Global Gurgaon

The old peepul tree painted by Roopchand and a view of a Mall

Old order Changeth

The new takes over the old way of life in what was once a sleepy little town in the Bajra belt, writes Nirupama Dutt, as she travels from the national highway to the memory bylanes

An old joke of Gurgaon says that tents all set up and mats spread on the ground lured a Jat to a congregation. Like the others, he took off his shoes and went in. Bored with the mystical musings, he soon came out and found his shoes gone. Nodding his head knowingly, he said, "I know it all, this was no mela but a pilan to rob me of my shoes."
Seeing their sleepy old Gurgaon town, the original inhabitants of the place seems to be nodding like the Jat in the joke and saying that this big-bang development in their home town is part of the pilan (that’s how plan is pronounced in the Mewati dialect) to rob them of their identity.
Hip, hot and happening. That is the profile of Gurgaon today. Skyscrapers and new age shopping malls make up the skyline of the city. After a hard day’s work, young executives go dancing and drinking all night at the discotheques. It is the outsourcing destination of the country. Name the group and it is here — from GE to Convergys, from Vertex to American Express. Other multinationals like Coke, Pepsi, Nestle, Hitachi and Gillette too are here in full force. Thousands of professionals have bought homes in the new colonies with fancy names like Beverly Hills, Malibu Towne, Laburnum, Mayfield Gardens, Rose Wood, Princeton and even Nirvana.
If a place has got a complete makeover in a very short time, it is here. In fact, the old is no longer in a position to fight the new, which has taken over as the ‘finest address south of Delhi.’ Ask Ankur Sultania, a young executive in the American Express, what it is to live here and he says, "Gurgaon is the place to be in. So much is happening here. Last night my wife and I danced at the Odyssey till three in the morning and then we drove straight down to my parents’ home to fetch our son to celebrate his first birthday in our South City flat." In contrast, a Gurgaon-born and bred businessman dealing in export of garments says, "Development cannot be stopped but with this one-point development pattern followed in our country, the original inhabitants of Gurgaon are feeling that they have lost their identity completely."
The new is very visible here and one has to hunt for the old. It is a long journey indeed from the mythical Guru ka Gram.
The hot ‘n’ rocking Gurgaon is changing rapidly. — Photos by Mukesh Aggarwal
This is the place where Dronacharya taught archery to the Kaurava and Pandava princes and the village along with some surrounding areas is said to have been gifted to him by Yudhishthira.
Wind through the overcrowded lanes of the old city to reach the new railway road and a tank still exists there in the memory of the Guru. This is the only relic said to date back to the times of the Mahabharata.
After Independence, a crudely made Dronacharya temple too was built but for some reason it is shut. Children play cricket in the compound as it is time for the game all over the country. There is also a college called Dronacharya Government College. There is nothing, however, in the memory of Eklavya who gave the Guru the greatest dakshina of all.
Pass the resort at the 32nd milestone, turn left at a point and one is on the Jharsa road. Much of the land of this large village has been taken over by private builders and the road leading to the village is lined with shops selling just about everything from groceries to light cane furniture.
In the village, a Jat farmer, Hoshiar Singh, who has seen some 75 years, takes us to some ruins which were once a part of Begum Samru’s fort. Samru was a unique woman of the 18th century. A singing girl married to a European mercenary, she acquired sizeable property and owned Badshahpur and Jharsa along with a lot of other property in and around Delhi. Her cantonment was in Jharsa and the British moved to this area to keep an eye on her army. "No one comes to see these ruins. Everyone is busy buying and selling land which is as much as Rs 10,000 a yard," says the old farmer.
The villages which constituted the Gurgaon area also offered resistance to the British at the time of the First War of Independence in 1857. People of the region had to pay a heavy price for allying with the ‘mutineers’ and many of them were hanged to death when Delhi fell into the hands of the British. But all this is history and now it is a race to keep up with the lifestyle that the multinationals have forced on the good old Gurgaon.
Neelima Sharma, a theatre actress of Delhi, who is building her home on the Sohna road says, "We moved to Gurgaon because Delhi was overcrowded and we could afford a little more space here. But the new American culture is somewhat unsettling. My husband, a left-wing activist, and I have decided to paint across our balcony the portraits of Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and Ashfaqullah, who laid down their lives during the freedom struggle."
Such emotion and holding onto the past is a rarity in the new life around Gurgaon. The mood is jet-set even as one drives down the Mehrauli- Gurgaon road with its plush farm houses, designer outlets and eateries. It is lasagne and pizza at Village Shop in Sikanderpur, Thai cuisine at Red Hot Curry and drink and dance at The Buzz. Even the dhabas on the National Highway have been given a makeover. Come late evening and the boys and girls from call centres are seen partying along the road with beer bottles in hand. Anita Singh, a young homemaker who is on the party circuit of Gurgaon, says: "Things are changing everywhere. And Gurgaon is no exception to the rule. In fact the local people here are so backward that they find the good life strange."
The landscape is altered and so is the lifestyle with an influx of a large population from outside. The mood is upbeat as young boys wizz past the old Sadar Bazar and girls in hipster jeans and short tops move around Sector 14, developed some two decades ago by HUDA. The most coveted places are the malls providing the great shopping experience along with movies seen in exclusive cinema halls and lounges.
Pawan Kumar, a real estate agent, says: "The National Highway is the dividing line between two different Gurgaons. On the one side is the old Gurgaon, on the other the new and upcoming Gurgaon. It is a greater privilege to be on the other side and, of course, the property too is more costly there." Such is the rush to Gurgaon even with the expressway only half done and the metro still a few years away. So the millennium city moves on no matter what be the pilan.

Mulberries, guavas and the old peepul tree

"There was an old peepul tree in the heart of our village. A platform was built around it for the village elders to sit on. We would often play there and eat the tiny yellow peepli fruits. How we loved that tree!"

