Twilight in Delhi

Significance of the Title “Twilight in Delhi”

The name or title of Ahmed Ali’s novel as “Twilight in Delhi” is very significant in itself. This is the most proper and appropriate name of the story he has told in the novel. “Twilight” is a word that signifies the short span of time that spreads itself between a dying day and emerging night just as “dawn” is the opposite term that signifies the death of the night and the arrival of the day. “Twilight in Delhi” deals with the dying culture and civilization of Muslim India as such. If we take Mir Nihal as a symbol of that culture etc. which he really is, we can see the civilization crumbling with our own eyes.

When we go through the novel, we find out that its main male character has passed his middle age and is almost knocking at the door of old age. We are talking of Mir Nihal who is nearing sixty in the beginning of the novel as he had witnessed the fateful day of the fall of Delhi, 14th September, 1857, as a ten-year old boy. Still he is so healthy and strong that he can pick up a running snake from the gutter of the house with a swift movement of his hand and he can break its spinal cord by hitting it on the floor of the house with a powerful jerk of his hand. But, later on, we find his health going to dogs. He gets a paralysis attack and is unable even to talk. Then, three days later, his power of speech is restored to a great extant but not so the physical or bodily power. Hakim Ajmal Khan comes to Mir Nihal twice or thrice a week and brings costly medicines from his home for him. Still his condition is not improved. Mir Nihal’s nice friend, Kambal Shah, advises “Pelican oil” for massaging on the body of Mir Nihal. A pelican is arranged from somewhere. It is slaughtered and the oil is prepared under the supervision of Kambal Shah himself. Later on, the famous wrestler of Delhi, Shammoo, is called daily for massaging but with no improvement at all. At last, Mir Nihal becomes totally bed-ridden. He lies drown and goes on remembering his past. Then his son Habibuddin falls sick and dies. This tragedy casts a terrible effect on Mir Nihal and he becomes almost unable now even to remember his past. He is in a living death, so to speak. The same is the case of the Indian Muslim civilization and culture that faces a living death.

When Mir Nihal is healthy and jovial in the beginning, he looks after his hobby: pigeon flying. He also earns more money because he also has to arrange for his beloved keep, Babban Jan. he also looks after the family name and honour because they are Sayyeds and Bilqeece is a Moghal. But when the conditions deteriorate, Mir Nihal loses his beloved keep, a very great extant. Mir Nihal leaves his hobby and asks Nazir to sell out all his pigeons. Mir Nihal leaves to work for extra income. He leaves to care for family honour and self-respect etc. and gives his consent to the marriage of Asghar with Bilqeece. The world has stopped caring for him: let him stop caring for the world! So we find out that Mir Nihal has been used as a top-priority symbol to portray the deterioration of the customs, traditions, ways and means of which he has been the proud representative.

We can find this deterioration in other characters as well, symbolically enough. Begam Nihal becomes blind slowly and steadily. Begam Jamal leaves her classical residence at Mir Nihal’s. Shams loses his wife. Hafizji does not get “pulao” on the very first uttering. Astghar stops loving Bilqeece and starts to find other women for his love.

This does not happen to the world of human beings alone. Even the buildings etc. are affected by time. The gutters of the city which were deep down are dug up and laid on a shallow level. The city walls are demolished. So the stink and sand attack on the city dwellers. The Jamia Masjid whose floor has been coloured redder by Muslim sacrifices on 14th September, 1857, wears a cheap garland to welcome the procession of King George V on the Coronation Day. Even the date-palm tree standing in the middle of the courtyard of Mir Nihal’s home throws away its leaves and becomes yellow and sered. All these things have been aptly and appropriately used by the writer to show us, symbolically, the dwindling and dying Indian Muslim Civilization and Culture. So we can justly claim that although there could be many other names or titles of the novel under discussion, but the most appropriate and the best title for the same could only be (as it is!) “Twilight in Delhi.”

Plot Construction of the Novel

Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi is a well-knit and brilliantly constructed novel. It consists of four parts and every part has the chapters which gave additional meaning to the course of events. The plot is constructed in a particular style—in the act of narration. Every character is in descriptive or in evaluating style which gives additional significance and beauty to the plot. Mostly the plot revolves around the family of Mir Nihal representing on symbolical level the Muslim class's present and past life. The novelist Ahmed All relates a person's tale in this novel that, in the end, looks alienated and apart from the surroundings and all this happens only through his out dated attitude in the present condition.

