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Today is Bloomsday, the annual celebration of Ulysses, acknowledged as the greatest modernist piece of fiction. The novel by James Joyce unfolds over a single day, 16 June, following Mr Bloom’s stroll through Dublin. Readers worldwide mark the date with Joyce-themed events. Delhi too celebrates Bloomsday, which is understandable, for our city has its own Ulysses monument.
James Joyce’s novel begins at Dublin’s Martello Tower. Delhi is one of the places outside Ireland to have that same Martello Tower. Actually the British built Martellos across their empire, and both Ireland and India lived under British rule. Whatever, this severely dilapidated Purani Dilli ruin has inadvertently ended up being Delhi’s queerest link to world literature.
In Dublin, Bloomsday is celebrated by visiting the lovingly preserved streets and pubs linked with the novel. Our Dilli too has given the world many great writers and novels. Sadly, we have done little to preserve sites linked to the city’s literary wealth. We memorialise rulers and saints far better than our writers. Even so, here’s a modest literary map of places where Delhiwale writers once lived, worked or wandered. The map will grow denser over the coming months.
Patparganj
Novelist Geetanjali Shree wrote Ret Samadhi in an apartment in Patparganj. The novel was translated from Hindi into English as Tomb of Sand, awarded the International Booker Prize. That pivotal apartment, in her words, is “now buried in shambles and dust.” That said, she wrote many drafts, which went from place to place.
Qasim Jaan & Kucha Pandit
Debt-ridden Ghalib devoted his life to poetry and Old Tom gin. Mercifully, the remains of his last home in Old Delhi’s Gali Qasim Jaan survive as a teeny-weeny museum. Nearby, Kucha Pandit was the mohalla of novelist Ahmad Ali, where he wrote Twilight in Delhi, the definitive Old Delhi novel. Sadly, nobody accosted in the locality knew of Ahmad Ali! Finding the whereabouts of his house was out of question.
Faqir Chand Bookstore
For a time, poet Kamala Das lived in Rabindra Nagar. Every evening, she would walk to Faqir Chand bookstore in next-door Khan Market, browsing the shelves, chatting with bookseller Uma. Kamala and Uma are long gone, the shop being administered by Uma’s daughter and grandson.
Sujan Singh Park
A red-brick flat in this colonial-era residential complex was home to author Khushwant Singh. Every evening, the drawing room hosted netas, babus, journos, and writers. There was gossip, whisky and one firm rule, everyone out by 8pm.
Kautilya Marg
In the 1990s, Arundhati Roy wrote The God of Small Things in a white bungalow on Kautilya Marg. This windy afternoon, the house stands deserted (see photo), the upper floor windows gone, leaving dark openings that gape at the world. A spiral staircase clings to the outer wall like a limpet, dense with green wilderness. The home that witnessed the birth of the iconic Booker Prize-winning novel today stands as a shadow of its former self.
Mayank Austen Soofi is a writer-snapper trying to capture Delhi by heart.
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