So says Roop Chand, a seasoned artist from Dundahera village, who was born to a land-owing peasant Brahmin of the Jangehra clan with a lineage of idol-makers. If memory fights forgetting, it is at his studio-home where the millet fields of his father once stood. Sitting in the artistically built square home, which also serves as an art centre founded by him here some three decades ago, choked between workshops making Maruti parts in Gurgaon’s Udyog Vihar, he recalls: "We would bleed the kikkar trees for gum and make ink of it. And there was the game of kai danka that we played among the lashurha trees. The den could not catch anyone who climbed the tree."

In the small garden round his place with sloping roofs is a wild mulberry tree. "Mulberries and guavas grew aplenty in this region. My father grew bajra, jowar and vegetables. We had two workers and my mother and five of us boys helped him in the fields," says the 70-plus artist. He recalls going to the old mosque in Sadar Bazaar with his father, who used get bullock carts made there. "There was a tank by the mosque and I would drink water from it. Once I was doing so and a man said ‘See a Hindu child is drinking water from a Muslim tank.’ My father chided him saying that I was too small to know the religion of water."
"I studied in Coronation Government School in Gurgaon. Some parts of its beautiful Victorian architecture are still there. The most unhappy time was that of the Partition when I saw trucks full of corpses and people fleeing," recalls this chronicler of Gurgaon. "But the elders of our village saved our rangraenj (dyer) Dalmira. His son still lives in the village." With a chuckle, he tells of the 1857 stories handed down by his ancestors, "The villagers caught hold of the British officials here and turned them into farmhands for a few days before Delhi fell. They did not prove to be good workers and when bajre ke roti and onion were served to them, they thought that the roti was a plate."
Roop Chand, who graduated from the J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1958, still paints the landscape as it was in the days of his youth from memory. Taking a swig of German beer, he says: "Much has changed. Prosperity has come. People who could barely eat two meals by tilling their small patches of land now have cars and bungalows. There has been development but we have lost our green fields and fresh air." — N.D.

March 19, 2005, The Sunday Tribune.

The Past in Wazirabad's Present

In Kumar Vikal's city

Pictures of Palkhu Nala, Guru da Kotha and Hafiz Khilji by Wazirabadi Akram Varraich

On a visit to Pakistan, Nirupama Dutt is impressed by the effort to maintain the composite culture at Wazirabad

AN hour and a half drive from Lahore reaches us to Wazirabad, a city on the banks of the Chenab River where the picturesque Palkhu Nala, a snow stream from the Himalayas joins the big river. It is Id-ul-Zuha and we are to spend it in the home of an artist couple Huma Safdar and Akram Varraich. The first thing that strikes us as yet another Wazirabadi, Sharjeel Anzar, drives us into the old city, is a beautiful old building. We are told that it is an old dak chowki (mail station) built by Sher Shah Suri in 1542 A.D. "It has now been declared a protected monument and the Department of Planning is going to restore it," Anzar tells us.
The day and a half that we spend in this city bring us to many monuments, stories and memories. Old cities have a way with them. Their past is always encased in their present. So it is with Wazirabad, a city that was founded in 1645 AD by Wazir Hakim Illmmudiddin, an amir of Shah Jahan. The town saw a decline in its population at the beginning of the Sikh rule but Sardar Gurbaksh Singh Varraich and his son Jodh Singh restored its glory. During the rule of Maharja Ranjit Singh, General Avitabile was appointed as the nazim of the city. He beautified it and added new structures.
Our enthusiastic hosts after filling our stomachs with choicest of mutton delicacies take us for rounds of old Hindu and Sikh monuments. The most impressive monument is a forlorn gurdwara known as Guru da Kotha. Ranjit Singh ordered the construction of this building in memory of Guru Har Gobind, the sixth of the Sikh Gurus(1595-1640), for he stayed at Wazirabad during his long travels preaching through Punjab and Kashmir. The spherical, segmented dome of the Guru da Kotha rises in splendour above the skyline of the city and is balanced off by four domes at the corners. The old brick structure is very attractive but as one comes closer, the building is decaying. Akram Varaich tells us, "At one time it was the centre for a large annual congregation. But now it stands as a forgotten monument. People have added rooms to it. We wish to preserve these buildings for these represent the common culture of united Punjab."
We are also taken to the old Hindu mohallas including the big haveli of Diwan Badri Das and a Shish Mahal. The residents of the city, proud of their heritage, founded the Apna Wazirabad Bachao society some three years ago. The society has video and book library in the heart of the city as well as a gallery and an auditorium. Hanging proudly among the photographs of famous writers is a portrait of the celebrated writer of Urdu, Krishan Chander. The next addition is to be a portrait of our very own Kumar Vikal, who spent the last three decades of his life in Chandigarh and is remembered as poet of the city, was also born at Wazirabad. Anzar who is the moving spirit behind Wazirabad Bachao, says: "Multi-religious and multi-ethnic societies of Punjab gave the land its colourful culture. All that has been lost in the monopoly settlement. Our effort is at least to document the monuments that still exist in photographs and videos."
We also visit the ancient Shamshan mandir and the mandir in the bazar. The bazar has pictures of Indian film stars like Aishwarya Rai, Kajol and Madhuri Dixit displayed in all splendour. Indian TV soaps are very popular here. A resident tells us that the train used to go all the way to Jammu before the Partition but now it terminates at Sialkot. The city has two artists, painter Akram Varraich and wood sculptor Shaadi Khan. Both have recurring images of the temples and gurdwaras. "It is our way of making amends for those who had to leave their homes. At least, composite culture should be present in art." And they hope that life may imitate art for once.

He saved the Mandir

HAFEEZ KHILJI is a Wazirabadi political activist.Since he does not believe in compromises, he offered resistance and saved the temple in Wazirabad when mobs of the Jamait-e-Islami came to demolish it. This was the period after the demolition of the Babri Masjid here at Ayodhaya. "Hundreds of temples were demolished all over Pakistan but not in our city," the Wazirabadis tell us proudly. Khilji stood outside the temple with a stick in hand and told the mobs, "I will break the legs of any man who tries to come here to destroy the temple."The mobs retreated because they knew that Khilji has the support of the whole city. Chairman of the Union Council and the first man from the lower middle class to have been elected to the post. He defeated the candidate of the aristocracy by a large margin. He belongs to Bhutto’s People’s Party but is critical of the compromises made by Benazir Bhutto.
Khilji writes some poetry, sings very well and reads the poetry of Sufi poet Mohammad Mir. We could do with more political activists of his breed. The last memory of Wazirabad is listening to a song by West Punjabi progressive poet Najm Syed Husain on the banks of the Chenab river.

