Pakistan Travelogue II

Saturday, February 5th, 2005

Today was supposed to be a day of rest. Rozaiba had left for Shahpur where his family lived and I was sitting at home reading an English translation of Iqbal’s poetry, taking it easy after the previous day’s rigors. Suddenly I heard some loud shouting outside. I ignored it for a while and then realized that someone was yelling out what seemed to be my name. I went out and leaned from the balcony and there was Yasser yelling and gesticulating.

I came down and he said that I must accompany him to a really cool place. For a moment I thought he was taking me to another Dunkin Donut’s but he laughingly told me that he was just kidding that night and he would not inflict similar “landmarks” on me again. Yasser then took me to this place called Sanjan Nagar which is an institute that does research on philosophy and music.

I met the person who actually founded this institute, a venerable gentleman named Raza Kasim who is one of the best legal minds in Pakistan, and had a very interesting conversation about the various clans of Punjab and their points of origin in the state. I was also given a tour of the music workshop and the studio and learned about the musical instruments and speakers being crafted there.

Of particular interest was an instrument called the “Sagar Veena” which resembled a cross between a Sitar and a Veena but had a very distinct sound to it. My knowledge of Hindustani classical music is limited and I cannot do justice to the sounds of this instrument; suffice to say that it was a pleasure to hear a recording and I wish more people from India get the chance to learn about this institute and the work being done.

We left Sanjan Nagar and decided to do lunch at a restaurant in Liberty Market. As I may have mentioned before, food in Lahore is always an excellent experience if you are non-vegetarian. We went to a mid-scale restaurant and ordered Chicken Handi and Raita along with naan. Chicken Haandi is essentially a typical curry with a ginger-garlic and tomato base but it has cashew nut paste added to it during the cooking giving it a distinct nutty flavor. The chicken was served in a clay pot, the aroma tickling our appetites even more. I actually had to give up on the bread and just concentrated on the meat, every bite being as delightful as the one preceding it.

Fortified with food, Yasser and I then decided to pay a visit to the Lahore museum. We headed towards the Mall Road and ran straight into a Jamaat – e- Islami rally. It was Kashmir Day and hence a public holiday and rallies were being held in various parts of the city. Yasser’s car could not proceed further because the streets were blocked and he had to turn back. I was rather curious however and decided to attend the rally on my own. Obviously, no one would know that I was Indian in the crowd and I could just blend in the crowd and observe.

In hindsight I am glad I observed the Kashmir Day rally because it was a rather unique and surprising experience. At first glance the rally reminded me of a Sikh day parade I had attended in New York City a couple of years back. At the Sikh day rally, one of the speakers had ranted on and on about the evil Brahmin government of India and the reality of Khalistan. The crowd’s fervor however was directed more towards the tables of food and drink and scant passion was shown towards the speaker who I ended up feeling rather sorry for.

As I went past the Shalwar Kameez clad, rather hirsute men, I did not see any real signs of Jehadi fervor. I was reminded of an actual online interaction between a Maulana from Detroit and his bete noir, a certain rather urbane and humorous gentleman named Hamid. The speaker was ranting on about Hindus and Amreeka and the perfidious Musharraf government that did not support the Afghans in their time of need but the over-all context could well have been provided by Hamid.

As the speaker ranted on people sat in the sun and gossiped, bought tea and scratched themselves while the rest of Lahore city carried on unmoved and intent on the business of day to day life. The numerous defenses that Pakistanis make about the country having a bad image suddenly seemed to make sense. There is no doubt that the government of Pakistan made a strategic error in allowing some of these private militias to flourish. It is however equally true that it is a rather miniscule percentage of the population that has been affected by radical Islam with the vast majority living their lives as would any other people in any other place.

If all I had just read the speech, my impression would have been the same as that of any other Indian or Western hawks that point to the various utterances of the militant groups as a sign of an increasingly militant society. However, the effect of the same utterances taken in context of the public meeting was actually quite tame. I would say however that if the common people of Pakistan are not too emotional about Jehadi causes it is in spite of and not because of the establishment. Though it seems that changes have occurred in the past few years, the fact is that a public holiday is declared and rallies are facilitated by the government in which they themselves are criticized for not being radical enough: all in a bid to emotionalize their own masses and no one else.

Having had my fill of the rally, I decided to walk towards the Lahore Museum and the famous Zamzama canon that is located opposite it. Lahore museum was closed unfortunately as a consequence of the public holiday. The building itself is impressive though, as is the General Post Office up the street. It was at the Zamzama that I spent some time. This gun has an interesting history and was originally commissioned by Ahmad Shah Abdali. It has a 14 feet long barrel and has a bore of 4.5 inches.

The gun was captured from the Afghans by some of the Sikh Misals and it changed hands a few times. It was later captured by Maharaja Ranjit Singh and then came in the possession of the British after the Anglo-Sikh wars. The gun features in Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim with the opening scene itself featuring the little Anglo-Indian boy sitting astride the cannon imagining himself the master of all he surveyed.

