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The Last Bungalow:
Writings on Allahabad
While scholars might contest the historicity of the Prayag Kumbh, yet there is no denying that with the annual Magh festival, the place reaffirms its ties with the Vedic India that worshipped the forces of nature. Similarly, the presence of the fort built by Akbar and the knowledge that it also symbolised the final ascent of the British over India, reminds of the various phases the city and the country have undergone. But of central interest to the reader is the evolution of Allahabad that made it the agent of change during the British rule. From growing into the ‘Oxford’ of this region to becoming the hub of India’s freedom movement, the contributions to the book successfully bring all that out. Not least is the literary legacy made rich by the likes of Pant, Nirala and Bharti. There is plenty in the book to be commended to the reader. However, Bholanath Chunder’s extract from his Travels of a Hindoo stands out for his mastery over the English language, apart from the insight that is provided into the affairs as they stood in the latter half of the 19th century. In a country, ever racked by the debate about what might have happened during the era when two-nation theory started gaining ground, the modified version of David Lelyveld’s article on the Swaraj Bhawan is significant. It is a surprise that those claiming to be the bearers of the shining shields of secularism have under some false pretence not found it fit to bring out the similarities between the leading lights of freedom movement. Among others, Saeed Jaffery and the editor bring out what was best in the youthful days—the romantic dalliances, the efforts at creativity and the ceaseless struggle to decode the examination system. Though more than a decade apart, they both represent the romance of the period before it was overtaken by the generation of Palash Krishna Mehrotra, where falling in love required the sanction of goons. In this context one must mention that apart from the camels carrying the watermelons from near the great rivers, the most enduring is the poetic description of the summer of Allahabad by Arvind Krishana Mehrotra— "For the next two hours the sun, stationed above/ A traffic island, lays siege to the town, and the only/ Movement is of leaves falling/ So slowly that midway through their descent their colours/ Change." The presence and the shadows of the academic and the literary giants continue to loom large, yet the elegiac nature of the anthology makes its entry with the article of Pankaj Mishra. The process of change is unmistakable. Today, Gyanranjan finds no virtue in Allahabad and the fate of Arun Kumar draws final curtain on a city that was proud of its colonial past and life as well as the likes of Rudra, Nirala and Bachchan. Probably, today it is a city that draws only those who come in search of roots or memories of a distant past.
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EVEN though the anthology
begins with Hsiuan Tsang’s account of the Prayag mela and the giving
away of alms by the king of Kannauj, Harshvardhan, the design of the
editor is abundantly clear from the title of the book. Essentially, it
is the story of the making and the unmaking of the colonial Allahabad;
the rise and fall of a culture and lifestyle cultivated by those whose
lives revolved around the bungalows. Nevertheless, there is no mistaking
the fact that it is also a book of a city that straddles the
consciousness of different ages.