April 11, 2004, The Sunday Tribune

Jallianwala Bagh

Dying they raised slogans for change

Nirupama Dutt

Popular patriotic singer Pradeep sang to the refrain of Vande Matram showing children the famous sites of the country's freedom movement. At Amritsar in Punjab, the song soared with: ``Jallianwala Bagh yeh dekho, Yahan chali thhi goliyan, Marane waale bol rahe thhe, Inquilab ki boliyan. (Look here is Jallianwala Bagh where bullets rained; Dying, the people raised slogans for change).''
An outsider may just miss the spot in Amritsar, located close to the Golden Temple, for the narrow entrance is sandwiched between tall commercial buildings. Down the narrow lane is a sign saying this was the passage through which General Dyer led his troops and the guns.
It was on the sacred day of the Baisakhi festival, April 13, 1919, that some 25,000 men, women and children gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh, then a debris-littered compound.
The occasion was a peaceful public meeting held to assert the right of the people to assemble and protest which was curbed by the martial law imposed by then Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, Michael O' Dwyer. Many just came in after offering their prayers at the Golden Temple.
Soon after the meeting started, General Dyer and his troops arrived with the guns. As the machine guns started raining bullets, the dead piled upon the dead. There were tall buildings on four sides of the enclosure and the only exit was blocked by guns. The result was a stampede.
Women and children were crushed under the feet of those trying to escape the firing. Many jumped into the well and a few sought shelter behind the small temple in the enclosure. As many as 379 people were killed on the spot and three times more wounded to die later. As many as 120 bodies were recovered from the well into which people jumped to escape the bullets.
General Dyer in his report to the General Staff Division on August 25, 1919, stated: ``I fired and continued to fire till the crowd dispersed...if more troops had been at hand the casualties would have been greater in proportion. It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of producing a sufficient moral effect....''
This was not all. Amritsar was put under curfew. The water and electricity supplies were cut off. People were flogged in public and made to crawl at the spot where two British women had been assaulted during the uprising against the Rowlatt Act.
The events which led to the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh began with the imposition of the repressive Rowlatt Act. The Act pronounced all trials in camera and consideration of evidence was not admissible. The provincial governments were delegated extraordinary powers to search, arrest and demand security among other things.
Mahatma Gandhi who had assumed the leadership of the Congress Party drafted a pledge asking the people to resort to civil disobedience of these laws. He called for a hartal throughout the country on April 6, 1919. The complete success of the hartal in Lahore and Amritsar unnerved O' Dwyer.
The movement in Amritsar was led by Dr Saiffudin Kitchlew and Dr Satya Pal. They were arrested and deported, Gandhi who was on the way to Punjab was also arrested. Infuriated the people of Amritsar came out on the streets and clashed with military pickets. On April 11, O'Dwyer issued a proclamation prohibiting meetings and processions in the town.
The city was handed over to General Dyer. An article in The Tribune recorded how the tide turned against the British following this: ``The holocaust at Jallianwala Bagh showed off the Britishers at their worst.
They made us crawl on our bellies and shot us down as wild pariah dogs. That incidentally put a nail in the coffin of the British Empire in India. We had indeed come to the parting of ways.''
The whole world was shocked by this massacre of innocent people. Renouncing his knighthood, Rabindranath Tagore stated in a letter of protest to the Viceroy on May 31, 1919: ``The time has come when the the badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those my countrymen who, for their so-called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings...''
The result of the bloodbath was soon evident. Horrified by the presentation of a siropa (robe of honour) to General Dyer by the priest of the Golden Temple, the Akalis launched the Gurdwara Reform Movement to guard the sanctity of the religious places.
The Bharat Naujawan Sabha which was to produce revolutionary patriots like Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh was also launched then. And Gandhi was accepted as a leader by all Indians. Percinol Landol writing for The Daily Telegraph of London put it very succinctly: ``It must not be forgotten that when at Amritsar General Dyer crushed a rebellion, he paved the way for the undisputed supremacy of Gandhi.''
Dyer was unrepentant when strictures were passed against him by the British Parliament, but he died a lonely man in 1928. Revenge was to come some 21 years later when Micheal O' Dwyer who had imposed the martial law in Punjab was shot dead in Caxton Hall in London by Udham Singh.
At the time of the holocaust Udham Singh was 20. Udham Singh came under the influence of the Ghadar movement and on March 13, 1940, under the assumed name of Mohammad Singh Azad shot dead O' Dwyer. Udham Singh was sentenced to death and executed on July 31, 1940.
The Martyrs' Gallery at Jallianwala Bagh displays with honour a portrait of Udham Singh with his famous lines from the trial in England: ``What greater honour can be bestowed on me than death for the sake of my motherland?'' The outrage which was felt by every Indian was thus expressed by Udham Singh whose assumed name suggested that he was representing the secular tradition.
Freedom struggle revisited
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 1919 Jallianwala Bagh is the worst memory of the British rule. Almost eight decades after it shocked the world, Nirupama Dutt travels to the spot to reconstruct the massacre which mirrored British brutality and the undying spirit of freedom.
From the files
*The Congress boycotted the Inquiry Committee appointed by the Government. It set up its own committee comprising Mahatma Gandhi, M.R.Jayakar, C.R.Das and Abbas Tyabji. The findings showed that there was no conspiracy to overthrow the government in Punjab, no reasonable cause to justify the imposition of the martial law and the Jallianwala massacre was a calculated piece of inhumanity towards innocent and unarmed people.
* The British Government in India was keen to turn the Jallianwala Bagh into a cloth market so that all traces of the incident were wiped out. Nationalist leaders, however, formed a committee headed by Madan Mohan Malviya. The land was purchased from the Jallewala Sardars at a very hiked up price of Rs 5.65 lakh. The money was gathered by an international appeal for a memorial issued by Mahatma Gandhi.
* The upkeep of Jallianwala has been with a Mukherjee family of Bengal. S.C. Mukherjee, an associate of Malviya, was appointed the first secretary of the Trust. It subsequently went to his son and now to his grandson S. Mukherjee. ``It is a close emotional bond. We belong to this place,'' says Mukherjee.
Indian Express, April 1997

