The Walled City dictionary.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

There is no jamun in Gali Jamun Wali. The historical fact is that a jamun tree did stand there, and it did give its name to the street. While the tree ceased to exist a long time ago, it has not wholly become a part of unverifiable legend. A street dweller has been a rare witness to the tree.

“That jamun ka ped was there in my childhood, I would see it daily,” insists Muhammed Sayeed. In his late 60s, the hospitable man administers an envelope-making workshop in the street. This evening, he is sitting on a chair right outside the workshop with his friend, journalist Fasiullah. Both men are dressed in spotless white—see photo (our protagonist is the gentleman on the left).

Muhammed Sayeed says the street has a masjid, and the jamun tree stood in the masjid’s courtyard. Indeed, the said mosque is known by all as Jamun Wali Masjid. Tightly shutting his eyes, the envelope-maker recalls the long-gone jamun as a huge, unwieldy tree. “During the jamun season, we boys would beat the branches with a lathi to make the jamuns fall from the tree.”

Meanwhile, inside the workshop, “labour” Naseer is smiling mildly, as he overhears his boss’s childhood remembrance. A large bowl of gooey yellow gum is placed beside the young man’s bare feet; the floor around him is littered over with paper shavings. A “paper-cutting machine” installed towards his right is claiming most of the space in the workshop. One of the walls bears photos of proprietor Muhammed Sayeed posing with the area’s dignitaries such as “DCP sahib” and “ACP sahib.”

Muhammed Sayeed remarks that a kuan (well) used to exist beside the tree. “Its water tasted very sweet.” The well was later covered up to prevent the neighbourhood children from falling into it. Though nobody ever fell, the envelope-maker clarifies.

At this point, his friend, journalist Fasiullah, who writes hyperlocal dispatches for Akhbar-E-Mashriq newspaper, starts to speak. He notes that a few more places in the Walled City are named after trees, such as Pahari Imli—the hill of tamarind tree, and Amrood Wali Majid—the mosque of guava tree.

Muhammed Saeed now gets up, and walks into the adjacent building. It is the aforementioned Jamun Wali Masjid. The courtyard within the mosque is lying in semi-darkness. He waves his arm towards a water tap. “The tree stood there, the kuan was beside the tree… both are gone.”

Returning to the chair, Muhammed Saeed continues to talk of the tree. “We children respected the jamun, and would never try to climb it.” Anyhow, when he was still a child, the old tree had grown increasingly frail. “The tree was dying,” he says. A time arrived when it was feared that the tree might fall any day, and cause injuries. One afternoon, 50 years ago, the tree was felled to forestall any tragic accident.

Today, Gali Jamun Wali has no tree of any kind.