footsteps as we walk within and around it — in similar even if not in exactly the same ways as did those who created and inhabited it. 

Secondly, even when there are no stated objectives of memorialising, we can trace in the way architecture is built, lived in, and transformed: what people held as important; what they wished to remember; what were their craft, technology or management skills. Architecture is thus one of the most direct manifestation of memories that govern our individual and larger identities. It is also a manifestation of multiple knowledge-systems comprising cultural, social, economic and technological history — especially since architecture can last through several human lifetimes. 

It is less easy to dislocate as compared to archaeological remains, more accessible than records in museums or private collections, more comprehensible than texts in different languages or specialised maps. We can interact at multiple levels with architecture, which is not just a setting or record of events, but the event itself. However, it is precisely because there is such a multiplicity of layers and memories that it is so challenging to interpret historic architecture, even through our own senses. Especially when we have very many missing bits to contend with, as in the Red Fort. To prevent us from misinterpreting this primary architectural record, we need to study it in sufficient detail, and examine it in conjunction with other records — keeping in mind that these other records are all secondary.

Why do I say this? 

Physicists and philosophers remind us that by the time some sight or sound travels to our senses, it is already past: however infinitesimally small that time may be. Taken in this literal sense, no record can ever be present in the same moment as the event it records — and each record is a memory. Even if we disregard the implications of such minute allocations of time, our knowledge of events — through records made by someone present at a particular time in the past — are re-presentations in another way. They are impressions filtered by not just the organs of perception, but also by the abilities and intentions of those who write, record or remember. We know this not just from abstract texts, or even from the exciting genre of crime fiction where the unravelling of the mystery depends on the detective ploughing through testimonies of different ‘witnesses’ to the crime, but also from daily experience. No two versions in newspaper reports of an event observed at the same time by two different people, are identical. They can, in fact, be very dissimilar. What we may call the ‘Rashoman Effect’ that Akira Kurosawa demonstrates for us so brilliantly and disturbingly in his film Rashoman. We forget that this is true for literary texts, official court-histories and archival paintings — all generally considered primary records. 

And when these records pertain to architecture, there is another aspect to this re-presentation — there is a literal loss of dimension. In trying to communicate the three-dimensional experience of architecture through the two-dimensional medium of words or drawings, there is necessarily much that is left out. Let me explain this through an example of a portion of the Badshahnama commissioned by Shah Jahan. This, the combined work of Abdul Ahmed Lahori and Muhammad Waris in Persian, available in partially published and translated form in English, also covers the time of the Red Fort’s establishment (i.e. between 1639 and 1648 CE). It is an important source of the Fort’s founding, containing descriptions of some of its original detail, decoration, dimensions and materials. Despite this, it does not help to understand the basic fabric of the Fort.

This is because firstly, the Badshahnama— illustrated with formal miniature paintings of portraits or views of selected areas — does not describe all of the Fort, but only the part that the emperor used. Neither the text nor the miniatures cover the parts of the Fort where the attendants and soldiers lived or worked — even though these are integral to its original conception and functioning as a city-within-a-city. Even the part of the Fort where the emperor stayed or used, is not described completely; indeed, it cannot because of the limitation of texts describing buildings. As the authors of the Badshahnama write: ‘Its structures are beyond imagination. Its every corner is dazzling and every direction full of heavenly gardens…The qualities of these buildings are so high that none can elaborate on them’. Neither does it qualify that the Fort had different domains or convey its spatial quality — which, as I mentioned, was an elegant permutation of inter-linked built and open space. In any case, it was for literary ability rather than architectural knowledge that Lahori — like other writers given access to exhaustive data pooled from different parts of the empire — was commissioned to write the Badshahnama!

In other words, even official records of the founding of the Fort have many ‘missing bits’ about its original form. We deduce the existence of these missing bits and understand their diverse complexity from a comparison with other sources. What this also tells us, is that rarely is a record complete in itself. It is by looking at multiple frames of reference and records, that we come close to a more complete picture of the reality we are trying to understand. And, as I hope I have shown, it is only by revisiting the primary record of what remains on ground — and consciously recognising the absence of what does not — that we can trace the essential attributes of such architecture and realise the many misconceptions in which we see, conserve, or write about them today. 

One misconception is what the British actively sought to propagate: that the Fort was in a dire and ruinous state in the mid-19th century, and that by clearing it, they actually did everyone a favour. This is a patent untruth, as we have seen. The other misconception is not to do just with the Red Fort, but affects how we see architecture and its very purpose. I will illustrate this through some popular drawings of the Red Fort by British artists from the mid-19^th century. They appear realistic, are said to be based on actual observation, and show the Fort from the vantage point of the ridge, drawn during or just before 1857. Now we know the Red Fort suffered extensive damage in the intense battle of 1857, and unabashed looting and destruction after the British moved into the Fort, the symbolic seat of the Mughal empire. We also know that the palace demolition order carried out in 1863, reduced to rubble most of the structures within the Fort and around its boundary walls upto a distance of 500 yards. On the face of it, these drawings, showing an unbroken Fort drawn realistically according to the rules of perspective, seem valuable in re-constructing how it was before its violent destruction and re-modelling by the British. 

