Gurmeet Rai’s ‘Amritsar: A City in Remembrance’, visual documentary, literary endeavour

Nonika Singh

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When you look at a city, it’s like reading the hopes, aspirations and pride of everyone who built it. — Hugh Newell Jacobsen

AND when the city in question is Amritsar, founded in 1577 by Guru Ramdas, with more than one history (Sikh, British) embedded in its walls, you can only expect its myriad facets to unfurl, especially when an entire book is dedicated to it. In fact, the book edited by Gurmeet S Rai, a conservation architect who has done notable work to conserve its architectural history, is a tome. Right from its religious-historical significance to its emergence as a cultural nucleus to its literary heritage and its traumatic past, little is left uncovered. With photographs by Gurmeet’s husband, the celebrated lensman Raghu Rai, it is as much a visual documentary as a well-documented literary endeavour.

Expectedly, since Amritsar draws its name from the abode of nectar around which the Golden Temple exists, the very first chapter is about the holiest of holy shrines of Sikhs. Written by Rai, while she talks about its metaphysical and spiritual relevance as well as its exalted place in “Guru Arjan Dev’s vision of things”, she gives an elaborate account of its architecture too, even calling it “a dissenting form”, one that emphasises inclusion as against the then prevalent norm of exclusion. We also learn how the architectural principles are vernacular and “Sri Harmandir Sahib rises from the centre of the sacred pool that measures 158.50 x 159.30 metres and is not a rectangle but a parallelogram”.

With a conservation architect at the helm, architectural details are aplenty. Not only in this chapter, but also those that describe the Ram Bagh Complex built by Maharaja Ranjit Singh as a testimony to his “belief in inclusivity of all traditions”, and Gobindgarh Fort as a symbol of the Sikhs’ martial past and Amritsar’s citadel whose control ensured a grip over Majha. Replete with drawings and rich with information, Rai also connects to conservation efforts which reveal Sikh and Anglo period layers of the fort.

In this volume, which is no coffee table publication, photographs live up to Robert Frank’s adage, “There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.” Seen through the perceptive eye of Raghu Rai, these capture the spirit of the Sikh faith, the resplendence of Sri Harmandir Sahib and the city’s contrasting hues. Elaborately captioned, each photograph tells a story. Articles, of course, are well researched and duly acknowledge the sources. Perhaps, these are of greater interest to academia. However, rippling with nuggets of information, an average reader too can draw much from it. Even when it explores aspects we are already familiar with, like the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, it offers far more than is already known. The writers Amandeep Singh Madra and Parmjit Singh, while bringing alive the searing pain of the event, end it on a note of redemption: the assassination of the massacre’s apologist, Michael O’ Dwyer.

Urvashi Butalia delves into the trauma of Partition, which she says has been “an ever present familiar”, for the impact of the division was felt on this border city. While some chapters are written in a pedantic style, she writes with fluidity, incorporates incidents in a story-telling format and also asks pertinent questions such as, “Is there a way that the remembrance of a troubled past can inform the quest for a future of peace?”

Moushumi Chatterji’s chapter on Lok Virsa (People’s Museum), coupled with stunning photographs, navigates the unique concept of the 5 Rs; Reverence, Revelation, Resonance, Remembrance and Reconciliation. For those who may have missed a visit to the museum, which reimagines the connection between people, places and heritage and includes a majestic installation created by Manish Arora, she not only informs, but almost beseeches to pay a visit.

The history of a place is as much about its people and more than one chapter takes us to the Sikh Gurus and Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who, in the words of Jigna Desai, “maintained Amritsar as a religious centre for the Sikh faith”. The city’s modern day icons like Bhai Vir Singh, Nanak Singh and Gurbaksh Singh Preetlari and others find a place of pride in the article ‘Writers Artists Thinkers’ by Nadia Singh. She also reminds that even literary giants like Sadat Hassan Manto and Faiz Ahmed Faiz had a connect with Amritsar.

But for minor overlaps since many authors have been roped in to dwell upon its many dimensions, it is a treasure trove. Among many other things, it tells where the fabled diamond Kohinoor was kept by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Not to be read in a hurry, like the city and its essence which it reconstructs with pride and pain, its many layers are meant to be explored at a leisured pace, to be cherished as a lifetime gem.

Lest we forget, while mapping the memory of the city, the book resists the temptation of dedicating a full chapter to Operation Bluestar, but does not gloss over the cataclysmic event of 1984. In an incisive analysis of the city’s spiritual economy, Dr Pritam Singh, while reminding that “religious distress is real distress”, emphasises, “Both demolition and reconstruction are religious acts as well as politico-economic statements.” The book is more than a statement, more than a keepsake, it not only reveals how the city lives up to its name, but adds significantly to the ‘Waters of Immortality’.