Funjabi Festival

Two pictures from Damdama Sahib by Dev Inder

Baisakhi - A Very Funjabi Festival

Baisakhi has evolved from a harvest festival embodying religious fervour to a global celebration of Punjabi exuberance. Nirupama Dutt captures the flavour of Baisakhi from Damdama Sahib to Trafalgar Square

"So you have come for the Baisakhi Mela?" The rickshawala asks in his earthy Punjabi and before waiting for an answer asks another question, "Why haven’t you brought your children?" ‘Children’ in Punjabi parlance includes the spouse. Not wanting to perplex this friendly Talwandi Sabo man, I reply tactfully, "You see the children are having their exams." It is not the done thing for a single woman to be heading for a Baisakhi mela at Damdama Sahib. People go to melas with families, friends and sometimes the entire village neighbourhood. As he drops me at a house by the famous gurdwara, he adds, "Next time do bring the children."
Well, there is always a next time for a mela in Punjab for the folks are as ‘funjabi’ as they can be. But the Baisakhi mela is celebrated with a heightened sense of jubilation. Baisakhi or Vaisakhi derives its name from the month of Vaisakh and marks the new year of the Indian calendar just a little short of mid-April. It is usually the 13th day of the month and some times spilling over to the 14th. It has been a time for celebration since ages and for the Punjabis it was the harvest festival to be ushered in with the shout of Jatta aayi Vaisakhi.
In 1699, the festival got an added dimension as the 10th Guru of the Sikhs founded the Khalsa panth this day at Anandpur Sahib. Soon after followed the Guru’s battles with the Mughals. After the pain and sorrow of war, including losing his four sons, Guru Gobind Singh came to rest on a sandy mound at Talwandi Sabo. It was here that the Guru and his armies celebrated Baisakhi once more.

Fun and fair time in Punjab means going to the Maghi mela in Muktsar in January, Hola Mohalla at Anandpur Sahib in March and Baisakhi at Damdama Sahib.
But of late Baisakhi, like much else, is not just Punjabi fare but a global festival of sorts with the Sikhs scattered all over the world. Since 2003, Vaisakhi is being celebrated with gusto in Trafalgar Square in London with other communities joining the song and dance. Farther away in Toronto it is time for a gala banquet with dinner, dance and entertainment available at $ 150 per person and a discount for students. Last year concerts by ghazal singer Jagjit Singh were a sell-out at Baisakhi time in New York and New Jersey. Not just that, for the first time last year the festival was celebrated in New Jersey State House with Governor James E. Mcgreevy speaking of "our common humanity" to the Sikh community and adding: "Together we can create a better world, a better nation."
So the festival of simple peasant folks has now come with a bang on the international scene. The multinationals too have owned this article with greeting cards, wallpaper and other knickknacks. Celebrations abroad have angel dancers and ‘Funjabi’ pop singers. A long way from the old soft tones of yesteryear Punjabi song in Asa Singh Mastana’s sombre tone speaking of ripe wheat stalks, plenty to eat and spend on and the simple pleasure of the village fair. And now gourmets are offering exotic Baisakhi cuisine, which perhaps would humble the rustic jalebis and pakodas fried in oil as of old.
Although Baisakhi was primarily a harvest festival in which all Punjabis participated, irrespective of what religion they belonged to yet it did a vanishing trick from West Punjab after the Partition. In fact, it had gained identity as a Sikh festival with the establishing of the Khalsa on this day. That was the time when the Sikh Gurus were waging battles against the Mughals. However, at the village level people of all faiths participated in it. Pakistani diplomat Munnawar Bhatti, who comes from the farming stock near Sialkot, says, "In my childhood, well after the creation Pakistan, I recall going to the Baisakhi melas and seeing villagers do the bhangra. But then over the years the practice stopped. It was during the dictatorial regime of Zia-ul-Haq that all multi-faith celebrations with song and dance came to a stop in Pakistan. Painter Akram Varraich, a Muslim Jat of Wazirabad, says: "Old habits die hard and the people of Wazirabad and Amenabad still continue with the practice of taking a dip in the Chenab river on this day."
The traditional significance of Baisakhi is that it marks the completion of a cycle in time and the beginning of new ones. Thus the day is counted most auspicious. Painter Malkit Singh recalling the harvest days in Lande village near Moga, says, "We would cut the crops moving on our haunches. The most haunting image I have of my youth is of the drumbeater. He would beat the dhol to buck us up. Thus we would cut the wheat daylong and wait for lunch, as it would bring rest. Harvest time we would get a special treat of shakkar and ghee to energise us." Gulzar Singh Sandhu, born of peasant stock in Doaba, says, "It is basically a crop festival. This would be a time when the crops would be harvested and money would come home. So it would be time for new clothes and weddings for the eligible." Eating drinking and making merry are the traditional Punjabi traits and Sandhu recalls that on Baisakhi in his Sunni village, the people would pool in to buy the fattest goat and share the meat. He recounts an interesting festival-time anecdote, "I would help my father in the harvest as a boy and those days we cut the crops manually. One Baisakhi my father and uncle went off to the fields to feast on mutton and country-brew and I with my friends. We drank from pitchers buried in the ground and drank so much that neither my father nor I could get up early next morning. We went to the fields nevertheless with sickles in hand. I was hardly able to cut the wheat. My father told me to go home and rest. Later I learnt that the moment I left he too went off to sleep in the fields. Such was our Baisakhi hangover."
And so people get ready to celebrate the big day in a big urban way all over the world and the village folk plan a pilgrimage to the neighbouring gurdwaras and with Guru di kirpa to Damdama Sahib. And my old rickshawala friend will be greeting an odd visitor or two saying, "So you have come to the Vaisakhi mela but why haven’t you brought your children. Do bring them next time!" And there is always a next time, a next Baisakhi and a new beginning.