However, if you compare these drawings with existing Mughal buildings in the Fort, as well as with other records — as I did — you will be surprised at how fanciful these are. The profile of the Fort’s boundary walls is quite wrong; there is no depiction of the many forecourts, enclosed gardens, arcades, halls and verandahs originally within the Fort; even what exists today is drawn incorrectly! These drawings show a couple of towering buildings, entered through a wide driveway flanked by trees and shrubbery. It is not a record of what existed, but an Orientalised image of a stately English home! Despite this glaring mis-representation, the preface to an official publication of the Kolkata Victoria Memorial Hall containing this and similar artworks by European artists, claims that ‘these paintings reflected images as in a mirror’ whose ‘credibility and fidelity remain above board’. We are urged to see these as ‘study-based endeavours in which no room is left for the imagination’. Such acceptance of ‘eye-witness’ records, without comparing them with what they purport to depict, leads us twice astray. First, it makes us see them as the ‘true’ reality of what existed. Secondly, it effects our perception by making us see in them the standard image for monumental architecture: and therefore, the desirable template for architecture even in our times.

III Beyond Architecture as History

So Reading the Red Fort helped me to not just track positions and proportions of its missing built-structures — which was my initial objective — but also served to gauge the veracity of other sources and conveyed lessons in the usage of space. Beyond that, it has led me to critically analyse design processes, both my own and those I see around. And guided me in devising methodologies to analyse architecture, regardless of whether it is labelled historic or otherwise. And thus how the themes that underpin the Fort and that of its contemporary city of Shahjahanabad, can inform how we live, design and build today — which is the subject of my current research. 

The quantum physicist, Carlo Rovelli, in his book, The Order of Time, explains that the second principle of thermodynamics, which provides the mathematical definition of the variation of entropy of a body, 'is the only equation of fundamental physics that knows any difference between past and future. The only one that speaks of the flowing of time.’ He goes on to say: 

‘the growth of entropy distinguishes the past from the future for us and leads to the unfolding of the cosmos. It determines the existence of traces, residues and memories of the past. We human beings are an effect of this great history of the increase of entropy, held together by the memory that is enabled by these traces.’

The Red Fort, like other architecture from times before us, bears the imprint of many lives, spaces, embodied knowledge-systems and skills, which can lead us to the ‘unfolding of the cosmos’. But beyond the value of architecture as history, the Red Fort like all architecture, is an act of community. It is particularly important for us to dwell on this. Architecture cannot be built single-handedly. Nor conceived as the outcome of one mind, however unique it may appear. We bring forth architecture through a coalescing of recollections and practices internalised through training or temperament; through the play of cherished memories of light and space, of places we have inhabited or visited, as of those we read about and visualise. The more diverse and varied these spaces and thoughts, the richer are our memories, our minds and our lives. It is because we do not remember all this, that we paradoxically reinforce the forlorn appearance and barren use of the Fort set forth during its colonial occupation. It is now a barred space, occasionally used as a stage-set and backdrop for celebrations that ironically dwell on its memory as a symbol of resistance to colonial British rule — while continuing colonial concepts of rigidly keeping people out through barriers, fenced lawns, circuitous entrance routes, and incomplete information.

Repair as Mindfulness

 Towards an Architecture of Ethics   

Anisha Shekhar Mukherji September 2024

I: The Language of Architecture

The sessions themed on the Practice of Repair, as indeed the entire Conference on Architectures of Transition in South Asia, in revealing the scales and kinds of contemporary practices, brought home the immense potential of architecture. A rare opportunity to see, hear and learn from the ingenuity and commitment of a range of participants, it threw up many questions — as any worthwhile platform of ideas should — not just in the planning and construction of buildings, but also in its larger meaning of allied design fields and ways of living.

It also generated disquiet. There was a glaring contrast between some of the remarkably inspiring work presented here, and most of the architecture that confronts us in Delhi, and elsewhere in India or South Asia. And within the conference hall, not only was the very same architectural vocabulary used to explain completely opposed approaches, but also aspects of practice that do grave harm to people and the planet, were rendered benign with the aid of fuzzy phrases. 

For instance, is it reasonable for offices employing processes and outcomes of heavy-industry that lead to eviction of citizens and destruction of nature, to claim they are contributing to improvement and re-development? That they follow an architecture of collaboration — when they essentially engage with official agencies who rarely allow any say to those who inhabit or use such architecture? Can small firms by default consider themselves sustainable, even if they eschew local materials and skills? Should design be presented as an intellectual sport or a logistical challenge? Should it negate cultural beliefs and traditions? Does applying crafts as decorative motifs on a structure of industrially fabricated materials, count as context-sensitive design in South Asia?

There is an imperative necessity of a rigorous vocabulary to clearly convey characteristics of architectural practice, and to reveal how images that certain words summon up can lead us to a crisis. This is not mere quibbling. Unless we speak and write in words that describe architecture accurately, we can neither assess its quality, nor decide what ought to be its priorities. This malaise of obfuscation is not limited to South Asia or indeed to architecture and design. In the words of Ivan Illich, it is a world-wide strategy of exclusion and monopoly created by Disabling Professions. 