Ahmed Ali has utilized his events of the story to construct an organic whole in the shape of plot of the novel "Twilight in Delhi". This thing tells us about his expertise in the field of novel-writing or fiction-writing as such. The novel under reference has basically been designed by the writer to give us a rich glimpse of the Indian Muslim society along with its customs, traditions and ways.

The plot of Twilight is Delhi seems purposeful in every way. There are many characters and events only included in the novel to make the novel realistic and to give a true colouring to the Muslim Indian society as such. Nawab Puttan is one of such characters. His character has nothing important to do with the advancement of the story. Still he is very important for the reasons that he is the representation of Nawahi culture and life. For giving complete a social picture of the Indian Muslim Society, Ahmed Ali has told us in detail about Ramazan and the traditions of Ramazan. He tells us a detail about how Eed is celebrated, and including that famous, classical verse used at this occasion by numberless people:

"It is the day of Eid, my dear,

Ah come, let me embrace thee.

It is the custom and besides

There's time and opportunity "

Mir Nihal, in his sixties has a family, a mistress named Babban Jan from whom he gets mental and sexual levels pleasure. He has a son, Asghar, a boy in twenties, who desperately wants to marry a girl, Bilqeece. His marriage takes place after a huge amount of resistance from Mir Nihal's side. In the background of these events, Ahmed All has portrayed a graphic picture of historical moments of violence and tyranny in this novel and also the pathetic condition of Delhi on a big canvass. The marriage of Asghar is caught in a fiasco and the relations weaken day by day and after Bilqeece's death the whole scenario changes. Asghar thinks himelf responsible for her death but Bilqeece's younger sister Zohra again turns Asghar to the beauty of life. Zohra, a young girl, full of charming and alluring beauty, fascinates him to marry her but finally nothing happens according to his desires. In the end we see Mir Nihal as a paralyzed man who has faced many hard blows from fate like, death of Babban Jan, death of his pigeons and the end of his rule—all pathetic. His wife Begum Nihal, who has spent her life honestly and devotedly, is unable to retain happiness in Mir Nihal's life.

In the background, the plot of the novel advances through the story of the freedom struggle of the people of India and of the Indian Muslims. We read about the fall of Delhi and about the fateful time for Jama Masjid, Delhi, as well as for the Muslims of Delhi. We read about the fires burning petrol depots and the royal canopy at Delhi-Darbar before it was held. We read about rallies, procession, agitation, marches and strikes. We read about the non-cooperative movement. So we see the advancement of the struggle for freedom going in the background of the story of the novel. But the thing is so well knit into the texture of the plot that we are ready to take it as an integral part of the main story. The story, which started from the first section, shows every character's attitude and ordinary view about life.

Whatever be the criticism, the plot, on the whole, is compact. Even the smallest details promote the action, produce the necessary atmosphere and fulfil the purpose of the novel. The concentration on the main theme is well maintained to achieve the desired purpose. All the strings are gathered at the end to give the final touch. Thus the plot construction in Twilight in Delhi, is nothing but remarkable. There can be arguments that the plot has some drawbacks or loose ends but it was never easy to pack a rapidly changing culture in limited pages and Ahmed Ali's realistic technique in describing the actual conditions is not only brilliant but also shows his precision in every way.

Decay of City and a Family

Twilight in Delhi gives a broad and realistic view of Muslim life set in Delhi. With the collapse of the Mughal Empire, the old feudal order in the Muslim society had disintegrated and the Muslim bourgeois and aristocrats were no longer prominent after 1858. This novel gives a glimpse of the discontent that was brewing among the Muslims during the second decade of the twentieth century. As the title of the novel suggests, the city of Delhi is now no longer in its pinnacle of glory and Mir Nihal’s premonitions infuse the reader with the ominous sense that very soon, Delhi would plunge into the darkness of night. In fact, when the novel ends, it is both literally and figuratively dark.