April 4, 2005, The Tribune

Shah Husain and Madho Lal

A photograph by Imran Mani

The Cult of Co-existence

Nirupama Dutt visits a unique Sufi tradition in Lahore

Shah Hussain (1538 to 1599) is one of the most quoted and loved poets of the Punjabi Sufi poetry. He lived during the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar and was born the same year in which Guru Nanak passed away. Grandson of a converted weaver he belonged to the Dhuda clan of Rajputs. The other great weaver poet, Kabir, was his forerunner and died some four decades before the birth of Shah Hussain. This son of the weavers chose scholarship as his path and as a young man he became a disciple of Behlol Daryaee of the Qaadri tradition of Sufism which lay emphasis on devotion or bhakti, a concept taken from the Bhagwad Gita. He was the pioneer of the Sufi Kaafi, a genre that is somewhat akin to the sonnet and ranges from four to ten lines in length.
He is the pir-faqir or patron saint of Lahore city and his shrine lies on the side of the famed Shalamar Gardens of Lahore, developed by Mughal emperor Shahjahan. A visit to the city is not considered complete if one has not paid obeisance to the poet-saint at his mazar. However, what comes as a surprise is that unlike the the Punjabis in India, the Punjabis in Pakistan refer to him as Madho Lal Hussain. “Why does one call Shah Husain Madho Lal? Wasn’t Madho Lal the friend and disciple of the great Sufi poet?” These are the obvious questions that come to the lips. Poet and painter Akram Varraich says: “He took the name of his young friend so that his name would be immortalised. A parallel can be found in the Radha-Krishan tradition where the name of the beloved precedes the person’s name.”
Indeed, Shah Hussain's love for a Brahmin Madho Lal is famous, and they are often referred to as a single person with the composite name of Madho Laal Hussain. Madho's tomb lies next to Hussain's in the shrine. The shrine is situated in the Baghbaan colony where once the gardeners who took care of the Shalamar Gardens lived. Outside the shrine one finds small shops selling stoles, scarves and pottery. Pigeons abound the little temple to composite culture. The transistor is playing popular Hindi film songs of the melody era and Lata’s voice reaches the ears: Main piya teri tu maane ya na maane…
Appropriate lyrics indeed at the mazaar of the rebel poet who believed in love, who chose to break away from the rigid tenets of Islam. It is said that at the age of 36, he turned away from the Quran, put on red clothes and started singing and dancing in the streets of old Lahore. He had a considerable following in Lahore and Kasur. While green is the colour of Islam and mazaars but festivity time followers of this Sufi poet come to the shrine to dance and sing, bedecked in red. Lahore-based theatre director Madeeha Gauhar says: “This is one of the most cherished spots in Lahore and it speaks volumes for the culture of togetherness of old Punjab where different faiths lived together in harmony.”
Before the Partition, this memorial to multi-cultural co-existence was the site for the annual Mela Chiragan or Festival of Lights, that had its roots lay in peasant festivity. In medeival times, peasants would come to light lamps to the memory of their favourite poet. In fact the Mughal, Sikh and British administrators continued to celebrate this popular festival right up to the Partition. During the Sikh period, Maharaja Ranjit Singh used to lead the procession of the devotees from the Lahore Fort. However, with the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan the administration withdrew its support to the festival because such song, dance and abandon was considered un-Islamic.
Yet it is hard to destroy a tradition once established. The festival was nearly lost to time until singers like Hamid Ali Bela and Pathane Khan revived it by singing at the shrine and drawing the crowds. Among the singers who have sung the poet with zest are Pathane Khan, Abida Parveen, Jagjit Kaur, Zubaida Khanum, Wadali Brothers and Puran Shahkoti. The Punjabi activists in Pakistan, who are still struggling to get a rightful status for their language, formed Majlis Shah Husain to revive festivity and also highlight the poetry of the Sufi saint. Shah Husasain’s poetry has found critical acclaim on both sides of the border and Indian writer K.S. Duggal says thus of his poetry: "Shah Hussain wrote in impeccable central Punjab idiom and can claim to be one of those writers who have brought mediaeval Punjabi closest to modern usage." Najm Hosain Syed, a celebrated poet and critic of Punjabi in Pakistan describes the myth thus, “Grandson of a convert weaver, he embarrassed every one by aspiring to the privilege of learning what he revered guardians of traditional knowledge claimed to teach. Then again, fairly late in life, he embarrassed every one by refusing to believe in the knowledge he had received from others, and decided to know for himself. He plucked the forbidden fruit anew. “
So the tradion lives on with just one long interruption during the martial law regime of Zia-ul-Haq. But the followers of the man, who dared to pluck the forbidden fruit found ways even to tackle this.
BOX 1 with the story (with B & W pix)
Caption: Najm Hosain Syed leading the dance at Shah Hosain’s mazaar in the Eighties

Dance of Defiance
All music and dance at the mazaar of Shah Husain was brought to an end during the dictatorial regime of Zia-ul-Haq. There was no Mela Chiragan. Thursdays heard no crescendo of the qawwali rising from the mazaar. The sound of music was unheard until after some years progressive university students picked up the drums and reached the shrine. The mood was such that the staid and sober writer Najm Hosain Syed joined the dance as others chanted: Madho Lal, Madho Lal, Mehangi roti, mehangi dal, Ho gaye poore sat saal ( Madho Lal, Madho Lal, for seven years we have had costly roti and costly dal). It was a dig at the socio-political conditions of the times. The protest served a purpose. Dance and song returned to the mazaar.