Needless to say, a more truthful vocabulary will not automatically generate architecture with corresponding qualities, just as knowledge of all the correct words does not presuppose the production of great literature. Vocabulary is but a tool. It should, however, be a tool used to clarify what we practice — not to delude others and ourselves into believing we are doing what we are not. The use of such a vocabulary cannot happen in a void. For this, we must have some consensus about the philosophical objective and practical purpose of architecture. If we agree that this objective is to create empathetic environments for habitation that fulfil spiritual as well as material needs, we may accordingly reframe the terms of reference to help us create such environments. Terms which help us in constructing a language of architecture allied to its first principles, as well as to evaluate the direction of its transitions.

Dehumanisation of Labour

An important aspect of mainstream architecture today hidden in architectural discourse, is that it is the outcome of ‘profit, privilege, and usurpation’ — traits that inevitably accompany colonisation as underlined by Albert Memmi from his primary experience in North Africa more than half a century ago. It would be presumptuous to suggest that ‘[t]he sickness of the world, technologically boastful and humanly inadequate,’ as Nadine Gordimer puts it, can be solved by architects. But we can at least, acknowledge the dehumanisation of labour in our profession — as anyone who has even passed by a building site, cannot but notice. This is not confined to construction sites, nor unlinked to the debilitating poverty we see all around us in South Asia: at traffic lights, in slums, in the tragedies of children picking trash, in reports of people starving to death or dying to earn a paltry 800 rupees to clean sewers.

The dangerous and deeply exploitative work all over the world in mines, factories and industrial-centres where building materials are produced, may not be directly visible to many of us. Information on this has, however, long been in the public domain. Even so, contract documents, conventional building processes, and labour laws rarely ensure congenial, safe or fair conditions for construction-workers. Nor do they give them any creative role. Indeed, they put them and their families — in South Asia, often obliged to camp on building-sites — at great peril.

Before the colonial decimation, it appears that professional practice in our part of the world ensured a more responsible working environment. Consideration of the cosmos and the Earth as a whole, and for what already exists on or around a site, were essential prerequisites to any construction. Technical manuals unequivocally qualify this, and that all members of the building team are to be treated with honour: architects, supervisors, masons, wood-workers.These are not just hypothetical ideals, as accounts of actual work show. A palm-leaf manuscript Bayacakada (Vyayacakra or ‘Expense Cycle’), records transactions of money, goods and services in the construction of the huge and iconic 13th century Konarak temple. It reveals a relationship of accountability and trust between patrons, supervisors and workers. Even till the early 20th century in different parts of the sub-continent, those who craft structures in the indigenous tradition — from everyday houses to specialised functions of temples, dharamshalas, mosques, palaces — exhibit great creative ability as well as freedom to exercise that ability, as documented in a special report of the Archaeological Survey of India. 

The Practice of Repair

Despite the break-down and extinction of many aspects of our cultures consequent to colonisation, some part of our world-views and their rich knowledge base still survives. We are heir to philosophies that guide us to own responsibility for our actions and to see ourselves as an indivisible part of different forms of existence. This bank of wisdom is vital to revisit in order to resolve our current crisis in architecture, or at least to look for ways out of it. One of these ways lies in the practice of repair. Repair is defined in the dictionary as: ‘to go back'; ‘to put something that is damaged, broken or not working correctly back into good condition, or make it work again’; ‘to correct or improve something’. These different meanings are all relevant for South Asia, especially in the wake of the trauma and aftermath of colonisation. 

The sessions in the conference that were centred on repair, urged participants to clarify how they interpret and incorporate repair in their architectural practice. The commonality underlying all the presentations was a deep involvement with the passage of time, with materials, with particular cultural world-views, and with local communities. Though they expanded on different aspects of repair — ranging from continuing tradition to mitigating climate-change to conserving social and skill-structures — all of them stressed the imperativeness of repair. That it is the only way to halt the earth’s destruction; its disembowelling and dumping caused by endless toxic production. Repair is thus, not merely limited to techniques, but at its core, is a sense of real responsibility towards the world.

Repair makes us materially richer since less money and resources are generally spent in repairing things vis-a-vis replacing them. As a bespoke design solution requiring specific responses to what will always be specific, special conditions, repair cannot be done without a network of relationships with people and places. Beyond a mundane level of fixing things, repair can therefore lead to richer life experiences, and a heightened awareness of ourselves and everything around us to integrate the physical with the metaphysical. Giving credence to traditional wisdom — in understanding geometries and geographies; in extending the life of buildings and materials; in reawakening responsibilities; in creating visual, spatial and inner harmony — thus embraces repair in all its meanings from ‘going back’ in a literal and larger sense, to ‘improving and putting something that is damaged, broken or not working correctly back into good condition.’ 

The Cult of the New 

If it can lead to so many good things, why is architecture today so averse, even hostile to the idea of repair? This is because repair is presented as old-fashioned and unfashionable, and actively discouraged at all levels. The fact that we are now educated in an idiom steeped in a materialist scientific view, which downplays or denies the validity of spiritual frame-works, also greatly diminishes our sense of responsibility at personal, professional and societal levels. Ezra Pound, when he articulated the creed of modernism to “Make it New!” in 1934, was not merely voicing a sentiment limited to the avant garde. He was echoing and further shaping a narrative of ceaseless consumption in the garb of ‘making works fundamentally individual.’ Such feverish haste to make, such heady value given to the new, can only exist in opposition to that which already exists. This is seen in its most extreme form in the fashion industry, where role models celebrate hectic buying and discarding through trends that change every season.

