A witness to many milestones
Raj Kanwar

Very few can write so prolifically and in such a consistent manner as did Nergis Dalal for more than seven decades. Now 92, she has middles, cookery books, fiction, and even books on yoga in her kitty. Based in Dehradun, it is a treat to meet this “Queen of Middles”

Leading a retired life in the lap of nature: (Above) Nergis with her loyal friends and (below) with her son Ardeshir at her home in Dehradun

It was a quiet 92nd birthday at Nergis Dalal’s duplex house in the upscale Rajpur Road in Dehradun. Her younger daughter Roshen was her companion. A few friends dropped in to wish her a happy birthday. Nergis is one of India’s most well-known and prodigious writers. She did not confine her writing to a particular genre; her writing range covered short stories, novels, middles and even books on cookery and yoga. Her output during the past seven decades has indeed been enormous; it includes four full-length novels, over 125 short stories and more than 2000 middles, besides hundreds of articles and essays.

It were, however, her middles that gave her a greater recognition; these short pieces used to adorn the edit pages of mainstream English newspapers such as The Times of India, The Statesman, Hindustan Times, The Tribune and many others during the five decades from 1940s to 1990s; the middles brought her much fame and made her a household name. It was, in fact, The Times of India that first introduced the Middle (a special slot in the middle of the Edit Page; hence this name) in 1940s, and Nergis was one of its first contributors.

Initially, she wrote under the pseudonym "Aries," but when the frequency of her ‘Middles’ increased, the then scholar-editor of The Times of India, Mr. Sham Lal, advised her to also write under her own name. "After all, I cannot publish too many Middles from one writer alone", he told her. It was only thereafter that she also began writing under her own name. However, writing under two different names had some funny moments too. Once a reader accused Aries of plagiarising from a Middle published under the name of Nergis Dalal. The generous editor was not amused. It was in the 1970s and 1980s that she was deservedly given the sobriquet of "Middles Queen of India".

She was equally well known for her scholarly articles and essays. She wrote extensively on Tibetans who have large settlements in Dehradun and Mussoorie. These articles attracted the attention of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who graciously invited her to visit Dharamshala. "Meeting the Dalai Lama was a unique spiritual experience," she says. During 1975-85, her articles drew attention to the then ongoing degradation of Mussoorie hills, owing to indiscriminate limestone quarrying. A PIL was also filed in the Supreme Court against the menace of merciless quarrying; the petitioner’s lawyers liberally quoted from her articles to prove their point.

Nergis Dalal had been an inveterate writer for over 70 years; perhaps no other writer had written so continuously and without much interruption for such a long period. But until about five years ago, she had kept a daily routine of regular writing. It was during that period that her collection of short stories under the title of Nude was published by Penguin. However, she has now lost her urge to write. "Why have you stopped writing?," I once asked her. She was somewhat reluctant to answer but answer she did. "I am now something of a recluse", she replied. "Don’t your fingers itch to type"? I persist. "Not at all, I do not wish to write anything about myself or my family. I am just content now to be an onlooker and be myself", was her brief reply. Even though she has given up writing, Nergis zealously pursues her passion for reading. Apart from a couple of daily newspapers, she also subscribes to magazines.

She has suddenly become quiet and reticent. Nergis encourages her friends to visit her. Some like Nayantara Sahgal and Chanderkanta Mehta (writer-daughters of Vijayalakshmi Pandit) often call on her; others like Pom Brijnath, Rozzanna Ismail and this writer visit her more regularly.Her son Ardeshir is an academic don and has been in the US for over 35 years; he visits Dehradun at least once a year. Her older daughter Shahnaz runs a successful art gallery in Hyderabad and also teaches art to school children. Shahnaz had spent most of her last month with Nergis in Dehradun. Her younger daughter Roshen – a well-known author in her own right– is now in Dehradun to be with her mother. She has written several books, including The Puffin History of India for Children in two volumes that had become a Penguin bestseller. Her mother, though conventionally uneducated, was a voracious reader. She would always goad her to read, and would borrow books from the library or buy from bookstores for her. Once she presented her a four-volume set of World’s Library of Best Books published sometime in the beginning of the 20th Century. Nergis recalled with a touch of nostalgia. It was these books that had really hooked Nergis; thus reading had become a life-long passion.

Nergis graduated from reading to writing in a seamless transition. Writing came naturally to her; she had developed an uncanny knack of observing and discovering small incidents in and around her neighbourhood, in zoos and museums, in market place, and even in her own household. She turned these little incidents into fascinating centerpieces of her "middles".

Nergis first came to Mussoorie in 1943 on her husband Captain Jamshed Dalal’s (Madras Engineers) first posting. It was for the first time that she came in close touch with Nature, and fell in love with the hills. Thereafter she lived in Dehradun for many, many years at different points of time because her husband was in the Survey of India from where he eventually retired as the Suveyor-General in the rank of brigadier.

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