The House The Musharrafs Sold

As Neharwali haveli in Daryaganj is ‘discovered,’ residents of the area find an unexpected claim to fame

Sunetra Choudhury

New Delhi, May 31: The residents of Neharwali haveli only realised that they may be living on a piece of hallowed ground about two years ago. The time when snoopy journalists tracked down the birth of General Parvez Musharraf, who became CEO of Pakistan.

Musharraf’s Mohalla: Neharwali Haveli, Musharraf’s ancestral home, located in Darya Ganj. (Picture by Ravi Batra)

The residents woke up that morning in October 1999 to discover their decrepit building plastered on the front pages of national dailies. It was at that time that brothers and owners of the haveli, Hemraj and Sandeep Gola, decided to look closer at the transaction papers handed over to their father Premchand Gola.

‘‘We dug up the papers which are in Farsi script and got them translated,’’ said Hemraj, ‘‘We then realised that the previous owners of this territory was the Pakistan CEO’s family.’’ The papers which were previously lying in some obscure corner were then instantly laminated and preserved for one day. And now, Prime Minister Vajpayee’s invitation and the General’s acceptance along with his desire to visit his ancestral home, has brought the day closer to reality.
‘‘Were you born here?’’ one youth asks another, while keenly watching a camera crew shoot in the courtyard at the centre of the haveli. ‘‘So was Musharraf,’’ he adds when the other nods, and they both burst into a hearty laugh.

Their mirth is justified, actually. The building situated behind Darya Ganj’s Golcha cinema would have had to try very hard to have otherwise gained anybody’s attention. Narrow, dingy lanes sometimes filled with garbage lead to the haveli now occupied by a number of families, with varying fortunes. Perhaps only the frame of the building is faithful to the structure that Musharraf’s father, Syed Musharrafuddin, sold to Premchand Gola in 1946.

But at the centre of all the attention is a feisty 85-year old woman called Amaro Begum. A sweeper by profession, she gives an annotated account of Musharraf’s childhood. Ask her name, and she’ll coyly tell you: ‘‘According to the Mughal tradition, I am Anarkali and my husband was Salim.’’

The residents cannot stop teasing the only person who can claim to have seen the man running around in his nappies. ‘‘You’ve hit the jackpot, haven’t you?’’ residents jokingly ask the old woman, ‘‘He is going to give you a couple of lakh rupees, at least.’’

Her account of Musharraf’s childhood is a little suspect. The boy, who is reported to have been four when the family moved to Pakistan, Amaro Begum recalls to have been school-going.

‘‘The brothers used to keep going to the terrace upstairs, so they would often take my help,’’ she says. Musharraf is the second of the three sons of Syed Musharrafuddin, a cashier at the director general of civil supplies.

‘‘His mother was a good woman, she used to say her namaz at least five times a day,’’ says Amaro. They all lived with the extended family, which meant the family of four brothers and two sisters of his grandfather, Muhtashamuddin.
If Musharraf does come to this place, then he could see in the papers thumb impressions of all his family members, including his father. The yellowed 24,817 sq. ft. plan of the haveli also has the space allocation for different members of the family.

However, an aunt who used to be a lecturer in Meerut, Husna Begum reportedly died a few years ago. So, it is unlikely that he would find any living family member.The Gola family is faxing an invitation to the Pakistan High Commission tomorrow to invite the CEO to his home. Will he, won’t he?