Repair also stands in the way of the economic imperialism of powerful countries and centralised corporations. Government policies in many parts of the western world from especially the 1930s onwards, deter repair through deliberate strategies of planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence. Popular writing bolsters reckless extravagance, while depicting reuse as boring and sordid or at best, an eccentricity — and in one case, makes ‘exaggerated economies’ even a cause for murder! 

This industrialised world-view that made us hostage to colonisation is now our overarching aspiration in a situation akin to the Stockholm syndrome. Influential theorists tell us that ‘the South Asian countries — outside the foreign enclaves — were, and are, so largely stagnant, with most of their people traditional in outlook and inclined to accept things as they are.’ This is accompanied by a dismissal of our ‘supplementary beliefs’ identified as ‘the glorification of frugality’ and ‘the moral superiority of self-employment and independent work to wage-employment.’ Positing tradition as stagnant and ‘remote from the realities of the modern world’ is an instance of the burden of images that certain words are made to carry as part of the mythology of imperialism. All of this puts pressure on us to embrace the Cult of the New, and the extreme exploitation it is bound up in — Malignant Growth in the words of the economist Amit Bhaduri. Those who challenge this interpretation of tradition, remain voices in the background that the mainstream chooses to ignore.

Distinguishing Attributes of Repair

So, as we see, despite all its positive meanings, repair can be re-presented with negative connotations. It can also be hijacked. In the name of repair, control and economic imperialism is often perpetuated by utilising large-scale mechanisation. Even when repair extends the life of materials, it may paradoxically lead to dispossession: as when adaptive reuse of buildings changes their function and displaces original residents. Therefore, to examine how repair may be applicable in developing a philosophy and vocabulary of architecture appropriate for the different situations that confront us in South Asia — whether in conservation, post-disaster work, or everyday buildings — we need to first clearly comprehend its essence. A time-tested methodology in our tradition to understand and represent the essence of anything, is based on identifying its lakshana: its distinguishing attributes.

To me, the most distinguishing attribute of repair is Frugality. From this, arise its other important attributes: Continuity; Optimisation; Innovation; Decentralisation; Freedom; Justice. Frugality is implicit in the wish to improve or make something work again. It implies careful use ensured by continuity of rigorous knowledge — about regions, materials, techniques. Frugality is also the basis for the ordered proportions of traditional art and architecture, which yield optimum aesthetic and structural solutions, link back to characteristic rhythms of the natural world, and hold the potential for spiritual realisation. 

Frugality can be best met by thoughtful designs that emerge out of shared experience. Due as much to necessity as to a culture of repair, these are manifest in details that extend the life of expensive materials such as stone or metal — which in pre-industrial times constituted a small part of total production. Or in the measured use of thatch, wood, sun-dried bricks, bamboo which return gently to the earth and can be replaced frequently. Or in the optimisation of industrial materials through ingenious fixes with whatever is at hand, pejoratively termed jugaad. It is frugality which forms the gracefully rendered spaces in mud we still see all over villages in the subcontinent; that structures the skill and knowledge of craftspeople — perhaps best epitomised in the manner in which silver is delicately extended into thin strands of filigreed jewellery; and that spurs the innovative repair-wallahs all around us, who can mend practically every item of daily use including complicated watches and the latest I-phones. 

II: Adopting a Philosophy of Repair

Frugality and its accompanying attributes can best be met in a decentralised work-system when there is more freedom of decision-making, more opportunity for creative engagement, and more room for negotiating justice — in comparison to systems where power, money and authority are concentrated in a few hands. Adopting a philosophy of repair which recognises frugality as a core attribute, thus implies that the intrinsic value of something is derived from the value given to mindful and fair use. Frugality is therefore, the very opposite of the meanness and thoughtlessness imposed by extractive, rapid and centralised processes.

Traditional belief in much of South Asia celebrated such attributes in design, and also saw in repair an opportunity for renewal and transformation. Such a belief flows naturally from a sophisticated conception of life as a cycle of being, becoming, dissolving, and regenerating. At a practical level, repair was accorded a designated time-table by giving it ritual status. Depending on the requirements of different types of architecture and materials, different practices were followed assiduously on a periodic basis at an individual as well as a community level. These ranged from frequent mending and painting of homes before seasonal festivals, to more comprehensive ritual restoration as in the Kumbhabhishekham/Jirnodhara of temples every 12-years. Repair was additionally linked to social responsibilities, as Rajni Bakshi explains.

For example, in Adilabad, there was a festival some weeks before Diwali in which groups of people went dancing in the streets and threw stones at the roofs of homes. This inevitably broke at least 10-15 tiles in each home. Then just prior to Diwali as people cleaned and painted their homes, these tiles were replaced. Each family would have the tiles made by the local potter. The festival became an excuse for not only cleaning and renewing the house but also giving business to the potters.

Today however, repair is not just inconvenient but also impossible in many cases. Our seasonal calendar does not promote repair skills or their systems of knowledge transmission, which are consequently disappearing and are hard to get or too expensive. Conventional economics bat for heavy industrialisation and public policies favour heavily centralised businesses. With unimpeded access to raw materials, resources and tax incentives, these businesses push for replacement rather than renewal. This makes it difficult for those with the knowledge of hand-skills who traditionally do repair work, and of which we still have the largest in the world, to live with dignity.