After having walked around this modern section of the mall, I decide to go towards the old city. I took an auto and went to Data Sahib, the Mazar of Data Ganj Baksh Lahori. The Mazar was actually very similar to the one of Nizammudin Chishti that I have seen in Delhi. The actual mosque was very different, geometric shapes defining it rather than the softer lines of the mazar itself.

I walked out of Data Sahib a bit uncertain about my plans for the remainder of the day. I still had a few hours to kill before dinner so I wondering if I should head home and rest or explore further. The answer was provided when a “Qing qi”, a uniquely Lahori contraption that is half motorcycle and half autorickshaw, pulled up right in front of me and the driver yelled “Minar e Pakistan” in my face. The decision was made and I hauled myself in and away we were with a shake and a rattle though thankfully not a roll.

The Minar e Pakistan commemorates the declaration of the Lahore resolution, the first formal demand for an independent and distinct state for the Muslims of India. We had not learned much about this in our history and my only knowledge of this landmark was that Atal Bihari Vajpayee had visited this spot during the Lahore “bud diplomacy” trip. The Minar grounds are right opposite the Badshahi Masjid and on this day the area was filled with revelers and kite flyers celebrating Basant.

I read the plaque at the base of the monument and then bought the ticket to head on up. The elevator was not working and so I had to climb up the stairs; bad move as I realized almost immediately. The staircase is rather narrow and the crowd was literally jamming the staircase. The climb itself is not too bad except that one squeezes past others every couple of steps. I was reminded of the similar situation at the Qutab Minar in Delhi where a stampede had occurred and quite a few lives were lost after which the government stopped allowing the tourists to ascend.

The view from the top is really nice though, especially of the Badshahi Masjid and the Lahore fort. Right in between the two buildings I saw a golden dome which looked like it was a Gurudwara. I guessed it was the place where Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Samadhi is located and decided to walk over and have a look.

The descent from the Minar e Pakistan was again an exercise of tolerating claustrophobia and I was glad to be out in the open. I had a refreshing cup of tea at the base of the Minar and then just dawdled there taking in the crowds. It was mostly men unfortunately, as is the case in most of South Asia, but the occasional glimpse of spirited womanhood was heart lifting. Whoever told me about the demure and shy women of Islamic societies had certainly passed by the spirited Punjabans of Lahore.

Feeling suitably reinvigorated, I ambled across towards the general direction of the golden dome. Sure enough I came across what certainly looked like a Gurudwara, and to confirm matters even more, there were two Sikhs standing outside the gate. I asked them the name of the Gurudwara and they told me it was Gurudwara Dera Sahib and pointed to a sign where I could read about the building which was in Urdu. Upon learning that I did not read Urdu they were rather incredulous and asked me about my faith and my country.

Apparently “Hindu” and “India” were the magic words and I was welcomed inside as soon I identified myself as one. It was explained to me that the governing body restricted the entry of Muslims to prevent any communal incident. I saw quite a few Sikhs inside and also a party of Hindus that had come from within Pakistan itself. One of the officials offered to take me around and show me the sights. This gentleman, a Sindhi Hindu named Azhar Das, showed me around the building where Maharaja Ranjit Singh was cremated. He also gave a brief history of the tribulations that followed the death of the Maharaja; the defeat of the Sikhs in the Anglo-Sikh war following the betrayal of the Dogra noble Gulab Singh. We also went to the sanctorum of the Gurudwara which is the place where the fifth Guru Arjan Dev’s Samadhi is located.

By this time it was a bit late in the evening and it was getting dark so I decided to head back to Rozaiba’ s place. I was looking forward to the evening because we had plans to do dinner with a few Chowkies and then head out to the “Basant” party. I took an auto home and met with Rozaiba who was in a bit of a panic at my having gone off the radar in the old city. We headed off to the “Village”, an upscale restaurant with a rural ambience.

As we entered the restaurant, Rozaiba headed towards a table which had a few really gorgeous Pakistani women sitting with a few Americans. I recognized Ash and Sobia right away and the two were every bit as gorgeous as I had imagined them to be if not more. Since these poor folks had been waiting a while, we decided to head for the food right away. Served in a buffet style, the food was a plethora of meats, both grilled and curried, along with assorted vegetables, breads and rice dishes. The most memorable dish I had was the brain curry, with the partridge meat a close second, both going down very well with the pomegranate juice.

While we were eating, I saw the American sitting next to me was speaking fluent Urdu. I was really impressed and told him so, upon which I discovered that whereas the other couple were actually from the states, this gentleman was our very own Feroze Khan. Good food, good company, followed up by Pan rounded of a very pleasurable evening. The night was still young though so we went to a roof top Basant party along with Yasser which turned out to be a bit of a dampener due to the weather. The light rain and breeziness made it a bit uncomfortable on the roof so we decided to call it a night, though not before going on a drive to Defence and my checking out the jaw-dropping mansions there.

***

Sunday, February 6th, 2005

The constant travel and adventures of the past three days are getting to me. I lie in bed and rest while reading the book on Iqbal. But as Rozaiba and his cousins wake up, my reverie is not to last. Today we are going to the old city of Lahore to celebrate Basant at a haveli belonging to a gentleman named Yusuf Salahuddin who is also the maternal grandson of Allama Iqbal. It is apparently quite the high end affair and entry is restricted but the well connected Yasser has conjured up passes for myself and Rozaiba.

