A friend was doing a photographic projecton Living Spaces. So I took her to a cemetery.
The Lothian Cemetery is possibly the oldest Christian cemetery in Delhi, justabout 200 metres from the Red Fort as the crow flies, sandwiched now between theKashmiri Gate GPO and the pink Lothian (railway) Bridge.
The oldest readable inscriptions at the cemetery are from the early 19thcentury. British men and women in their mid-twenties being cut down by dysenteryand heatstroke. Children dying of the now unimaginable rigours of journeyingfrom Varanasi to Calcutta. A huge Celtic cross off to the left, "In MemoriamMDCCCLVII." Remembering 1857. "This cross is sacred to the memory of thosewhose nameless graves lie around."
But the place is nowhere as grim as I’ve made it sound. The cross is sort ofbroody, but on the day we were there, late in January, the small homes on threesides of its base were still cheerfully festooned with Christmas decorations. Onthe fourth side is a large open space, which is the centre of the settlement inthe graveyard. Here a cement platform has been built, possibly over some ofthose nameless graves. On this, a group of children were busy playing pitthu.Those who weren’t busy teaching lattu stunts to my friend, that is. Orthe one singing impressively off-key hymns in between snatches of AashiqBanaya Aapne. Chickens clucked around. Adults soaked up the sun. We spokeabout car thefts. It was a beautiful day.
There are about 35 homes inside the Lothian Cemetery, all small single-storeyasbestos-roofed structures. All belonging to members of one large extendedChristian family, though belonging to different denominations. A greatgrandfather used to be chowkidar of the cemetery "in the time of theBritish". His family has since, gradually, been moving in from the Meerutcountryside.
Deenanath James (name changed), who stitches lawyers’ robes and supplies alargely Supreme Court clientele with their legal black regalia, remembers comingabout 25 years ago, but his brother was already here. He doesn’t know how oldthe settlement is, but he does know that they have electricity bills dating backabout 50 years. He studied in the school founded by Begum Samru in Sardhana,near Meerut.
James got us tea and bread pakoras. If we hadn’t had lunch already, he wasready to cook us some. And buy us some beer. But we were in a hurry. It feltcriminal to leave such a happy place, where one of the darkest chapters of thecity’s history is made bearable by Christmas celebrated by the living, and thelaughter of children at play.
The Lothian Cemetery is a world removed from the sad and terrifying NicholsonCemetery, colonised by monkeys and kites and overgrown weeds, less than akilometre away.
To break the ice at the beginning of our conversation I had asked James, "Youlive in a cemetery. Aren’t you afraid of
the ghosts?" He had only laughed. "There are no ghosts here. I never feeluncomfortable. The only place where I’ve felt their
presence is in Goa." Perhaps because the unnamed dead of 1857 here rest inpeace.
It’s a peace created by those who have chosen to live here amidst the graves.
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This article originally appeared in Delhi City Limits, March15, 2006