The novel devotes many pages to what colonialism has done to the city of Delhi, giving both a panoramic and close view. The author turns the city into a living entity that has been “mourned and sung, raped and conquered, yet whole and alive, lies indifferent in the arms of sleep”. Lamenting the death of its culture, he cries out, “yet gone is its glory and departed are those from whom it got the breath of life”.  Giving a picture of total abjection, the author says, “Like a beaten dog it has curled its tail between its legs, and lies lifeless in the night as an acknowledgement of defeat”. There is a poetic account of the anger that is felt by the residents of Delhi at not only what the British are doing to its landscape, but at the imminent demise of a culture and a way of life with the construction of a new Delhi outside the old city. “She would become the city of the dead, inhabited by people who would have no love for her nor any associations with her history and ancient splendor.

The novel vividly delineates the clash of two cultures; between tradition and modernity. The events are set in a time when Western modes of living and thinking were entering Indian homes and minds. Mir Nihal, the embodiment of the old customs, is pained at this “hybrid culture” which is a “hodgepodge of Indian and Western ways which he failed to understand”. He is grieved that the “wealth of poetry” is gone and there is “in place of emotion and sentiments a vulgar sentimentality”. The author’s own nostalgia for the old phase of life is seen in the representation of the character of Mir Nihal.

The novel shows how the older generation feels outraged at some of the younger people’s acceptance of Western habits. Mir Nihal does not like his son Asghar’s adoption of English clothes and manners. Bilqeece becomes the target of insulting remarks when she wears English shoes. Small incidents like these reflect the resentment that is brewing in the hearts of many people at the colonial intrusion into their everyday lives.  Thus, the novel delineates both a traditional and a modern way of life in the persons of Mir Nihal and Asghar respectively, but it also points out the flaws in both ideologies.

Twilight in Delhi is not an explicitly political novel – it deals with the impact of colonialism on people’s social lives. It does not have any of the main characters engaged in any direct action against the British forces. Mirza, the milk seller’s son is shot-dead when he goes to non-co-operate but Mirza is a peripheral character and his son does not even appear in the novel. British rule does not have a specifically harmful impact on the particular Muslim family that the novel deals with. But it gives a glimpse of the emotional anguish that some of the characters’ experience because of colonial rule. For instance, Mir Nihal’s state of mind on the day of the coronation of King George V – “There were those men of 1857, and here were the men of 1911, chicken hearted and happy in their disgrace. This thought filled him with pain, and he sat there, as it were, on the rack, weeping dry tears of blood, seeing the death of his world and of his birthplace”.

Mir Nihal’s loss of his youth and health mirrors the predicament of Delhi itself. Bedridden with paralysis, he lives in a “constant twilight of velleities and regrets, watching the young die one by one and gain their liberty from the sorrows of the world”. The devouring of his pigeons by the cat not only puts an end to his favourite hobby but can also be taken as a symbol for the intrusion of colonial forces into the heart of India. But though Mir Nihal is sensitive to all this, his daily life is unaffected either by British rules and policies or by nationalist struggles for freedom.

Asghar is also totally indifferent to the widespread freedom movements of 1919. “He was unconcerned whether the country lived or died”.  It is ironic that he considers love to be the only permanent thing, when he falls in love with his wife’s sister just after six months of her death. On the other hand, the novel shows people like Saeed Hasan, Mir Nihal’s son-in-law who is affected by “foreign modernity” but unperturbed by foreign rule. “Life went on peacefully for aught he cared, and that was all he was interested in, like most Indian fatalists”. Being comparatively well off, the male members of the family can afford to hold long discussions regarding the harmful effects of foreign rule without being directly affected by it. When the influenza epidemic struck and people had difficulty in affording a winding-sheet for a dead relative, Asghar could build a proper grave for his wife.

We are given a close view of the Indian joint family where women are shut up in their zenanas while men are free to keep mistresses. Referring to the realm of the zenana, the author says eloquently, “The world lived and died, things happened, events took place, but all this did not disturb the equanimity of the zenana, which had its world too where the pale and fragile beauties of the hothouse lived secluded from all outside harm, the storms that blow in the world of men”. Ahmed Ali gives an apt picture of the Indian woman who is subjected to so many restrictions that “the idea of love does not take root in the heart’. Bilqeece is such an Indian woman who is ‘unromantic’ but a ‘perfect housewife’ and the novelist gives a poignant picture of her later passive suffering. He also gives a psychological insight into Mehro’s temper whenever her fiancé’s name is mentioned. This novel does not portray any female resistance to the patriarchal biases prevalent in the home and the family.

