Shabbu, a painter by profession, lives in Batla House. He pursued his Masters in Fine Arts from Jamia Milia Islamia. Soft-spoken, not particularly brave, but upright, Shabbu started his career in Mumbai, painting life-size movie posters. Realising he had some talent to hone, he came back to Delhi and funded four years of college by painting fresh fruit juice stalls across the city. Work, he speaks of with pride.
Now imagine Shabbu painting an urdu couplet on a wall of a nondescript government building in north-east Delhi. Let the fact that he was commissioned by the Delhi government be damned. What would appear to some of us cynics as a recipe for a mini-Hindutva uprising, was unthinkable for the street artist named Akhalq Ahmad.
23 May was predicted to be the hottest day of the season. Shabbu and his French associate Swen Simon, who would soon be labeled “Lahori” and “Pakistani”, started early at the Delhi Jal Board pumping station in Shahdara, north-east Delhi. They were to paint an Urdu couplet celebrating the seven cities of Delhi: Dilli tera ujarna, aur phir ujar kay basna, Who dil hai tune paya, sani nahi hai jiska. (O Delhi, You were ravaged again and again, but you overcame, No city has a heart like yours).
The couplet was one of 40 Hindi, English, Punjabi and Urdu entries that were selected from 8000 Twitter entries in a competition organised by Delhi I Love You (DILY). The couplets are part of this artist collective’s #MyDilliStory initiative commissioned by the Delhi government’s Art Culture and Language Department.
No sooner had Shabbu and Swen painted the first line that they found themselves surrounded by more than a 100 men demanding to know why they were painting Urdu.
Paint in Hindi, paint “Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan” or “Narendra Modi”, they told Shabbu as he hopelessly tried to show them the permission letter on his phone. When he tried to record what was happening, his phone was snatched away and photographs deleted.
These men were abusing our sisters and mothers and shouting ‘Jai Sia Ram’ all in the same breath. A dark hefty man identified himself as an RSS man and said Urdu would not be tolerated. I told them my name was Shabbu, but they mistook it for Shambhu. They then turned their attention towards my French associate Swen and asked why a Hindu brother like me could be played by a “Lahori” and a “Pakistani”. I repeatedly tried to explain that he was French, not Pakistani, but it was pointless. They told us to paint over the Urdu couplet, else they would come back with more men and shoot us, but as soon as the police arrived, I saw just how quickly 150 men can disappear in thin air.Shabbu
The police wasn’t willing to listen either. They refused to see the permission letter and bundled them into the police van.
“They [police] asked me what’s your father’s name, what do you do, where do you live? I told them my name is Akhlaq Ahmad, I’m an artist, I studied in Jamia and I live in Batla House. Itni badi aankhein nikal aayein police walon ki (their eyes wide, they glared at me)”, laughs Shabbu.
It finally took a phone call from Delhi’s Culture Minister Kapil Mishra to set them free. Speaking to The Quint, Kapil Mishra says “on one hand Modiji is tweeting in Urdu from Iran and on the other hand RSS people are not allowing Urdu couplets to be painted in the city. Their only idea is to create communal tension”
For now Delhi I Love You has decided to stay away from the East Delhi area. Shabbu recalls some the faces who were speaking in their support. “If they hadn’t been there, we would’ve been beaten up” says Shabbu who’s still confident that he will, once again, be able to paint in Urdu without without being threatened by religious extremists.
Fingers crossed.