Wali Muhammed Wali

ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST?
Ashleshaa Khurana

Ajab shehron mein pur nur aek shehr bila shak hai voh jag mein maqsad-e-deher ke mash-hur us ka naam Surat ,keh jawey jis ke dekhey sab kudurat ............vahaan saakin ite hain ahl-e mazhab,ke ginti mein naa aaven unke mashrab agarche sab hain voh abnaa-e aadam,vale beenash mein rangaarang-e aalam

Penned in ‘Rekhta’ (ancient Urdu), the above words were part of a masnavi written in praise of Surat by India’s first Urdu poet, Wali Muhammed Wali;also known as Wali Gujarati because he lived and died in our state. Wali’s brilliant prose put Urdu poetry on the world literary map. A rough translation of the text above, provided by poet Max Babi, reads-

“Amongst the delights of humanity is a brilliant city ,one which draws people to quaff celestial joy ,it goes by the name of Surat ,one sheds all malice as it alights on the eye………
so many people of so many religions live there ,their sects cannot be possibly counted ,even though they are all progeny of Adam, in appearance however, they are a multicoloured spectrum.”

Wali, who educated himself via his travels couldn’t have described our town or its visitors better. Besides being the hub for global trade, Surat was also the land where agents of several nations vied with each other to live in the greatest splendour.

It was here that the English first came in contact with the Armenians; it was here that the French gained the unenviable title of being pirates and plunderers, where the Portuguese and the Dutch competed die hard for remaining the masters of maritime trade.

In The Journal of Asiatic Society of Bombay, A F Ballasis records how the English presidents in town dined in ‘vessels and dishes which were all of massive silver and each course was ushered in by a flourish of trumpets and a band of music played during dinner’He also points out, ‘men who lived in such grandeur may naturally be supposed to have emulated each other in erecting ostentation tombs to commemorate their dead’

Undoubtedly, the cemeteries of the English, Dutch and Armenians in Surat are its most grand heritage. England’s Oxenden brothers buried here within tombs which have been described to be of ‘unsurpassed grandeur’ even in Europe, standing tall at forty feet, with a twenty five feet diameter and lofty cupolas.

Many historians have remarked that by adorning their tombs with fine marble, frescos, passages from scriptures and windows with wood carvings the Dutch and English competed to out do each other even in death and tried to impress their status on locals ; how ‘The object of raising Baron Adrian Von Reede’s monument was to eclipse the English cemetery’.

While most of the graves are of women of honour, men of status and innocent children, J Ovington mentions in his travelogue, the grave of a certain merry Dutch man whose last wish was rather strange and whenever his friends visited his grave they,” remembered him there sometimes so much that they quite forgot themselves.”.

Believed to be a relative of the Prince of Orange, banished to Surat by the Dutch government, his was supposedly,’ the most discreditable grave at the burying ground ‘, according to the Calcutta Review,’ the notorious tippler had enjoined that a stone punch bowl be placed on his tomb’s summit and smaller punch bowls with sugar loaves at the corners of his tomb.’ His friends would visit him at night and revel in merry making by preparing punch atop his grave and ladle it in the smaller bowls as they sang,”Oh! That a Dutchman’s draught could be; As deep as the rolling Zuyder Zee”

Yes, there are many strangers from foreign lands buried in Surat;surrounded by fragrant frangipani trees, their tombs are officially ‘reckoned as the most important historical monuments in the city’by the SMC, which provides details of the same on its website. Protected by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI), they all rest in peace .

As for Wali, who died 1707;alas! his mazaar is but a razed road in Ahmedabad since the last nine years.