Yeh Dilli hai/This was Delhi

Antara's interest in Delhi was not merely about sightseeing tourist spots or a personal interest in historical monuments.

And if she had tweeted about the Delhi Sultanate around 2015-16, that topic was now apparently off the NCERT syllabus. Maybe somebody had noticed her tweet, or the two incidents were unconnected.

Antara didn't know how such school history could be taught; invaders arrived from Ghazni (Afghanistan) and then 600 years later, the Taj Mahal was built in Agra?

However, one might as well explain Antara's tweet on the Delhi Sultanate from all those years ago. One could visualise the cluster of mosques, madrasas, mausoleums in 10th and 11th century Delhi, given many of the monuments still existed, or their ruins, in south Delhi. 

Why did the Ghurid or Ghaznavi or later the Slave Dynasty (historical term, not derogatory) choose the southern part of what would become Delhi? How much of it was forested? What was the type of vegetation, semi-arid one would presume, given there was no govt forestry dept back then to plant trees and spray water from trucks?

The Sultanate officials surely rode horses, given they were mostly from Afghanistan or Turkey. What was the terrain like if you had to ride towards what was now north Delhi, say on some official assignment? Were there lanes/avenues through which they rode, or was it like riding through a desert?

Antara has never seen a Delhi monument without wondering how people lived and moved about. There were paintings/visuals available from those times, but of static life, the rulers, their women, victuals and entertainment, at most battle scenes. The topography was simply not there.

Bengali men, employed in the Indian bureaucracy, had personal likes and dislikes of Sultanate rulers. The Khiljis tried something, the Lodhis were intolerable. What erudition, what scholarly pursuit of history! Antara didn't even know the names of history books where Delhi Sultanate personalities were discussed in such detail.

But when she saw the wide and deep water tanks laid down by Khilji rulers for water supply to the city, when she saw Indians and foreigners gather next to it under the winter sun for fun and revelry, then Antara understood the importance of civic discipline above everything else, that a ruler who understood the necessities of his people left a lasting impression, whether it was taught in school textbooks or not.

Antara's journalism job was long over. She no longer returned home at 3 am, travelling in office cabs, the songs of 'Dilli 6' (the movie) that played over the FM radio were no longer remembered anywhere in India. 

The thrill of riding a taxi late at night, listening to 'Yeh dilli hai mere yaar/Bas ishq mohabbat pyar' (This was Delhi/Only love love love) was not what brought her to Delhi. 

Antara had heard a different song at Batanagar in 2007, about 'Moscow 6', what was now called the Wolfowitz-Dershowtiz fraudulent lease and both husband and wife had to flee Kolkata. They had their separate reasons to fear fraudulent leases. 

May 9, 2025.