Further, the industrial materials with which much of our building stock is now made, are engineered to act in a composite way. In order to mend even a small part, we are forced to use complex mechanisms or break off a great deal more than that part. This is a difficult, dangerous and unpredictable exercise, since it is not possible to fix a boundary in a composite material. Finally, architects themselves have almost no knowledge of building with local natural materials. And little practical knowledge of building hands-on even with industrial materials which are touted as permanent, pacca construction — but which frequently collapse with life-threatening consequences. In the face of all this, how can repair become an intrinsic part of our collective imagination again? Can we, as the professional group responsible for architecture — the repository of all forms of human life and a field that forms such a large part of the economy — take the lead in advocating repair as the best response in the dynamics of our present environment? How so?

Making Repair Aspirational

The participants in the conference who have integrated the philosophy of repair in their work, showed us that this can aid ‘economics as if people mattered’, to quote E F Schumacher. They established clearly that activities centred on local skills create special environments that give space to older buildings and artefacts. And how this leads to cost savings by extending the life of built-materials, maintained through regular inputs based on a foundation of hand-crafts. This sets into motion a cycle of positive regeneration spreading out many kinds of jobs. Related outcomes are a fillip for more responsible tourism, for new buildings that incorporate hand-skills, for happier habitats with more community spaces and less forced migration — in what J C Kumarappa visualised as an economy of permanence rather than an economy of transience and violence. 

Notwithstanding all this, even those practitioners who have managed to integrate aspects of economic, spiritual and social well-being in their work, concede that they have had limited influence on the domain of architectural practice in general. We are of course, more likely to advocate repair if it is seen as mindfulness rather than as being miserly, and if information about it being good practice, is disseminated widely. But this is not enough. Despite more than sufficient information that planting trees is good, trees continue to be routinely transplanted, chopped and killed — as a matter of course in infrastructure and building projects. 

If repair is to be thus a planned, ongoing process rather than a sporadic or forced activity, we need to not just regard it as “a good thing” but actively elevate it to the status of “the desirables” at multiple levels. Architects have to first convince themselves as a professional community about the technical, aesthetic and ethical potential of repair — and also learn how to include repair in their practices. It is then that we can convince clients (of which the biggest component in South Asia is still the government) about the need as well as the attractiveness of repair over new-build.

For this, it is necessary to put in place or restore knowledge-systems that make repair possible, along with policies that make repair convenient and enjoyable, and highlight its pecuniary, participatory, and mental and physical health benefits to make repair aspirational. It is also necessary to give value to world-views not centred exclusively on consumption. These worldviews are the essence of traditions in South Asia and provide a structure for a rational, measured espousal of the material world while encouraging creative and spiritual exploration. Only when this is done, is there a chance of repair being actively incorporated in everyday life. 

Priorities in Architecture

Whether we overtly identify with the practice of repair or not, it is its underlying attributes that can help us transition towards architectures that generate social, cultural, spiritual and economic capital. It is difficult to misrepresent these characteristic attributes of repair — though virtually any word can be reconfigured as George Orwell unfolds in the dystopian scenario of his novel 1984. Flying consultants long-distance or building a huge carbon foot-print with an excess of industrial materials, cannot be passed off as frugality or decentralisation or optimisation. Instead we must eschew obsolescence, detail designs that weather well, and choose local processes and skills to make congenial environments. To do this, we will have to give up the idea of novelty as a determining factor of desirability, and what the Buddhist monk Chogyam Trungpa calls ‘the bureaucracy of ego’. The obsession with appearance can then make way for the best fit for a particular situation or climate. 

There are many ways of doing this. One outstanding example in South Asia is the practice of Kamil Khan Mumtaz — which categorically rejects the cancerous growth that goes hand-in-glove with industrialism and Modernism. The architectural process he advocates, logically follows from a deliberate choice of design generators based on local materials and traditions, and an identification with a cultural world-view that combines rationality and spirituality.

When we regard architecture from such a world-view, we are no longer constricted to a prism of styles or fragmented time-periods, and can focus on its essential attributes. For instance, the Red Fort, instead of being viewed only as a historic Mughal icon or a national symbol of the freedom struggle, can be appreciated for:

 ‘[t]he optimisation of resources in the construction and use of the Fort — visible in the manner in which built and open space are combined through appropriately sized forecourts and gardens; in the minimal proportions of built-volume; in the integration of decoration and function; in the devising of spaces for multiple functions and users through extensive use of the typologies of the pavilion and the court; in the collaborative and decentralised method that was employed to build it and the respect accorded to the team of building technicians.’ 

A methodology of identifying distinguishing characteristics of repair, therefore does not just set out design objectives, but also helps recognise best practices and establish how to arrive at these objectives. Our rich corpus of hand-craft is an existing asset of repair skills that has unmatched potential for this. ‘India’s crafts-sector addresses 11 of the 17 United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals directly, including Goal 12, which is Responsible Production and Responsible Consumption’, as Ashoke Chatterjee underlines. He also reminds us that the mental absorption which accompanies skilled engagement of the hand, can give meaning to life, as it did during the freedom struggle and even in the desperate times after the tragic partition of the subcontinent.

