In the middle of the driveway leading up from the main entrance to the stately buildings of the New Delhi High Court stands an unassuming structure, a circular building of bricks seemingly hastily glued together and whitewashed. A short wall runs around it, separated from the building by the narrowest of margins and punctuated by an entrance. A tree stands guard at the opening, its flowering branches gently scratching the roofs of cars as they move to its left into a parking lot.
My uncle, a lawyer, keeps an office at the court for his practice. On a visit to his chamber some two decades ago I learned, from one of his colleagues, that the circular structure was a mosque. I did not find out much about its origin but my imprecise curiosity, yet to be sharpened into academic focus, led me to an astonishing set of legends about the court, a tapestry of magical stories into which was woven the very existence of the mosque. That afternoon, over rounds of food from the court's first-rate canteen, visions of the supernatural life of the court, passed down and around by word of mouth, revealed themselves.
One story held that the court was built on the site of a fabulous treasure, one that was endowed with a religious and mystical power. That power also resided in the stretch of wall that ran along the east side of the court, jutting out of the earth like an uneven set of teeth. Rumour had it that anyone who tried to tear down the wall met with a sorry end. I heard the tale of a judge who gave an order for its demolition, sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and of a construction worker tasked with carrying out the explosion. On the verge of pressing the dynamite plunger, the worker was said to have been seized by madness and ran away screaming; the judge, at the very same moment, was stricken by paralysis. Carried to the wall on a stretcher, the judge begged for forgiveness, and following this act of contrition he found his health restored. There was no news of what became of the worker.
There were other stories, too, of the spirits of pirs, or saints, who used to roam the corridors of the court. They emerged on those jumma, or Friday nights, when the moon was in full bloom. According to the legend, the lights of the court turned themselves on deep into the night, and trying to shut them by turning off switches was useless. If one was patient and believed, so went the story, one could glimpse the saints in fleeting white robes or hear their steps fall quietly on the floors.