My Life in post-partition Lahore - Part II

Lahore that I lived in I got admitted in Muslim Model in class VI in 1962 and stayed there till passing class eight. To go to school, I used to go to Rang Mahal Chowk, board a double decked bus, get down at Urdu Bazaar and walk its length to my school. Later, I developed good friendship with a boy named Muhammad Nawaz Qureshi from Indroon -Interior- Suter Mandi and a started walking to school with him. His father owned a butcher shop in the area. I would walk past Gumti and take the left turn to Suter Mandi Bazaar to his house, from where we would go through Lohari Gate, cross the Circular Road, enter Urdu Bazaar (which is opposite Mori Gate) and reach school. It was a walk of a little over one kilometre. Nawaz remained a good friend throughout my stay in this school. I visited his house a few times after leaving the area but haven’t seen him in a long time. To rephrase US Gen. MacArthur, old friendships, like old soldiers, don't die; they just fade away. I would leave my home at 07:00 to reach school at 07:30. Before that I had to go to the bazaar at 06:00 to fetch breakfast consisting of yogurt, ‘Kulcha’ and ‘Channay’. I recall that the shops serving breakfast used to be full of clients at, what now appears to be, that early hour. Yogurt was four ‘Aanas’ a kilo, the smaller ‘Kulchas’ were an ‘Aana’ each or five for four ‘Aanas’ whereas the bigger ‘Naans’ were double this price. One ‘Do Anni’ (one eighth of a rupee) worth of ‘Channas’ -cooked grams-were sufficient for the whole family. In winters, we used to have ‘Parathas’ with ‘Channas’ or with whatever was left over from the previous night. Eggs were rare, as was chicken; both being out of financial reach of lower middle class. Mr. Shaver’s trick of mass breeding poultry was yet to come. We didn’t have lunch in winters because dinner was consumed early at sunset and we were in our beds soon after it was dark. For the initial two years that we lived in that 'barsati', there was no electricity in the top floor of the building. Life without electricity wasn’t something unusual in the early 1960s. Summers were hot at the top floor; in fact very hot. In the second summers, my father bought two ‘khas ki tattis’ and hung them on the two external windows. I recall a heavenly cool feeling seeping through those reeds when they were watered. When we finally got an electric connection, my father bought a fan made by ‘Muhammad Din and Sons’ -a fan that is currently whirling blissfully in the store room of my mother’s house in Gulshan Ravi Lahore. He also bought a Telefunken Grundig AM/SW radio and we were introduced to Radio Ceylon, the Geet Malas, Talqeen Shah and Tajdar-e-Haram. It was the norm of the era to sleep and rise with the sun. In the absence of refrigerators and electric appliances, the days were busy with various household chores. After walking back from school at about 14:00 hours, I used to take the kneaded flour, that my mother kept ready, to a ‘Tandoor’ in the Maia Bazaar run by an elderly Urdu speaking gentleman known to us as ‘Baray Mian’. Normally I used to get 10-12 breads. Sometimes, I would take some Ghee to make tandoori paraths that, when eaten fresh, is one of the most delicious breads under the sun. We could either pay a few pennies for this service or, if we didn’t have the money, give one or two breads that ‘Baray Mian’ could sell to some other client and earn his cash. That is the last of the barter systems that I have seen in my life. The tandoor survives in a better shape and caters for tea and food for the thriving Rexine wholesale market in the bazaar. In summers, in the absence of refrigerators, we had to get ice from the Maia Bazaar, especially at lunch and dinner times. Our favourite was the shop called ‘Moton ki Dukan’ (Shop of the fat persons), owned by two Kashmiri brothers who were very fair and very fat. In summers, they would be down to their lungis and nothing else, with their wide bellies hanging over. They also sold milk and yogurt. I have recently learnt that mother of the tall-pencil-thin wife of one of my younger brothers is the maternal grandniece of the fat brothers. I used to get the vegetables from a shop owned by ‘Billu’ in Gumti Bazaar whose owner ran a similar shop in Amritsar in the pre-partition days in Katra karam Singh, where my mother lived. One day my mother passed by his shop and recognized him. He was also delighted to see her, inquired about the Master, my Nana, whose marriage he had attended. The vegetable shop has survived over the decades in the same form, as if frozen in time, and operated by Billu’s son, who sits in the same place and in the same pose as his father used to do fifty years ago. The Maia Bazaar continues beyond Gumti Chowk as a narrower Awami Bazaar, going past the street leading to Haveli NauNahal, named after a grandson of Ranjit Singh, and terminates at Mori Gate opposite Urdu Bazaar. Muslim Model School stands at the other end of Urdu Bazaar. I would sometimes take this route to my school, especially when Nawaz was on leave, or when we two were not on speaking terms, as was occasionally the case. I and my brothers had to make numerous trips to the shops in the Gumti Bazaar for buying meat, vegetables, ice and other items. Our run to the Bazaar was not simple. It was always 56 steps down, to the local shops and then back up the same height. We would descend on the trot, two steps at a time, and fly down to the ground floor in seconds. Returning home, we would run up the stairs all the way to the top. When I started working in Air Traffic Control in PAF, I would negotiate the long wooden stairs to the tower in the same thumping way and everyone in the building