Egg pakodas at Laala Moosa

The Missing Link

Nirupama Dutt
MEMORIES are recalled through the senses. There are the memories of the seen, the heard, the felt and the touched. There are also the delicious memories of the taste buds. And if it were not for these mouth-watering remembrances, I would never have known the name of some obscure little town in West Punjab called Laala Moosa. The memory came down from my mother who had not really seen the town but had passed it many times by rail during her sojourns from Rawalpindi to Lahore. What made the name of this town stay alive in her mind long years after Partition, migration and much else were the delicious egg pakodas that were sold at the Lala Moosa railway station.“I have never eaten egg pakodas as tasty as those sold at the Laala Moosa railway station!” She would say this and go onto describe in detail how hard-boiled eggs would be slit sideways, stuffed with spices and then dipped in garlic-flavoured besan batter and boiled to a rich golden brown. On an occasional winter Sunday evening she would prepare this delicacy for us and we loved it. But biting into her own share, she would exclaim, “All right! But the Laala Moosa fare was exceptional.”So this time when I got a chance to visit the Punjab of my parents, I would ask people of the various things I had heard from my elders of the land lost to us in an effort to put together some kind of a patchwork quilt of memories. In the process, I discovered many missing links and a lot more information about things that were still vague in my mind. But when I tried asking people in Lahore about Laala Moosa railway station and the egg pakodas that used to be sold there, I always drew a blank. The imperious Lahoris so proud of their own elegant city had little or no time for some God-forsaken Laala Moosa town.On the last day in Lahore, I sat chatting with Basheer Ahmad who owns an antique shop in the Falleti’s Hotel. Asking him about the rugs, doorknobs, silver jewels and much else that was littered about, I casually asked him of the place he belonged to. “I am from Laala Moosa,” he said. I almost jumped up crying Eureka! but stopped myself in time and launched off on the egg pakodas at the station that my mother used to rave about. The old man smiled and said, “Yes, you still get them at the station there. So many vendors sell just that. It is the speciality of our town.” I had found a missing link.

The Original Lahoran

So she said

Nirupama Dutt

Where do you come from? This is a question we all have to answer onlytoo often. It is the place a person belongs to that decides many things.For the likes of me born after the Partition of the country to parentswho migrated from West Punjab, the problem of roots and identity hasalways been a complex one. My usual answer to this question would be, "Icome from Chandigarh." Now that Chandigarh has completed fifty years ofexistence, the reply is accepted but some two and a half decades ago Iremember the famous Punjabi short story writer Kulwant Singh Virkgetting vexed at this reply and saying, "No one can belong toChandigarh. Tell me where your parents were from?" When I told him thatmy mother was from Rawalpindi, my father from Lahore and I fromChandigarh, he laughed and said, "So you are the daughter of threeCapitals!"My name on the other hand causes more identity crises. The suffix of'Dutt' often raises doubts about my lingual affiliations. With a Bengalisounding first name that my mother took most probably from one of theSarat Chandra novels that she devoured in her youth, and named herchildren Arvind, Vimal, Salil and so on. With my dark looks highlightingmy name, I have often been taken for a Bengali. Well, this has been helpat times and more so in my career as an art critic. A Bengali name getsan easier entry in culture-land where the pragmatic Punjabis are mostoften 'agriculturally' suspect.So very often I let this case of mistaken identity pass but when I breakinto Punjabi verse, I have had surprised bhadralog raising an eyebrow.Other times I have to tell enthusiastic young artists from Kolkatta whoroll the 'a' present twice in my first name into round roshogullas, addDidi and rattle off in Bangla, that I am a Punjabi. "How come?" followsthe surprised query, "Dutts are Bengalis." I tell them that they arePunjabis too and to convince them, I say ,"The Sunil Dutt variety." Heis the most famous among the Punjabi Dutts.However in a sojourn to Lahore this month, I learnt a lot more about theDutts, who belong to a clan popularly known as Hussaini Brahmins. Theirmythical origin is traced to Dronacharya of the Eklavya thumb infamy.But in history they redeemed themselves by denouncing Brahmanicalpractices and becoming warriors and agriculturalists. In 681 A.D. RahabSidh Dutt fought for the sons of Prophet Mohammad in Karbala andsacrificed seven of his sons in battle on the tenth day of the Moharram.Overwhemled by grief Rahab and his kith and kin returned to their rootsin Punjab and settled down in Lahore. The Muslims remained grateful tothem for their sacrifices in Karbala and they were never forced tochange their relgion. The famous saying about them goes thus_"Wah DuttSultan, Hindu ka dharma, Musalman ka iman, Wah Dutt Sultan, Adha Hindu,adha Musalman." Ma jid Sheikh in an article on the The Dutts of MochiGate in The Dawn of January 6, 2004, writes that they lived in largenumbers in Lahore and fled the city only at the time to the Partition.The writer also mentions that Sunil Dutt gifted $ 100, 000 to ShaukatKhanum Cancer Hospital in the memory of his wife, the celebrated actressNargis.Sheikh records with joy the statement of Sunil Dutt that accompanied thedonation. "For Lahore, a Dutt will even give his life." The Dutts hadput up a brave resistance to Mahmood of Ghazni in Lahore. Sheikh says inhis article that the Dutts along with Manjs and Virks were among theoriginal Lahoris. Dutts may have done something for Lahore but it isLahore that his given me the identity of being an original Lahoran