From our situatedness in a time when upper and middle class Indian society has internalized so many Western habits and ways of life, Twilight in Delhi can be seen as looking into a time when the situation was very different, and as trying to articulate a people’s helplessness in the face of what colonialism was doing to their culture and to their beloved and once glorious city.

Major Themes in "Twilight in Delhi"

In “Twilight in Delhi” memory is seen both as source of personal identity and as a burden preventing to attain happiness. Each character is involved in a struggle to remember but more importantly in a struggle to forget certain aspects of their past. Mir Nihal the protagonist of the novel wants to seek refuge in the past. He wants to live in past not is present. The other characters, like Begum Nihal, Begum Jamal and the elder sons of Mir Nihal, all of them found in struggling condition. The grandeur and wonderful Muslim’s past, in which they were rulers not wipe out from Mir Nihal and his family’s mind, like Asgher seemed rebellious but in the end of the novel he was caught in the trap of cruel and remorseless fate. The city “Delhi” had faced the rise and fall of many Kings and princes like a poet said.

Delhi which was once the Jewel of the world,

Where dwelt only the loved ones of Fate,

Which has now been ruined by the hand of time,

I, m a resident of that storm-tossed place . . . .

But now the present scenario has impolitely changed people who were rulers now they are under the domination of colonial forces. So Mir Nihal is not able to forget the grandeur of past. Hid management and behavior in his family totally reflect the king like way as Moghals did in past. All the characters of the novel especially Mir Nihal are shown in a struggling position, the whole family and the surrounding area’s people never able to come out from the memory of their glorious past.

With the arrival of the British colonial forces in the sub-continent everything had changed. People who were habitual in living under the kings were not able to face a change. The protagonist of the Novel Mir Nihal never able to compensate with the new traditions. Britishers gave change to their style of living and the government structure but he wants to live according to the past.

“New ways and ideas had come into being a hybrid culture …. The whole culture of India was a mixture of two cultures the new generation want to adopt the English culture like in the beginning of the Novel Asgher’s first appearance was in wearing English shirts and Mir Nihal scolded on it His sudden anger on him showed his hatred and non-accomodateable attitude towards and modernity.”

He was a backward person like in the mid-end of the novel the episode when he tries to give punishment to the children he said to Dilchain that you go and took my sword and he took his sword and children seemed terrified not in real sense, this shows that he did not left the past, but he did not want to think about it.

Sex is the most important theme of the novel. Mir, Asgher and all the women characters in the novel are sexually suppressed figures. Mir Nihal, a tall handsome and energetic man, desperately wants a woman who knows well the art of sex and the art of capturing man. So Babban Jan, a young girl gave him all these pleasures and when she died his whole world deranged. He felt a kind of flux in his life, which cannot be full-filled. He had also sexual relations with Dilchain. Begum Nihal’s quarrel with her husband shows that Mir Nihal’s sexual appetite was not satiated from Begum Nihal.

It was a rampant trend in the Delhi that male society went to prostitutes and when they became habitual of them then they were not accommodating with their wives because they were not adroit in the art of capturing man through sensual ways. So most of the men had not time for their wives.

Asgher also had a mistress Mushtari Bai. She was a young, beautiful, fascinating and charming girl. Asgher often went to her Kotha and became habitual of her. But when he saw Bilqeece he bewitched by her extreme beauty. He desperately wants to marry her and after huge amount reluctance from Mir Nihal he succeeds to marry with her. But he feels that she lacks sexual understanding. So Bilqeece cannot able to feel the gulf between them. So she is unable to understand why her husband left her in the house for weeks. But begum shahbaz feeling the actual problem interferes but Asgher is not able to manage the whole issue.

The whole Mir Nihal, s family represent the Muslim class of India and throughout India they have the same life style. Men often satiate their sexual appetites to go to the prostitutes and women remained ignorant because they had no knowledge about what is going on there.

One of the major themes is the passing away of Muslims civilization in India. Twilight in Delhi basically showed the decay of the Muslim civilization. Muslims ruled on India from many centuries but with the arrival of Britishers, the whole civilization had to face a huge set back. Mir Nihal, who lived in the illusions of splendid past, not able to accommodate with the present condition. His appearance and attitude represent the Muslims community of that time. Which is not able to live according to the changed conditions because they felt that this is the most humiliating condition for the Muslims. Like Niven says: “Despite the rhapsodic treatment of Asgher’s love Bilqeece (Ali’s own wife is called Bilqeece), the autumnal mood at the covel’s close the grief-stricken regrets for the Mughal past and the frequent coherence in his prose style, Ali writes less from a romantic than a classic stand point. He recognizes the immutability of the basic elements in human life individual remains the same in every age.”