What can we actually do?

We may not think we have the wherewithal to be activists, but as Aruna Roy writes in her memoir: ‘anyone who acts on principles and stated public concerns is an activist’. Architecture is one field which allows each of us an opportunity to act on principles. To begin with, we can accept that we are not the sole players in the domain of building; that our chief role is to facilitate, not to dictate. To act on this, we first need to develop rigorous domain knowledge. Apart from just learning to build within the confines of drawing boards and computers, we need to learn how to build with our own hands and in the context of our cultural world-view. We need systems to train — and be trained by — masons, carpenters, site-workers, craftspeople in both industrial and natural materials. Through a rigorous learning of diverse materials, traditions and skills which have their own local vocabulary of language as well as building elements, we can lead the way towards ethical architecture, not one based on personal whimsy or profit.

When we correctly shovel, chisel, pick up a load of mud, lay a brick and work a piece of timber, we empathise with the gamut of skills required in construction and better understand the technical and harmonic logic underlying their best practices in our traditions. We can then work out how to develop humane parameters of architecture in collaboration with other players in the field — instead of propagating a uniform language of aesthetics and construction confined to industrial materials and technologies that disempower people. To do this, at each stage of the design process, we need to be mindful of what and how we build, and to gauge the relevance of our actions, through questions such as:

• Can we foster local economies — rather than using excessive machinery and automation? 
• Can we use a greater proportion of natural materials worked by small producers/individuals?
• Can we create fair and just opportunities for those who work?
• Can we integrate ways to repurpose/recycle without difficult, wasteful, or toxic processes?
• Can design processes and outcomes, in the best traditions of South Asia, fulfil our immediate practical needs, while leading to a heightened awareness and joy beyond the material world?

When we utilise such a matrix for decision-making, we design to make the field of architecture safe and harmonious, by owning the responsibility to repair. This is part of our larger responsibilities of ensuring safe habitats as building professionals. We then open the way for reclaiming the right to repair — for which we need to both renew existing buildings, and to build the idea of renewal into architectural instruction. 

In other words, we need to entirely re-orient our directions to include ‘repair’ as an integral part of our thought-process, our philosophy, our vocabulary, our academic curriculum, and our professional practice. We cannot do this alone. Political and public policy also need to give greater importance to repair over new-build; and architecture schools as well as studios need to function as centres of expertise allied to specific geographies and cultures. To reiterate then, the issues arising from the sessions on repair in the Conference that are fundamental to the well-being of South Asia, and indeed of the world, are:

1. The need to use architecture to build just, compassionate and ethical societies.
2. The need to build a truthful and suitable vocabulary of architecture.
3. The need to incentivise distinguishing attributes of repair by elevating hand-skills and workmanship — to actually build such a vocabulary of architecture .

Translating Tenida -- on Narayan Gangopadhyaya's 107th Birth Anniversary

Ekti Football Match : A Football Match 

by Narayan Gangopadhyaya

Translated by Anisha Shekhar Mukherji

Drawings by Treya Mukherjee

It was I who made the goal. 

Even now, you can hear the shouts —“Three cheers for 

Paillaram! Hip, Hip, Hurray!” 

It would have been only right for everyone to hoist me high on their shoulders and dance. To feed me to my heart’s content from Bhim Nag’s Sweetshop or Dilkusha Restaurant! 

But instead of that, a band of buzzing mosquitoes is feeding on me. In a bid to swat one, I ended
up hitting myself really hard on my nose. It isn’t even as if I can relieve my feelings by crying out. I have to stay immobile in the middle of a swamp of mud on the edge of a colocasia thicket — like a statue of Krishna, with mosquitoes playing their flute all around. 

A shout rang out again — “Three cheers for Pallaram!“ 

A mosquito appeared, as if on cue, and tried to puncture my right cheek. Quick as a flash, I slapped it. The force of my slap made my head reel. Even Gopi babu, the maths teacher, hasn’t slapped me so hard. 

I almost let out a howl, but stopped myself just in time. I will have to bide in silence for at least an hour in this colocasia grove in Dumdum. I have no choice but to stay here till the darkness of dusk descends. 

The shouts grew steadily further away and softer: “Three cheers for Pallaram! Hip, Hip, Hurray.“ 

I am Pallaram from Patal Danga — I suffer from malaria and drink the juice of basak leaves. But who knew that I would, after all, have to leave Patal Danga and cool my heels in this swampy thicket of Dumdum. 

I am an enthusiastic member of our Patal Danga Football Thunder Club. I never play but I can always be counted on to inspire the players.
If our club scores a goal, my throat does not recover for seven days. If we win any game, which is almost never, my fever flares up with the force of my joy. 

   

I was fine as a member. All the trouble arose when I became a player. We were to play a football match with the Vagabond Club of Dumdum. So, for the past three days, I could be heard trying to practice Dhrupad to the accompaniment of Chotdi’s broken harmonium. 

Not for the purpose of singing a song but with the aim of building up my stamina, so that I can cheer continuously on the field. It was when Mejhda, brandishing a big medical textbook threateningly, emerged from the third floor, that I had to stop. 

But when we reached Dumdum, we heard a terrible piece of news. Our team’s stalwarts are two brothers, Bhontu and Ghontu. 