The girl from Rawalpindi

The way she was

Nirupama Dutt

The road is certainly leading to Lahore. What with the premiers of the two countries only too eager to hitch the inaugural joy ride to and fro. The past fifty and one years, it has been the lure of Lahore which has haunted the nostalgia of the migrants of the partitioned Punjab. Being the cultural capital of the pre-1947 Punjab, it has remained a symbol of togetherness. The oft-quoted lament, Jis Lahore nahi vekhea, Oh janmea nai (He who has not seen Lahore is not born), drew condescending smiles. But those who had to flee this city on the banks of the Ravi are perhaps the only ones who can truly feel the loss. Ask the Bengalis what would have been there lot if Calcutta had gone to the other side, and they understand. Lahore was the Punjabis' Calcutta.
But I happen to know someone who never thought much of Lahore. She was a girl from Raw-alpindi married to a man from Lahore. And what a comedown it was for her. Why? It's linked to anthropological linguistics. Punjab has these broad geographical, cultural andlinguistic divisions. Raw-alpindi falls in the supposedly superior position of being at the foothills in the area known as Pothoar, while Lahore is in the mainland of Majha just as Amritsar is. Never mind Lahore with its Kinnaird College, Panjab University, film studios, theatres, famed Anarkali Bazar and ill-famed Hira Mandi, this our girl from Rawalpindi had many prejudices against Lahore and Lahoris.For one, folks in her part of Punjab were fairer, taller, better-spoken, and more cultured. So she said. While people came all the way from Rawalpindi to shop at Lahore, she preferred Pindi's Moti Bazar. She remained loyal to her dialect of Pothoari and always said, ``Just hear these Lahoris speak, it's like they're hurling stones at you.'' The sari-wearing middle-class women of Lahore put her off. Most of them spent the daytime in just a blouse and petticoat and wrapped around a sari only when it was time for the men to come home from work. She came from parts where it had to be a salwar so wide that itcovered an entire clothes line. When worn it fell in graceful and modest fold upon fold. The Lahorans, according to her, were lazy. They bought fried savouries from hawkers. The Pothoarans were so kitchen-proud, cooking the most delicious dish of saag, curds, gram flour with just half a handful of rice thrown in. And who could beat their tandoor-fresh rotis of yeast-risen flour. They'd just melt in the mouth with white home-made butter.
With so superior a background she queened over the lesser creatures of Lahore who made up her husband's huge family of brothers and sisters, their children and relatives. A dig or two at her for the Pothoari being smooth talkers and much too clever would be made, but she retained her status of the faithful wife, ideal aunt, fond mother, caring sister-in-law. Each role she played out with immense ease. Now to understand the Pothoar girl, one has to go all the way to a poem written by Punjabi poet Mohan Singh. Called Kudhi Pothoar di (Girl from Pothoar) it describes the loveat first sight the poet feels for the tall, well-made lass trying to cross a bubbling brook with a bundle on her head. He goes to her and offers help. She hands him the bundle, holds his hand, smiles. But when she gets to the other end, she takes her bundle and wishes goodbye to the besotted man saying, ``May you live long, my BROTHER.'' Such is the guile, the simpler folks of Lahore never learnt.
The lass in the poem could well be the girl I happen to know. My mother. Now in her mid-eighties, she can no longer speak her sweet dialect. A paralytic stroke left her bed-ridden and bereft of speech. But she still smiles and queens from the bed with her so sure and superior an air. And when I am asked of my origins, I say, ``My father was from Lahore...'' But am quick to add, ``My mother's from Rawalpindi.''

In Anarkali Bazaar

Bano Bazaar Chaat

Nirupama Dutt

The subject in the message of my mailbox was “Bano Bazaar Chaat”. The sender was some Tauheed. What could it be? I could not recall the name Tauheed. Was it some advertisement or some new “chat” group misspelled “chaat”. Curiously, I opened it. It was a fond little note from a pretty middle-aged lady I had encountered at the Bano Bazaar Chaat shop some time ago in Lahore.
Now, Bano Bazaar is the name of a shopping market meant for women in Lahore’s famous Anarkali. Name the thing a woman may need and it can be found in this bazaar. It has rows and rows of charming shops across a maze of lanes and one can never tire of seeing the interesting wares sold here.
There are refreshments available for women who may shop themselves tired. Most famous is a little chaat shop in the heart of the bazaar selling plates of delicious chaat. In a delegation of women poets on their way to recite their poems at a mushaira in Gujranwala, we too partook of the delicacy.
This pretty woman across started chatting. Learning that we were a bunch of bards from India, she was very pleased. “I love literature and wanted to write but that was not to be. Instead, I worked as an accounts officer. My one wish is to see Amrita Pritam,” she gushed.
She did not know that the famed poetess had passed away the previous year. We talked a little and then parted ways with a “Khuda-Hafiz”.
Half an hour later, she traced us at a curio shop and insisted that we came to her place for dinner. We declined because we already had a dinner appointment. However, e-mail addresses were exchanged.
Much later, there was this e-mail with a reminder of the Bano Bazaar Chaat rendezvous. First, she wanted to know where she would be able to get an Amrita Pritam book in Shahmukhi. Then she revealed that she remained single and took care of her parents. But now with both of them gone, especially her mother, she was depressed.
The story seemed familiar and I told her that I went through the same when I lost my mother some years ago but overcame it by writing about her. Why didn’t Miniya, for now we were on a nickname basis, try the same.
Some days later she sent me a poignant poem written in memory of her Ammi: ‘Sham dhale paon se poochhti hoon din ki thakan, Aur soone ghar mein aati hai ammi ki awaz, Aa gayi bitiya…”. So the Bano Bazaar Chaat has the power not only to forge crossborder friendships but also inspire cathartic poetry.