Yet classicism in so far as it refers to recognition of the permanence of the change brought about by the passing of time is perhaps the intention of the novel’s plot.

Ahmed Ali’s Art of Characterization in "Twilight in Delhi"

In "Twilight in Delhi" Ahmed Ali has used descriptive method to show the characters in the development of novel's plot. Every character is close to the actual condition of Delhi. Ali's realistic mode of expression in describing the relation of plot and character is remarkable. The opening section of the novel and its first chapter seems as a prologue to city's actual condition and its inhabitants. When we go through the novel, we find that the writer has used the art of characterization as a nice tool to realize his end. He has a plot and for the completion of the plot the characters come at the stage at a particular time and then leave the stage. Still there is one central character that is most of the time there in one or the other manner. This is the main male character of Mir Nihal who plays the pivotal role in the book novel. All the events have a direct or indirect bearing at his character: all the characters are related to his character in one or the other way. So the spot light remains most of the time on Mir Nihal.

Mir Nihal's character has been portrayed with utmost precision and accuracy. He is a man who has witnessed the last episode of the surrender of Delhi on 14th September, 1857, the fateful day, with his own eyes. He is a patriot in the core of his heart. He feels pain and torture at Hindustan's slavery but he believes in direct use of sword to liberate his country whereas people are resorting to some other "useless" ways and means, like rallies, marches, strike and non-cooperative movement.

Mir Nihal's character is a representative of the older generation who has seen the country going into the clutches of slavery with his own eyes. So he hates the rulers. On the other end is Asghar, his younger son, who likes the English fashion and ways. Although, he also represents Indian Muslim culture in his own way but he belongs to the younger generation and, as such, differs with Mir Nihal. Both of them are having their own singing and dancing girls: Mir Nihal has Babban Jan and Mir Asghar has Mushtari Bai but the former "keeps" Babban Jan till her death whereas the latter leaves Mushtari Bai in the lurch and starts loving Bilqeece so intensively that he leaves no stone unturned for her achievement as a wife. It is another story that he, even then, does not keep himself limited and goes out on his romantic adventures or errands to find out new women for him.

The author has taken one family and shown what its members experience in their day to day life. All these are simple, insignificant things, such as eating, drinking, sleeping, festivals and fairs, marriage, birth, death, naive love affairs, quarrels and arguments. The arrangement and selection of these incidents in the novel have been given a fundamental and universal significance. 

Ahmad Ali is depicting the story of the dying Indian Muslim society in his novel, so he picks and chooses from the society only such characters that can be helpful to him in the context. These characters may be as overwhelming as Mir Nihal and Asghar and these may be as summarized as Kabiruddin, the elder brother of Asghar, and Habibuddin. These small characters perform their duty behind the scenes. Even Ahmad Wazir, the family barber of Mir Nihal, has to perform his duty at two places in the novel. Dilchain and Ghafoor do the duties of servants in zanana and mardana of Mir Nihal's house. Once Dilchain wears men's clothes and dances in a lewd manner on the occasion of the marriage of Asghar. But all this is done to represent the dying Indian Muslim culture.

As the society depicted in the novel is basically a male-oriented society, so we see that generally males are taking lead in all the matters of importance and generally females are lagging behind or following them. Strangely enough, if we look deeply into the matter, there are two trees growing in the middle of the courtyard of Mir Nihal's house. One is the date-palm tree. It is tall and manly. The other is the henna tree. It is small and womanly. And, as such, the "male" date palm tree has been talked about at more times and in more manners than the "female" henna tree has been talked about.

Ahmed All also shows a complete picture of female class. Female characters like Begum Nihal, Dilchain, Babban Jan, Begum Shahbaz, Bilqeece, and Zohra—all of them are the part and parcel of this man-made community. They have their own ways of living which the outside world is unable to comprehend and they themselves are not able to understand their frustrated life.