Both lift dumbbells and work on their muscles, and are frightfully good at football. Together with the ball, they send the other team’s centre- forward flying. There is no count of the number of people whose feet they’ve broken. But finally, what they broke well and truly was Thunder Club’s legs, in fact our very foundation. 

Bhontu and Ghontu’s Kuti-mama stays at Benaras. Benaras — virus — sinus. He is welcome to stay wherever, and with whatever, and whoever he wants. But couldn’t Kuti mama find some other day for his wedding? Just this afternoon a telegram arrived. And those traitors Bhontu and Ghontu, immediately skipped off to the station, dealing Thunder Club two undercut punches. 

“Couldn’t resist the thought of feasting at the wedding,” roared Tenida, our captain. “Shame! Greedy fellows — Cowards—! Shame!” 

Cursing them may help to work off some steam but how will it solve our problem? 

The members of Thunder Club wilted like stale rice-puffs. No Bhontu or Ghontu! Who will protect us from Vagabond Club? 

Their squint-eyed fiery forward, Naira Mitter thoroughly confuses our goalkeeper, Gobra. He just cannot figure out from which direction the ball will come. 

That Naira alone will probably score a heap of goals. What shall we do now? 

Tenida’s young servant Bhajua had come with us. Stolid-looking, he had been brought along with the thought that he would be useful in case there was any fighting. 

Tenida stared hard at him for a while, and then said: “Bhajua, will you be able to play at back?” Bhajua was kneading tobacco in his palm. He popped it into his mouth, and asked: “What is that, Chotto Babu?” 

“The ball will come near your foot. You will kick it at once. Can you do that?” 

“Yes. Yes. Kick the ball also, and the man also,” Bhajua responded enthusiastically, his face and eyes aglow. 

“No, No, you don’t need to kick the man. Just the ball will do. Will you be able to do that properly?” Tenida demanded. 

“Why not? Yesterday a dog came growling up to me. I gave him one big kick. A lorry was going past — the kick carried him on top of it. That’s it, straight to Howrah station.” 

“Enough, enough — don’t talk rot.” Tenida heaved a sigh of relief. “That’s one accounted for. One more, one more.”

He gazed around and suddenly spotted me — “That’s decided, Palla will play.

I had just popped a peanut in my mouth — it went and lodged in my throat. 

Tenida carried on: “Didn’t you claim that when you went visiting Shimul Tolai, you alone scored three goals. Was that just a fib? ” 

Naturally, it was! Sitting on Chatterjee Roak, eating fried savouries, everyone tells many tall tales. I did too! But who would have guessed that Tenida, who had flunked his matriculation twice, would have such a good memory? 

I managed to swallow the peanut and said, “No, no, why would that be a lie? Malaria has left me weak. Otherwise by now I would be playing for Mohun Bagan. But now if I run, the malaria seems to become active again, you know, that is the only problem. ” 

“Yes, your malaria will get active and move around — and that will mean it will move away. I am telling you. Come on — get going —.” Tenida hustled me. 

Phoo-r-r-r. The referee’s whistle sounded. 

I was going to say something, but before I could, Tenida had pushed me on to the field. I just managed to save myself from falling down. Rather than protest, I decided it would be far better to try and see if I could hit a couple of goals. 

Whatever fate has in store! Today will be either Pallaram’s day or malaria’s day! 

The game started. 

I was standing at ‘back’ position. 

I had thought Bhajua would be able to manage by himself, but it was clear that he had no other qualification apart from his big mouth. A ball came close to him and he let loose a mighty kick. 

 

 

But he made no contact with the ground — instead he tripped and fell. Fortunately, our goal-keeper Gobra was on the alert. Otherwise the ball would have got in. 

Gobra dispatched the ball to the centre with a high-kick. Right-out Habul Sen sped away with the ball — the danger was past. 

But how long can one stay untroubled on a football field? The next moment I saw the ball coming up with twice the speed towards me. And the squint-eyed Naira Mitter was bearing it along. 

Bhajua raced towards him — but he couldn’t even touch Naira Mitter. Naira side-stepped him neatly and Bhajua went over the line, right on top of linesman Kabla. 

But what happens to Bhajua doesn’t matter — I was the one on whom the crisis had fallen. Now it was just me between Naira Mitter and goalkeeper Gobra. 

And I know Gobra. He will be hypnotised by Naira’s squint —he will have no clue from which direction the ball may get into the goal. He will be completely at sea. 

“Charge, charge!”
Centre-half Tenida’s shout. “Palla, charge! ” Jai Ma Kali! I am done for either way! 

I let kick with all my might! 

What a surprise! Naira is standing like a fool and the ball has gone straight to Habul Sen.

“Bravo, Palla – bravo!” 

On all sides a cry arose: “Well saved!” 

Then I’d actually cleared the ball! 

I, Patal Danga’s Pallaram who’d never touched anything but a tennis ball with my foot all through my boyhood.

I’d stopped the formidable Naira Mitter!

My twenty-six inch chest swelled up with pride. It occurred to me that there was nothing very difficult about football after all. It was just because I had not chosen to play till now, that I have not been picked for Mohan Bagan.

But here comes Naira Mitter again. His foot seems to contain some magnet! Do all balls get stuck there? 