Lahore Any Day

A Lahore photograph by Akram Varraich

A city that’s a theme for a dream

Lahore di sair can last a lifetime as there is much to see, says Nirupama Dutt

AS the old Punjabi adage goes, the one who has not seen Lahore is yet to be born. This was the phrase used by Asghar Wajahat for his play Jis Lahore Nahi Wekheya O' Janmeya Nahi. Set against the backdrop of the Partition riots, this play was made famous in a production by famed theatre director, Habib Tanvir. With the division of Punjab in 1947, East Punjab lost its capital. The new-grown city of Chandigarh could not quite fill the gap. East Punjab was indeed poorer without Lahore. Can one think of Bengal without Kolkata? The same goes for Punjab and Lahore.
Founded probably between the first and seventh century of the Christian era, Lahore saw the Hindu rule in the beginning, the Mughals, the Sikhs and the British. Now it is the prized city of Pakistan. Way back in the days of the Raj, it used to be called the Paris of Asia. That glamour lingers even in the rather conservative Islamic Pakistan. The Lahoris will proudly say, "Fashion starts from Lahore and then reaches Karachi." For someone like me who had read and heard so much about this city, a visit to Lahore has to it a sense of deja vu. There in the middle of the passing traffic in the heart of the city stands the Lakshmi Mansion where the great storyteller of Urdu, Saadat Hasan Manto, used to stay. The building still boasts of a faded little signboard that says Saadat Hasan Manto Yahan rehate thhe. Go a little further and one sees the board of the Tea House that was a favourite haunt of Manto and other progressive writers. Sadly, it has been closed down.
A popular Punjabi song celebrates the city thus: Mainu Lahore di sair kara de ve, Main na tere ton kujh hore mangadi. The girl pleads to her love that he should take her around Lahore city and she will ask for nothing more. And once one starts Lahore di sair, one realises that the woman who penned this song was no fool. The city is simply enchanting. The first evening in Lahore, with Punjabi writer Zubair Ahmed as guide, starts with some soulful singing of Sufi music at the Lahore Chitarkar Art Centre in Gulberg and then on to the Food Street. Well, the Food Street at Gawalmandi is certainly picturesque and quite Parisian in its concept. The old havelis with arched balconies and bamboo blinds are lit up and the street is closed to traffic in the evenings. The shops lay the tables out in the street and the fare is a gourmet's delight and the gourmand's rhapsody. After a delicious non-vegetarian meal, one can sweeten the mouth with phirni served the Jama Masjid-style in flat earthen bowls. Now it is not Punjabi prejudice, believe me the Gawalmandi phirni is far more tasty. Zubair tells me that the reason for this is that it is made of the pure 'n' rich Punjab milk. Well, he is probably right. In Delhi now nothing is pure, not even the air.
Lahore di sair can last a lifetime for there is so much to see. Now I realise the import of the folk song quoted above in which roaming Lahore is all that the belle asks of her love. Clever girl, she designed it such that they be together a lifetime. Some of my most exciting moments are in the Bano Bazar at Anarkali buying lawn and chikan suits and eating Russian salad sold in small kiosks. The Punjab University ( there the Punjab is spelt with a U) buildings and the Government College buildings stand handsome by the road. The expanse of the Shai Masjid is thrilling and the ceramic tiles that panel the Masjid Wazir Khan are a delight to the eye. The fort and the palace known as Takht Lahore are very dear to the Punjabi psyche for that is where Maharja Ranjit Singh ruled.
The sojourn through the city is not complete unless one has seen the museum and the two famous gardens. Mughal emperor Shahjahan laid out the Shalamar gardens on the Amritsar 1637. The garden has lost much of its original glory and land. The Lawrence Gardens adjoining the Mall are still glorious. Laid out in 1868, it has innumerable species of exotic tropical trees. Many of the trees have seen hundred or more years and stood like sentinels of the sorrows of the people for as the song of the old folks goes— Rukh chandre bhaide na bolade vey dukh tera sab jaanade. (Although the trees cannot speak, thjey know of all your sorrows). The Ravi too sobs on. The smallest of the Punjab rivers, it is further shrunk in the waters' dispute between the two Punjabs that fall in two different countries called Hindustan and Pakistan. When the visa says one can stay no more, one returns full of Lahore. Now it is time to share the experience. I write to my poet friend Amarjit Chandan, who lives in London and has had greater access to Lahore than we have had. He writes back underlining the reason for the lure of Lahore: "There is something magical about Lahore that does every Punjabi proud. Of course, the Ravi has dried up but once the borders are pulled down, the water will flow into it as it did for hundreds of years. Is this wishful or better still ‘Punjabiful’ thinking that celebrated the city thus in song, Ucha burj Lahore da; Heth vage dariya. (Tower of the fort stands tall; Down below the river flows) .

Romancing the Chenab

Drowning Desire

Nirupama Dutt


THE Chenab is the largest of the five rivers of Punjab and also the most rapid. It is picture pretty with low but open banks that are still well wooded. Perhaps its scenic beauty contributed to the three love-legends of the land that blossomed around it — Mirza-Sahiban, Heer-Ranjha and, of course, Sohni-Mahiwal. The last romance ended in the drowning of Sohni as she went to meet her Mahiwal, swimming across the river with a half-baked earthen pitcher.
It was the Chenab and the Jhelum that were lost to East Punjab as the Radcliff line cut through Punjab. Yet, the Chenab became the most important metaphor of love, longing and pain in the works of writers and painters in our Punjab of two rivers and a half. Amrita Pritam in her famed Partition poem called out to Waris Shah to see the misery of the land and said that the Chenab was full of blood.
In the fifties, Andretta-based Sobha Singh painted Sohni-Mahiwal in ecstasy in the waters of the Chenab. Earlier, an 18th century painter of the Pahari School, Nainsukh Sen, had painted a miniature of Sohni swimming across the Chenab. But it was Sobha Singh’s work that became so popular that its print found its way for many decades into the drawing rooms of middle class Punjabis. In recent years other Punjabi painters like Satish Gujaral, Manjit Bawa and Aparna Caur have re-painted the romance.
During a recent visit to Wazirabad in West Punjab, one got a chance to see the beauty and bounty of this vast old river that keeps rolling on. The people call it Pir the Chenab and as they pass it they throw coins and flowers into its waters.
Across the river from Wazirabad is the area of Gujarat, which according to legend was the home of Sohni. The inevitable question that comes to the lips as one walks through the rushes on the side of the mighty river is that at what place did Sohni cross the river to be at Mahiwal’s hut? This because the enchantment of the Chenab is such that past and present; myth and truth all blend into magic realism.
Sodara, some four miles away from Wazirabad towards the east, is believed to be the place for the midnight rendezvous. But it is in the woods on its banks at Wazirabad that a wood engraver of the town named Shaadi Khan, a migrant from Gurdaspur, has etched out the image of Sohni on a tree. Well, Sohni is the symbol of the collective Punjabi imagination. So reach out and she will be there and here, never mind the Radcliff line!