To sum up the discussion, we can say, Ahmed Ali has used direct as well as indirect way of describing the characters. Every character, from its appearance to his way of life, is remarkably close to reality. Different characters of the novel ‘Twilight in Delhi’ advance the plot of the novel in their own peculiar manner So it can be said that Ahmed Ali’s art of characterization shows his sagacity and brilliance of thought.

Character-Portrayal of Mir Nihal

 “He is tall and well built, and is wearing a white muslin coat reaching down to the knees, and an embroidered round cap is put at a rakish angle on his bobbed head. His white and well-combed beard is parted in the middle, and gives his noble face a majestic look……”

The whole physical description shows that he had a royal appearance with a sober style of wearing cloth. He is nearly sixty-two whose outward appearance is a picture of Muslims grandeur which they had in past but inwardly he wasn’t able to comprehend the actual scenario. He is the representative of the royal Muslim class. It seems that Ahmed Ali made this character before writing this novel, there is no further scope for any fundamental change in it. Mir Nihal is shown as a “noble”.

The nature of this character is totally passive. He has only interest in life: his pigeons and his mistress Babban Jan. The passivity lies in his unreceptive mind in understanding the change in surroundings. He felt that he remained immortal as the Muslims thought in past that their dignity remained forever, but when the colonial forces came in the sub -continent they had changed the entire atmosphere. The matter of Asgher’s marriage is the most crucial moment in his life when he showed his refusal then the whole family turned against his decision, and it was the beginning of change. I had never approved of Ashfaq’s marriage to Mirza Shahbaz’s daughter,’ Mir Nihal said angrily. ‘And I do not approve of Asghar’s friendship with Bundoo. Why don’t you stop him?’

But Mir Nihal not able to stop the change and a time came when the women of the family themselves decides to take step; “The best thing to do is to settle the thing quietly. Brother –in-law will come round in the end. If you wait for his consent nothing will ever come off……” “Begum Nihal seemed to agree with her sister-in-law…” The whole speech from begum Jamal has showed the courage to do something against Mir Nihal .The women in India has a subordinate position in certain matters like marriage etc. So they rebel against the authority.

The snake episode shows his ability to deal with the danger from outside. He shows his anger on this little invasion but when his own son Asgher shows rebellious attitude then he was not able to prove strong resistance because everything worked against him.

Babban jan is the most important personality in Mir Nihal’s life . She is the symbol of courage, love and hope in his life. He loved her from the core of his heart but her death destroyed him. “Mir Nihal got up with a heavy heart and, giving the old woman some money, cast a last lingering glance at the dead body and walked away. She who was Babban Jan had gone,. She who brought him here had walked the way of death, and nothing could bring her back to life again . . ..” He was nearly mentally disabled; he left everything because there was no one who gave him mental and sexual solace.

The death of pigeons is one of the severe blows to Mir Nihal. After he came to home and found the loft’s door open he got frightened but when he looked in it his whole world sunk because there were few pigeons left and others wings and scattered parts of the body were found here and there. So his whole world now reduced to dust. Pigeons, which were his treasure now killed by the outside forces. His hatred against the British or farangis is quiet obvious throughout the novel. Most of the time he shows his contemptuous remarks about the British. “You are again wearing those dirty English boots! I don’t like them. I will have no aping of the Farangis in my house. Throw them away! . . . And where have you been so late in the night? I have told you I don’t like your friendship with Bundoo. Do you hear? I shouldn’t find you going there again.’……”

“Twilight in Delhi” is basically a novel about traditions and customs. The whole novel shows Mir Nihal family’s lives who were the staunch believers of traditions and customs. Mir Nihal, the head of the family and the protagonist of the novel, is a traditional Indian Muslim who spend life with the same idea of grandeur and magnificence which the Mughals had in past, he believed in caste system, and his negation of Asgher’s marriage with Bilqeece is the proof of his belief on royal blood. His life is a typical Indian Muslim’s life who gave importance to the prostitutes not their wives because what he wants his wife cannot able to give him.

Mir Nihal’s paralysis is highly symbolical; it shows the paralyzed condition of the Muslims in the world of British colonial forces. Throughout the whole novel he showed huge amount of resistance in adopting change and in the end time had restricted him in one place and the whole civilization had changed. Formerly, he wished to cry over the ups and the downs of life but in the end he does not even have the desire to do that. Asgher comes to him wearing English clothes but not even object. His body has already become paralyzed; his heart and the mind are atrophied as well. The spring of life now seemed to an end.

