The town of Palwal, 63 kilometres from Gurgaon, played a small but significant part in the country’s mighty struggle for Independence.
It was at the railway station here that MK Gandhi, on his way to Punjab to protest against the draconian Rowlatt Act, was arrested.
Gandhi’s call for a nation wide hartal marked his entry into the movement for freedom, that turning point when an irresistible force met an immovable object. A museum, the Gandhi Seva Ashram, was built to recognise the moment, the foundation stone laid by Subhas Chandra Bose.
It is located not too far from the station, in the Gandhi Ashram Colony on the old Delhi-Agra highway. That aside, and the fact that the eponymous district is the hub of the cotton trade in these parts, there is little to recommend about urban Palwal, which today falls under the National Capital Region. But this is India, a land where history is in lockstep with the present (often disturbingly so).
Indeed, a couple of Muslim-era buildings also form part of the city’s unremarkable architectural heritage. But it takes an effort to find them. We tried looking for one of red sandstone but came upon the other, a protected monument dating back, according to the ASI, to the 17th century.
And like many such structures, it has seen better days, the burnt clay bricks in its lower half — known as Lakhauri, and widely used during the Mughal period — lying exposed, the plasterwork further up peeling away, the dome looking its age.
Yet, it continues to stand solitary, proud and occasionally magnificent, the geometric designs on the walls and ceilings — both intricate and strikingly unadorned — still visible, and even the calligraphy still discernable despite the dust, rain and pollution of three centuries. Meanwhile, a series of steep steps (not for the vertigo-inclined) takes you to the top, for a more elevated view.
Some accounts say it is the tomb of one Sheikh Shah Baz, who seems to have been lost to time. But whatever the circumstances of its construction, at least this octagonal edifice, with an arch on each of its four sides, is away from any industrial activity, set as it is in a municipal park in Palwal’s Housing Board Colony, overlooking a children’s playground and surrounded by homes.
It is, in fact, a restful spot, the trees standing sentry and birdcalls breaking the late afternoon quietude. And it has a caretaker, though one with only the most basic understanding of its origins. As for the other tomb, where lies buried a saint called Roshan Chirag, its mention brought a blank to the faces of most of those when asked for its whereabouts.
Some had a faint idea that such a building existed in Palwal but were stumped as to where it might be sited. It proved a futile search though after one-and-a-half hours of diligent detective work, another remnant of the past revealed itself. Not surprisingly, it was a city elder who guided us in the right direction. It’s much the same wherever you may be in India.
Serendipity wins the day because there is little desire or determination to document the thousands of buildings that lie unattended and forgotten around us, sometimes out of sight, at others hidden within our neighbourhoods. Residents here know this one endures, just like they know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. For all that its backstory has vanished, this Palwal gumbad has become part of the domestic scenery, a thought to assure them that all is well with their lives.
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