A lot has been written about the Nawabi Lucknow and its imambadas, especially the ‘Bada’ or Asafi Imambada and the adjoining ‘Chhota’ or Hussainabad Imambada, the signatures of Awadh of the past.
...but still, for many people, the most enduring images that are invoked at the mention of Lucknow are those from Satyajit Ray’s ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’ or Muzaffar Ali’s ‘Umrao Jaan’. And yet Lucknow today, though justifiably proud to be the inheritor of that last brilliant phase of an oriental culture, is much more than simply a city with a Nawabi past.
Lucknow is a thriving, living modern city as well where its passionate citizens come together often to organize, with or without government support, events like literature carnivals, vintage car rallies, cyclothons, marathons, ghazal evenings, mushairas and kavi sammelans, musical nights, heritage walks and carnivals.
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If in the distant past Abdul Halim Sharar chronicled in first person the brilliance of Nawabi culture in his immortal ‘Guzishta Lucknow’, even today Lucknowites like Yogesh Praveen, Ravi Bhatt, Dr. Naresh Singh and that unique organization called ‘ Hindi Vangmay Nidhi’ are enriching the writings on Lucknow with their scholarly and prolific contributions. If the Tunday Kebabi and Rahim’s in old city area of Chowk are deservedly proud of their reputation of makers of world’s best kebabs and nihari, Lucknow can also boast of fanciful new age hang out joints like ‘Vintage Machine’ or ‘Cappuccino Blast’ that are run by Lucknow entrepreneurs themselves with home grown passions and geniuses. If the legendary Nawabi era gardens of lore like ‘Charbagh’ and ‘Banarasi Bagh’ are lost today to ‘development’ and only remain as names of localities, new and bigger parks like the ‘Lohiya Park’ and the recently opened ‘Janeshwar Mishra Park’ have come up to provide fresh air, natural environs and oases of peace to its citizens.
Naturally, with faster and more modern means of transport and communication, with increasing commerce, industry and movement of people and communities, the demographic composition of Lucknow is also changing and the city is becoming more multi-cultural. On one hand, many of the children and grandchildren of Lucknow are going away for education and livelihood to distant shores, on the other many people from all across the country and even abroad are coming to the city to live. And so Lucknow now not only witnesses the celebrations of ‘Odisha Diwas’ but one can also find Facebook posts about ‘Navroz’ – the Parsi new year, being celebrated in the city. Although, Hanumanji remains secure as the presiding deity of the city, one can also witness increasing number of Durga Puja pandals, Rath yatras and Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations nowadays.
And yet, with all its changes, movement and progress, as Lucknow continues to evolve and rediscover itself every day, it still retains a unique character that is difficult to explain but that can be seen, heard and felt in the soft conversations that take place in the twilight hours, in ‘baithaks’ and ‘dawats’ that still take place on terraces and gardens in fragrant summer evenings, where even the most divisive of issues would be reconciled over greetings and smiles and where genuine warmth of heart and hearth would hold you in its inescapable embrace.
— The writer is a senior IAS officer, his recent novel ‘Love Side by Side’ is making waves in literary circles.