To conclude we may say that Mir Nihal is the central character of the novel. His character portrayal is highly symbolic. Ahmed Ali represented the plight of the Muslim society through his character.

Asghar's Chracter-Portrayal

Asgher is the second most important character of the novel. He seemed revolutionary in approach and intention. He is a young man of twenty-two and the youngest son of Mir Nihal. “He (Asgher) is a tall and handsome young man with his hair well-oiled and his red Turkish cap cocked at a smart angle on his head. The upper buttons of his sherwani are open and show the collar of the English shirt that he is wearing under it. He looks an aesthete, and has a somewhat effeminate grace about him. And round his wrist is wrapped a jasmine garland. As he enters his pumps creak” The whole appearance of Asgher shows the difference. He belonged to one of those youngsters whose life is in transition, they lived in a multicultural society. So Asgher‘s appearance shows the eastern and western touch in it .Asgher seemed as the representative of the Indian Muslim youth who are directionless.

Mir Nihal says in an angry tone: ‘You are again wearing those dirty English boots! I don’t like them. I will have no aping of the Farangis is my house. Throw them away! …’ This statement from Mir nihal shows that right from the beginning Asgher seems entirely changed from his family. Asgher is the only son of Mir nihal who showed his opinion to choose bride himself, on a symbolical level it is a threat to the dominance of Mir Nihal. His view of marrying Bilqeece shows the rebelliousness from the old orthodox style of Mir nihal.

Right from the beginning we came to know that he is an in-satiated personality. His longing for sexual pleasure and intimacy can found nearly in every chapter of the novel. He felt that there is no pleasure in his fate. After the refusal from father’s side about his marriage with Bilqeece; he become utterly disappointed from life always remained depressed he often thought of death. His remembering of the man’s curse:

“Would to god that you

Might also fall in love and suffer

As I am suffering now.

The curse had come true, Asgher thought: and there seemed no way out of it.” Asgher’s  restlessness and disappointment can be found in these lines “asgher felt very self –conscious. There was a peculiar sadness in his heart, and he felt restless.”

“ o god, give me death. I am tired of this life…”

“life has become a burden , the time is ripe for death;

The space of existence has shrunk into a narrow cell”

Asghar likes the English fashion and ways. Although, he also represents Indian Muslim culture in his own way but he belongs to the younger generation and. Mushtari Bai is his mistress whom he leaves in the lurch and starts loving Bilqeece so intensively. ‘She is beautiful, Bari, very beautiful,’ Asghar said. ‘She is graceful as a cypress. Her hair is blacker than the night of separation, and her face is brighter than the hours of love. Her eyes are like narcissi, big and beautiful. There is nectar in their whites and poison in their blacks. Her eyebrows are like two arched bows ready to wound the hearts of men with the arrows of their lashes. Her lips are redder than the blood of lovers, and her teeth look like pearls studded in a row.... I tell you she is beautiful.’…….

Ashger desperately wants to marry her and after huge amount reluctance from Mir Nihal he succeeds to marry her. But he feels that Bilqees lacks sexual understanding. So Bilqeece cannot able to feel the gulf between them. So she is unable to understand why her husband left her in the house for weeks. But begum shahbaz feeling the actual problem interferes but Asgher is not able to manage the whole issue.

It was a rampant trend in the Delhi that male society went to prostitutes and when they became habitual of them then they were not accommodating with their wives because they were not adroit in the art of capturing man through sensual ways. So most of the men had not time for their wives.

The marriage of Asghar is caught in a fiasco and the relations weaken day by day and after Bilqeece's death the whole scenario changes. Asghar thinks himelf responsible for her death but Bilqeece's younger sister Zohra again turns Asghar to the beauty of life. Zohra, a young girl, full of charming and alluring beauty, fascinates him to marry her but finally nothing happens according to his desires.

Ahmed Ali has showed a complete picture of sub-continent bachelor who is the representative of the young generation of the early part of the twentieth century. his complexed personality, his longing for true intimacy and rebellious attitude nearly found throughout the whole course of the novel.