We connect with Yasser and his wife Aisha around mid morning and head to the old city. I had met Aisha in Washington DC last when, by some quirk of fate, we were living a block from each other and it was good to see her again. She was looking slim and beautiful and I would never have guessed her to be the mother of a baby by any means. It was fun observing the excellent chemistry between the two of them and it made the drive all the more interesting.

We got to the haveli a bit earlier than the rest of the crowd. It was an imposing structure of red brick and the walls were lined with historic photographs and mementos which made me feel like I was stepping back in time. The red brick was aesthetically offset by the yellow and mustard colors of thousands of marigold flowers that lined the walls. We went up to the roof top and enjoyed the kite flying or rather enjoyed observing it. I did make a few heroically unsuccessful attempts to fly a kite.

Rozaiba attempted to record my attempts for posterity on his camera but it was a tad difficult to do so as he was doubled up in laughter. It was a relaxed afternoon and my outstanding memory is just of how relaxing the place was, soothing in its ambience of antiquity. We got ourselves a nice vantage spot where we could watch the crowd and chatted away about other members of our very own online community, some of whom we had met whereas others were strangers of whom we knew nothing but their online persona.

We left the haveli by evening and headed back for a relaxed evening at home. On the way we picked up some Murree beer from the Pearl Continental hotel’s permit room and headed back to Rozaiba’s place. His cousins came over for the evening and we decided to head to the Food Street on Gowalmandi for dinner. Food Street is located in the old part of the city as well and the local government has revitalized the neighborhood by making it pedestrian friendly and recreating the original facades of the buildings.

Food Street has now become a vibrant neighborhood which comes alive at night with bright lights and tables laid out on the sidewalks where customers can sit and order specialties from different restaurants. At this point I was done with the rich food and was looking forward to a light meal. I was however persuaded to try Kunna Gosht, a Chinioti delicacy where the shank of mutton with bone is cooked slowly with yoghurt and spices. The end result is a very tender meat dish with a delicate taste to it. We also ordered a spicy Kadai chicken dish that contrasted well with the more delicately flavored mutton. Rounding off the meal with pan, it was time to head home and prepare for departure.

Monday, February 7th, 2005

I get up early and pack. My trip to Pakistan is over and I leave today. The plan is for Rozaiba to head to work and I will leave with him and take a cab to the airport. My flight is in the afternoon but I figure I will get there early and rest. At the last minute Heera suggests that since he does not have to be at his shop till later, I should come with him to Baghbanpura. That would give me the opportunity to see the shrine of Pir Madho Lal Shah Hussain as well as Shalimar Bagh, both of which are in the same locality. Since I had time to kill, I decide to take Heera up on his offer and we take an auto to his place.

Baghbanpura translates into “Village of Gardeners” and its settlement is associated with the Mughal Gardens called Shalimar Bagh. This village was originally made up of the families of gardeners and other site attendants but it has now grown to be a typically crowded borough as found in most South Asian cities. The market constituted small lanes with shops adjacent to each other.

We headed inside the cavernous market and after leaving my luggage at Heera’s shop, went to visit the site of Pir Madho Lal Shah Hussain. The Pir Shah Hussain is one of the most venerated saints of the Punjab and lived during Akbar’s time. The son of a humble weaver, he was very attached to a Brahmin named Madho Lal and to immortalize the friendship between the two, he decided to name himself Madho Lal Shah Hussain. Every year, on the last Sunday of March, Mela Chiraghan, or the festival of lamps, is celebrated to venerate the memory of the saint.

After paying our respects at the shrine, we decided to stop for breakfast at the market. I asked Heera to get something light, a word that apparently has a different connotation in the Lahori mind, as we ended up ordering Chick Peas with oil laden Bhatoorey, topped of with a huge brass tumbler of creamy Lassi with butter floating on top. Oh well, it was my last meal in Lahore after all, so I decided to enjoy it in a guilt free mood. Suitably fortified, we then walked over to the Shalimar Bagh for a stroll.

The Shalimar Gardens were commissioned by Shah Jahan in 1637 and are the original inspiration for the gardens of the same name in Delhi. The Gardens consist of three parts, each on a different level, with the upper levels not in direct line of sight from the lower ones. I was told that the upper most garden was for use by the imperial women so as to allow them to enjoy the scenic beauty of the enclosure while affording them privacy. The gardens are remarkably well preserved, and like the counterparts in Delhi, offer a semblance of refuge to the city’s love lorn couples. Having walked around a bit, we headed back to Heera’s for tea and then it was time to say goodbye.

All good things must come to an end, including trips that are absolutely uplifting as was this trip for me. It was not just a trip to see sights, it was an attempt on my part to discover a part of my own heritage and I felt that I had succeeded. Not wholly or in full measure but substantially, as Pandit Nehru once said about India’s tryst with destiny. Au Revoir, and till we meet again.