Bhajua was angry at being foiled twice. He charged full tilt. Though he couldn’t stop Naira, this time as well we were saved from a goal. Not because of Gobra, but because of a heap of cowdung.

Just in time Naira Mitter slipped on it and I cleared the ball with a flourish. It hit their left-out’s foot and got converted to a throw. 

Our self-confidence steadily increased.
I could hear the steady shouts of Patal Danga’s Thunder Club — “Bravo Palla! Well done!” 

Oh, here is the ball again! What are our forwards up to? Grazing grass? Gone — gone — their right-in made a shot and the ball slid past my foot towards the goal. 

“Go—a—a-a..!” 

Vagabond Club let out a shout! But no ‘al’ after all! Only a turnip. Meaning the ball hit the goal-post and rolled off towards the thicket of colocasia. 

Goal kick. 

In the midst of all this, Bhajua created a furore. Trying to steer the ball away, he shot it near the goalpost. And the next moment he rolled and fell on the ground, holding his leg. 

Two or three people carried him off the field. Well, that is one danger less. The way he was playing, if I could, I would have tripped him myself. The goalpost has done that for me. 

But that means I am now entirely, absolutely alone. Like the false mud fort of Bundi that appears to protect the Kumbha region. By God’s grace, I did not have to touch the ball at all for some moments. Gobra came out and managed two shots. The half-backs dealt with about three. After that the whistle rang for half-time. 

Somehow or the other, I have managed till now. If the rest of the time goes as well, then I’ll be safe. The malaria was making my stomach feel odd, and I could also fell my heart all-a-flutter. 

From all sides could be heard Thunder Club’s cheer — “Well played, Palla”! So much so that even Captain Tenida thumped me on the back. “I see you’re a regular first-class player, Palla! From now on, you will have to be given a chance to play at least a couple of times.” 

After that, who can think of malaria! 

I downed two glasses of lemonade in a rush
of pride. Only Bhajua said nothing — he sat hunched with a bandage around his foot. Tenida bared his teeth, and said, “Just a king of words! Sent a dog on to a lorry with a kick! 

But couldn’t even touch the ball! Shame!” Bhajua just sat, his eyes smouldering. 

The game started again.
Bhajua limped down to the field. He came up to me and said, “Palla Babu, this time I will hit.” 

The look in his eyes made my heart jump. “What’s that? Who will you hit?” 

“You wait and see.” 

Oh, but here is that Bhairav again ! Naira Mitter with that squint-eyed gaze. He is sure to score a goal this time. Bhajua shot off like an enraged buffalo. And after that, an earth-shattering yell! 

Leaving the ball alone, Bhajua aimed a kick at Naira’s foot. And Naira retaliated by punching Bhajua’s face. After that both were flat on the ground, unconscious. Bhajua had certainly taken his revenge, but little did he know that Naira boxed regularly. 

The play stopped for a couple of minutes. Thunder Club and Vagabond Club practically came to blows — a few gentlemen intervened to stop them. But Bhajua did not return — neither did Naira Mitter. 

It was quite clear that with Naira’s departure the opposition had gone all to pieces. Even so, Vagabond Club refused to give up. They kept racing up to the goal. 

And that diminutive right-in! 

Off-side! Referee’s whistle. One more hurdle over. Our half-backs finally seemed to have found their form. The ball no longer reached my end. About three minutes left for the game to end. 

If this passes without any incident, I’m safe. Patal Danga’s Pallaram will be able to return home victorious. 

That short guy! Who knows when he came up again — one step ahead of even Naira Mitter! Scampering about like a field-rat with a ball in its mouth. 

Before I could come near him he kicked the ball. Gobra dived, but failed to retrieve the ball. Even so, the ball scraped the goalpost and rolled out. 

But the heap of cow-dung that tripped Naira Mitter now laid me flat! When I managed to get up, it seemed as if my malaria had reared up like a cyclone. And as if a troop of drummers were sounding a fanfare inside my head, with my fever sending shivers up my spine. 

One more minute, one more minute for the game to finish. The referee kept glancing at his watch, Sure to be a draw. Whatever happens — if I can just leave the field respectably. All the air has been knocked out of me. 

Who knew that one’s head would spin so crazily after slipping on cowdung. 

Goalkick. 

Dimly I could hear Gobra’s voice — “Kick, Palla”. The whistle signalling the end was about to be blown. Everything seemed dim and cloudy. 

This time I will kick with all my might. 

A right kick — Jai Ma Kali — I put all my heart in the kick. 

G-o-a-l. G-o-a-a-l-l!
A roar spilled out till the skies. 

At first I couldn’t understand anything. Had I kicked so hard that I had vanquished Vagabond Club’s goal-keeper from our goal-lines? 

But the truth dawned on me in two-seconds. 

Gobra was gaping at me. As if he was dumb- struck at my feat. And the ball was standing as if stupefied, within the nets of our goalpost. 

After that? 

After that I have been sitting like Kanhai in the middle of this Colocasia forest a mile away from the field. 

From far away even now Vagabond Club’s shouts waft in: “Three cheers for Pallaram. 

“Hip, Hip, Hurray!” 

Arijit Gangopadhyaya and Narayan Gangopadhyaya 

Photo Courtesy and Copyright: Shri Arijit Gangopadhyaya

Taken sometime between 1953-55, 

At the House on PatalDanga Street