Symbolism in "Twilight in Delhi"

Ahmed Ali’s ‘Twilight in Dehli’ is regarded as a masterpiece. His writing is immensely visual. He wants to recreate a world which is real, vivid and close to the actual traditional ways of old Delhi. Throughout the whole novel symbolical element are used vehemently. His direct and indirect ways of using symbolism, is very unique in Pakistani literature. 

 in Delhi’s opening description has symbolic significance. It shows the down to earth life of the Indians, the decay of Muslim civilization, the darkness in minds or in life which on a literal level is the product their own inefficiencies and mismanagement in handling Govt. or State.

“Night envelopes the city covering it like a blanket. In the dim starlight roofs and houses and by-lanes lie asleep wrapped in a restless slumber, breathing heavily as the heat become oppressive or shoots through the body like pain, in the courtyards, on the roofs, in the by-lanes, on the roads, men sleep on brave beds, half naked, tired after the sore day’s labour.” All deserted conditions of men and their surrounding shows nation miserable plight under the colonial forces rule.

Asgher’s character seemed disillusioned as he was a typical Indian Muslim bachelor who was not sexually satiated and spent life without any prior aim of life. His approach seemed un-realistic of the conclusions like in part 1 chapter 2 when he thought about Bilqeece Ahmed Ali’s creates.

“His heart begins to beat and he follows her until he overtakes her, and arm in arm they go. But soon the road comes to an end, and in front there is a void, deep and dark and dim, as he looks its abynal depth his head beging to reel, and beads of perspiration came upon his brow. He turns to say is not there upon the brink of that void he finds himself alone, and are unknown fear grips his heart.

The character of Asgher symbolically represent the whole trading Muslim are generation who desperately wanted something near because they in a hodge-podge of Indian and British culture. The disillusionment and not able to forsec the coming circumstances, and it also show uncertainty and nihilistic attitude from his part because he hadn’t the courage to make a charge. Mir Nihal’s family represent the whole Muslim community in India.

As he want upstairs to release his pogroms he saw feather an the stairs and many more on the roof-when he looked inside the loft he found that there hand been massacre. He had forgotten to close the door last night and the cats had found their opportunity.

Mir Nihal’s family is an embodiment and avid picture of the Indian Muslim, who had spent the same type of lining from many centuries. Their skeptic approach, religious atmosphere, belief, custom and traditions and superstitious thinking all can be packed by Ahmed Ali in one family Death of Mir Nihal’s pigeons the chapter in which we came to know about death of Mir Nihal’s Pigeons; is highly symbolical. At was turning point in Mir Nihal’s life. A healthy tall and handsome person turned into the most weak person in the world. The whole episode symbolically fortell the defat of a certain traditional way of life; life which showed the static side of Muslim world life. The habit of keeping pigeons was old nobody thought about at this time so Mir Nihal had to adopt the change but he didn’t comprehend the reality or the modern standards.

Cat episode.

This was also the most symbolic event of the novel that a cat kills many of Mir Nihal’s pigeons and Coppola (a famous critic who wrote many articles on twilight in Delhi) sees in it ‘a potent symbol Ali has used repeatedly in his short stories to represent cunning, stealth, and destruction. He also identifies the cat with the British who have succeeded in altering of not destroying these cherished ways of life by introducing new ideologies and mores; which Mir Nihal’s generation stands for.

Mir Nihal’s Paralysis has highly symbolical meanings. It represents a parting away of old order or the end of the old orthodox beliefs. His desperation when came to know about his, sin he hebibuddin’s death he will not able to do; like in the last chapter Ahmed Ali relates about his paralyzed condition

“His days were done and beauty had vanished from the earth. But life remained over which men had no command and must go on.

He was weary and tired, limp like a shaken hand. His world had fallen to pieces all around him, smothered by indifference and death. Yet he was still alive to mope like on owl, and count his days at the mercy of time and fate.

He lay in the bed in a state of coma, too feeling less to sit up or think. The sun went down and hid his face. The rooks cawed and flew away”.

The whole gloomy picture of Mir Nihal’s paralyzed condition also shows his authority, or a rule’s end. His soul or inward condition is totally shattered, his dominating figure and his grandeur scattered or destroyed. He was more then nothing now.

Begum Nihal’s Blindness also shows her lack of comprehension in maintaining or in making proper decisions. Her Blindness also shows the Blindness of that age’s women who can’t able to manage the matters.