The memories of his childhood, coupled with his grandfather's memories of Hindi cinema from the 40s and 50s, gave this recent Delhi University grad the nudge he needed to map out his life in history. With Karwaan: The Heritage Exploration Initiative, Eshan Sharma (21) is now a popular name amongst history nerds. What started as a heritage walk for students transformed into online conversations and lectures on YouTube and other social media platforms, where he continues to take the viewer through the back alleys of the past with prominent historians such as Romila Thapar, Manu Pillai, Rana Safvi and many more.
"My grandfather used to tell me stories about old Hindi cinema. Like how Jugnu came in 1947 with Noor Jehan and Dilip Kumar but then Noor Jehan left for Pakistan after that. These stories of the past fascinated me and I wanted to explore History," Eshan says. However, when he began his formal classes in the subject, he felt an itch — a feeling that something wasn't complete, that something didn't quite feel right.
"We were all taught history in a classroom and that didn't entirely feel right. I believe that history cannot be taught in a four-walled classroom but you have to go out there and explore," he says. Thus began the chapter in Eshan's life that took him to places. "I was anyway a ghumakar so I decided to start heritage walks in Delhi," he says.
Perhaps what best captures the journey of Eshan's karwaan is a couplet by a film lyricist and poet, Majrooh Sultanpuri — main akela hi chala tha janib-e-manzil magar log saath aate gaye aur karwaan banta gaya (I was all alone on this road towards my destination but then people joined in and thus began a caravan).
By September 2019, he met Sohail Hashmi, a documentary filmmaker and a historian, who helped take the idea forward. This was the birth of Karwaan Heritage. "Our heritage walks were only for students at a very reasonable rate of Rs 150 per head," Eshan says. He took students to Tughalqabaad, on the Old Delhi food walk, Mirza Ghalib ki haveli and Qutub Complex. The next on the list was the Red Fort, but soon, March 2020 arrived and with that came the pandemic and the lockdowns. But that didn't douse the fire in his belly.
From walks in the real world to talks online
"To start something online was a very random thought that came to me. We decided to call scholars but it was very new for everyone and Zoom was not even part of the scene then," he says. It started with Instagram live sessions and the first speaker was India's youngest archaeologist Arsh Ali (19). "Sohail sahab also agreed to do a virtual session and then we did another session with historian Rana Safvi," Eshan says.
He initially thought the first janata curfew would end in weeks and the idea was just to be productive till then. Little did he know that karwaan would soon gain popularity through the successive lockdowns with more than a hundred speakers having appeared on his channel. "History became more accessible in some way," he says by way of explanation. He recalls that the time when a session with Romila Thapar was held, it was her first live lecture, Eshan says. "She was not very familiar with the technology so the Karwaan team was sent to her residence for technical assistance," Eshan says.
What history means to him
Eshan truly believes that what he is doing will be looked back at by future generations as a quick glimpse into history. "We are creating an archive, a repository for students to refer to," he says. He dedicated one of the Karwaan lectures to his father, without whom, he says the project wouldn't have been possible. "Like thousands of people who lost their parents, I also lost my father to COVID. It was May 1, 2021 and all of us (family) were positive so we couldn't even go to his funeral," he says. He adds that his father's philosophy was to keep going ahead regardless of external circumstances. "I took two weeks off and I was back at it. I even dedicated a lecture to him," he says.
A slice of cinematic history
Apart from history, it is cinema that piques Eshan's interest. In fact, he has held multiple sessions with film historians and veteran actors like Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah. "We are also very active on Clubhouse where we talk about cinema and poetry," he says. Protest poems of progressive poets like Sahir Ludhianvi and Dushyant Kumar inspire him. All his interests go to his grandfather's love for Urdu and Hindi poetry. "I used to play a lot of Sahir's Bollywood songs to my grandfather. I grew up with his words," Eshan says.
Not a romantic
Eshan has now stopped buying clothes, opting to buy books instead. It is dangerous to have a romantic idea of the past, he says. "One needs to understand history to make sense of the present but one cannot be romantic about it," he says. History changes with every new bit of evidence, with every new source, he adds. But, he adds, that the narrative changes according to the writers' ideology.
If that is the case, then who is a reliable historian? "Most people writing books on history are not exactly historians because they might be economists or literature graduates by profession," he says. And adds that, "I would rather consider people who have dedicated their lives to history, to research, to the pursuit of a PhD. more authentic than people who are not professionals." However, he is quick to add that one needs to read all narratives of the past to have a sensible idea of what history is.
