Mirza Ghalib, brought to you by Skeets

Ye to kaha ki unke aur humare zayke kaafi mel khate hain, par ye na kaha ki hum unki haveli ki kuch jhalakon ko qaid kar le aaye.

On one of my 'off' days, officially and mentally, I walked down Gali Qasim Jaan at Ballimaran, Chandni Chowk, to have a dekko at Ghalib's Haveli. Nah, I am no fan of his, just general curiosity and search of solitude took me there. I reached Chandni Chowk by car, got off, hired a rickshaw (just for the fun of it), and reached Gali Qasim Jaan. The rickshaw-puller kept pedalling his (read our) way forward, and I remained mum, awestruck (as always) by the old world charm. Mouth open, eyeballs out like that of a frog's, whiskers up, Skeets must've made quite a picture. Haha. Heee. Gawddd. I have noticed this before, that when I go to places of particular interest, I tend to forget that I have a tongue, and that I can speak. If there are people with me, they think I am unfriendly, or perhaps plainly uninterested.

His last photograph

That day, thankfully I was alone. And as I rode past the narrow lanes of Ballimaran, a gong rung somewhere in my head and it struck me that I would have to ask for the directions. Lost in the rustic charm of that part of Dilli, I had reached way ahead of my destination. People were friendly enough to guide me and my rickshaw-puller to the Haveli. The Haveli, as I gathered from my 1-hour stay there, was where Mirza Ghalib stayed during the last phase of his life. What is interesting is that he stayed there as a 'tenant'. Only a part of the Haveli remains now, as it has undergone quite a bit of alteration and demolition since Mirza Ghalib's death. Thanks to the efforts of the Delhi Government, some portions of the Haveli have been turned into a Memorial in remembrance of the great Poet.