Magical Lucknow

Ira Pande

WE have just returned after a fantastic trip to Lucknow, driving there on the Yamuna Expressway — the best highway I have been on in India. After our recent trips to Kumaon on roads that are badly damaged, this was an eye-opener. We took a mere five hours to make it from Delhi to Lucknow and were gobsmacked at its sophisticated execution. If the Purvanchal Expressway is anything like it, its impact will be memorable.

However, it was the city itself that charmed me. I have a deep connection with Lucknow as my mother lived there for almost 35 years and was an institution in her lifetime. Her old flat and neighbourhood are so deeply imprinted in my mind that I can negotiate my way in that area blindfolded. On my last visit to the city, I was deeply upset to see how this charming bit of old Lucknow was now a shabby, crumbling bit of mouldy buildings. All one saw was the shameless landgrab made by ministers and political parties with statues of elephants and Behenji dominating the area. The old Lucknow of dreamy chattris and domes was slowly fading away.

In the Lucknow of my girlhood days, many of these colonial buildings were known by their local Avadhi names: thus, Loreto Convent was called Bhaktin Iskool (its Irish nuns were the bhaktins), the area around La Martiniere was known as Martinpurva (the village of Claud Martin, a famous French mercenary of the Nawabi times), while the old Residency where the Sepoy Mutiny was enacted was called Beli Garad (after the Bailey Guard that protected its white inmates from the mutineers). The zoo was called Zinda Ajayabghar and the museum was known as the Murda Ajayabghar. ‘Gunjing’ was what all the local bankas did when they strutted about Hazratganj, the main shopping avenue.

This was the colonial city, but it was in its old city that Lucknow kept its famed tehzeeb (culture) alive with the scents and flavours of its famous kebabs and biryanis, which we always thought were far, far superior to the Mughlai fare of Old Delhi. As for its sweets, where else can you find a balai ki gilori (literally a paan fashioned out of rich creamy layers of milk wrapped around delicately cut dry fruits and misri), or the kulfi nimish (a more refined version of Delhi’s Daulat ki Chaat), a frothy concoction of milk foam and nuts and saffron? If you haven’t ever tasted the chaat of Lucknow, then you haven’t lived, they say. Its names will tell you what it is like: paani ki phulki, dahi ke batashe, matar ki chaat, baigan ki chaat or palak ki chaat. The aloo tikia and chana I’ve eaten in Lucknow haunt me still.

We thought all that was gone but I am delighted to tell you it is all there. Of course, the old professionals (such as the King of Chaat thelawala or the Bade Miyan near the Gymkhana) have vanished but their descendants have kept the magic of the Avadhi cuisine alive. Chowk still has Tunday ke kebab, Ram Asrey’s giloris still melt in the mouth and Kunj Bihari’s samosas are still to die for. By now, you must have guessed that we were on a serious foodie tour, but that’s not all. In the last decade, the restoration of Lucknow’s old buildings and historic monuments has given them a new lease of life. The area around the two magnificent Imambaras has been cleared and its streets cobbled to bring back the aura of those years when ghora garis ferried the gentlefolk to Chowk, and when Avadh was the epicentre of gracious living and grand buildings. The Rumi Darwaza, the Kaiserbagh Baradari (that housed Wajid Ali Shah’s Parikhana) have all been cleansed of the muck and squalor of centuries. I went to this part of Lucknow after almost 60 years and was as enchanted as I was when I went there as a child. Some structures (such as the Satkhanda) have also been lit up beautifully to become visible after ages.

I am told that all this, as well as the restoration of the old educational institutions there — Lucknow University, Colvin Taluqedar College, La Martiniere’s for Boys, the Vidhan Sabha and the GPO (to name just a few historic buildings) — were started by Akhilesh Yadav in 2015. They are now an architectural legacy for those millennials who have never studied in schools and colleges that were spread over acres of gardens and lawns.

One of my mother’s favourite morning walks was to the Dilkusha Palace area. As a young girl, I was never allowed to go there alone because it was an overgrown wilderness and the infamous goondas of that area would stalk and tease any young woman they could terrorise. Today, it is a glorious garden with spruced-up ruins, gardens lovingly tended and Art Nouveau kind of iron benches. Its lakhori bricks have been revealed after the dreadful cement they were hidden under was peeled away and they have stood the test of this painful violation with a dignity that only old nobility possesses.

The city is now in the throes of pre-election noise and political parties busy claiming authorship for work done by someone else. Given the high-decibel slanging matches being exchanged, it will be truly interesting to see who ultimately wins UP in 2022.

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