The Death of a Place

A board outside the historic Indraprastha Girls School talks about it's conception, back in 1904, resulting from efforts made by visionaries such as Annie Besant and Lala Jugal Kishore. 

But it makes no mention of it's daughter institution, Indraprastha College for Women, also the oldest women's college in Delhi.

One summer afternoon, whilst on a day-out in Chandni Chowk with my friends, we randomly decided to trace the school down.

After many a misdirected turns taken on advice of Google Maps and old men, we finally made it.

The school is situated in a beautiful three-storeyed haveli, right behind Jama Masjid. One can see the minarets of that enormous mosque peeking out of foilage as one sits on the steps of the entrance to the school.

I imagine reluctantly walking up these steps every morning for lectures, instead of walking down a canopied road somewhere in Civil Lines, like I usually do.

My second visit to the school was impromptu. A trip to Nai Sadak for art supplies ended sooner than I had anticipated, and I had nothing to do that evening. So I made my way to the school, expecting to sit on the steps for a while and do little else.

A gardner was watering the potted plants in the outer coutyard. The school gate was open, unlike the last time. I asked him if I could go inside.

Belonging to a generation that is obsessed with surrounding themselves with items of borrowed nostalgia, to not be in awe of the beauty of this haveli would be highly unlikely for me. I also couldn't help myself from imagining sitting in classrooms with stained windows, and colourful light washing in, and walking by corridors, looking down on courtyards, holding on to the faded brown pillars.

But walking through nostalgia is a two-way street.

If I imagine myself going back to a time when existing around antiquity was mundane, I cannot dissociate myself from the burden that would come with being a woman in the early 1900s. 

I cannot know exactly how much more free I am today than I would have been then.

My freedom today is stolen too, half of what makes me feel less real (reality is harsh), are stupid acts of recklessness that would probably hold no meaning as the moment in which I do them, passes.

What if, there's a ghost of a Someone from 1924 still stuck in that haveli?

What if They moved to Chandrawali Bhavan, and then Alipore House, what if they move to whatever new building this institution decides to inhabit a hundred years from now.

I could be that Someone, I'd like that. 

You stay with what sets you free.