would recognize that it was me. The Lahore that I lived in was alive with three legacies. The underlying tones of the walled city were the relics of Sikh rule. Instead of 21st century ‘streets’ or Islamized ‘Shahrahs’, there were only Bazaars. The streets and havelis named after Sikhs and Hindus were ubiquitous such as Bazaar Hakeeman (named after family of Sikh court medicine men), Haveli and Kucha NauNahal Singh, Qila Lachman Singh, Qila Gujjar Singh, Barood Khana, Kucha Faqeer Khana (named after the foreign minister of Sikh Court), Kucha Balli Ram, Chitram Road, Kucha Shamasher Singh, etc. The Samadhi of Ranjit Singh vies for grandeur with the adjacent mosque and fort. The address that I was born at read as “Kailash Gali, Baghwan Bazaar, Amritdhara Building, Gowalmandi, Lahore”, a pure Sikh era nomenclature. Ranjit Singh occupied the Fort as his residence helping it to remain in immaculate condition. The artefacts in the fort museum relate completely to the Sikh era. Sikh empire was vast, stretching from Landhi Kotal in north to Kashmir in north east and River Indus in the west. River Sutlej formed its boundary with the British India in the east and with the State of Bahalpur in the south. The capital city of this empire showcased well-built havelis for its ministers and generals, and trading activities proliferated in its elaborate bazaars. The Shahi Mohalla, Kinari Bazaar, Moti Bazaar, Chatta Bazaar, Suha (Sarafa) Bazaar, Shah Alam Bazaar, Dabbi Bazaar, Kashmiri Bazaar, Suter Mandi, Akbari Ghalla Mandi and many others testify to a rich thriving economy during the Sikh rule. The second legacy was that of Mughals but the structures that they constructed were already in decay and only those survived the ravages of time that caught the fancy of the Sikhs. However, we can see the grandeur of the Mughal Kings in the shape of Diwan e Khas, Diwan e Aam, Sheesh Mahal and Moti Masjid all in the fort. Shalimar Gardens, Mausoleums of Jehangir’s, Noor Jehan and Asif Khan, Chauburji, Wazir khan Mosque and scores of other stunning structures remind one of the great Mughal’s interests in Lahore that served as a second capital of their empire. One could discern, from the still current names, the route followed by Mughal Kings’ entourage to Delhi. They would leave the Fort at Akbari Gate (with wide shallow elephant steps), through Chuna Mandi and Kotwali Bazaars, past Masjid Wazir khan (built during Shah Jehan’s reign) to Shahi Guzargah (The Bazaar section from the confluence of the Kashmiri and Kotwali Bazaars at Wazir Khan Mosque to the Delhi Gate), past Shahi Hammam (another Shah Jehan era structure) and out of the city through the Delhi Gate on to Sher Shah Suri Road. The third legacy, and the strongest, is that of the British rule. Apart from a few developments, like the Water Works, movie houses in Shahi Mohalla, Mission High School Rang Mahal, etc., all reminders of the British rule are outside the walled city. In fact modern Lahore and its entire industrial, educational and literary heritage are of the colonial era. The British rulers converted many of the old Havelis in to schools and colleges. Mission High School is established in the Rang Mahal of Nawab Saadullah Khan, 'Victoria Higher Secondary School' in Haveli NauNahal Singh, Girls' School Masti Gate -now Women College- in Haveli ”Asif Jah”, Muslim Model School in Natha Singh Haveli, Govt Girls High School in Haveli Kabli Mall and many more. Strangely, there is nothing to indicate the Afghan/Persian presence, though from 1738, the year of Nadir Shah’s invasion, to 1769, the year of Abdali’s ninth and last raid, their presence in the Punjab was persistent and continuous. The Afghan hold over Lahore formally ended in 1799 with coronation of Ranjit Singh. The absence of any developmental or architectural remnants of Afghan era indicates very clearly that they were raiders and looters only. Strangely, one monument of this time, Sunehri Masjid along Dabbi/Kashmiri Bazaar in Rang Mahal Chowk, is of Mughal origin in Sikh style. Afghans left no mark, except memories in the Punjabi folklore of being cruel greedy marauders. When we were old enough, around 11 years, I along with my cousins Zahid and Inam, would often go to the Lahore Fort for an evening outing. From our Building, we would walk to the Talab and turn left on Kali Bheri Bazaar towards Heera Mandi. From the Shahi Mohalla Chowk, we would turn right to follow the Bazaar straight, across the fort road intersection, to the elegant Roshnai Gate that is the entrance to the vast expanses of Hazoori Bagh with the Sikh Baradari in the centre, the massive Alamgiri Gate of the Fort on the right and stately gate of the exquisite Badshahi Mosque on our left. From the fort road intersection, facing the Roshnai Gate, the road on the right goes along the southern fort wall, while the road on the left goes along the Shahi Mosque and is now converted to a Food Street. On our way back in the evening, the Shahi Mohalla would begin humming with activity. Close to Nau-Gaza Chowk, the first houses on the left, towards the Barud Khana, were of the nautch (dancing) girls. We could hear the music and the songs. When we gathered the courage to take a peep, we could catch a glimpse of swirling girls and their patrons. Sometimes, an odd door would be slightly ajar to reveal the full view. The lady in charge and patrons would look askance at the young prospective clients. ..... to be continued This article appeared in the weekly The Friday Times on 6th Jan 2017 Parvez Mahmood retired as a Group Captain from PAF and is now a software engineer. He lives in Islamabad and writes on social and historical issues. He can be reached at parvezmahmood53@gmail.com