Why a professor wept at Lal Khuh inside Mochi Gate

Every time I visit Mochi Gate and walk along Bazaar Lal Khuh – the Red Well – it is for two reasons. Firstly is to buy ‘barfi’ from the small original shop of Rafique, and, secondly, is to pay respects to both Hazrat Mian Mir and Guru Arjan in my own silent way.

The spiritual good that both Mian Mir and Guru Arjan represent needs to be respected, especially in an environment of extreme religiosity and hate that the country is going through. In this column I will share a relatively recent story which I narrated to a group of LUMS students I was conducting through the old ‘walled’ city. I was teaching them a course titled ‘A History of Lahore’ in an attempt to make them appreciate and feel their own history. Among the 70-plus group was a visiting British-born professor from Bristol University on a research trip to Lahore.

He was a Sikh by name only, he did not look like one and wore neither a turban nor sported a beard. He seemed pretty secular and rational, that is till we reached Lal Khuh. This piece is strictly about how the professor and the students reacted to the story of Mian Mir, Arjan, Jahangir, Chandu Shah and Lal Khuh. A detailed account of the story I wrote almost five years ago in this column.

With the help of my dear friend Sheero of Tambookanwali Gali inside Bhati Gate, we managed to take the group through unconventional narrow lanes and filled them with some amazing stories about the ancient city. I deliberately avoided well-known routes, because the best stories lie in the ‘galis’ and ‘kuchas’, not on the main streets. So it was that I started my story standing opposite the old ‘beri’ tree at Lal Khuh.

“At this place the great Muslim Sufi saint Mian Mir stood every day for six months and prayed for Guru Arjan, his friend, who was imprisoned by the Mughal emperor Jahangir in the house of Chandu Shah which today still stands. The ‘beri’ tree stood at the corner of Chandu’s house next to an old well that had, so the claim goes, dried up.”

Sikh sources claim that Chandu Shah, a courtier of Jahangir in Lahore, wanted Guru Arjan to agree to the hand of his son in marriage for his daughter. Guru Arjan meditated for a few days, found the match disagreeable, and then consulted Mian Mir, who after performing a ‘chilla’ and agreed with Arjan’s prognosis. Hence Chandu Shah had a grudge. As we know from Jahangir’s book ‘Tuzk-e-Jahangiri’ that he as a Prince had seen a lot of Hindu and even Muslims convert to Sikhism because of Arjan, and wanted to, as he has stated in his book, “put an end to this falsehood”. In a way Jahangir was the person who initiated the swing away from the liberal Akbar, which Shah Jehan nurtured and Aurangzeb took to extremes.

So while in Lahore the emperor Jahangir summoned Guru Arjan to Lahore and asked him to immediately convert to Islam, and to put an end to the Sikh faith. One account tells of Jahangir being upset that Jahangir’s brother Khausru had also been once entertained by the guru, a normal Punjabi courtesy to all visitors. The ‘Tuzk-e-Jahangiri’ also tells of Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi, who influenced Jahangir considerably, of condemning the guru for influencing Muslims with liberal ideas.

So it was that Hazrat Mian Mir, whom the emperor respected, pleaded for the guru and rejected all these charges as false. The emperor decided to lock up the guru for six months in a side room in the house of Chandu Shah, ordering that the door be walled up and no food or drink be allowed. If he was a holy man he would survive, said Jahangir. It seems the emperor had made up his mind.

So Guru Arjan was imprisoned in the room next to the ‘beri’ tree with a dried up well. The only light was through a high ventilating window. Mian Mir stood outside every day and prayed. The people of Lahore requested that they be allowed to collect two lakh rupees to pay as a fine for his release, which the guru disallowed. He wanted the fate destined for him to follow its course.

So we learn that the ‘beri’ tree within a few days started giving large juicy ‘bers’ and the well filled up with fresh water. From the small shop a few pieces of ‘barfi’ and water from the well were every day put on the windowsill. The ‘bers’ grew towards the window. At least this is the legend in Sikh sources.

After six months when the emperor returned to Lahore in 1606 AD, he ordered the walled up room be broken into and the body removed. Inside emerged a radiant healthy Guru Arjan. The emperor was enraged. He paraded him to the fort, tied him on a searing hot plate and poured hot sand on his body. After six days a battered Arjan was allowed his weekly bath in the River Ravi that flowed outside the fort. Guru Arjan dived into the river, never to emerge.

Now one account states that the body of Arjan was thrown into the river, after he was stitched in buffalo skin. This seems a plausible explanation. The conventional accounts tell of him diving into the river never to emerge. The faithful think he will emerge on the Day of Judgement. But no matter what will ultimately happen, the fact remains that Guru Arjan and Mian Mir were both magnificent human beings, steeped in piety and with a deep understanding of the ways of the Almighty. That is what needs to be respected.

On hearing this story the LUMS students were moved. The guest from Bristol suddenly went into overdrive. He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, tied it on his head and touched the ‘beri tree’ in utter reverence. He rushed, almost in tears, to the small Rafique ‘barfi’ shop and purchased a few kilos of the sweet, distributing it among the students and the rest he took back to Bristol. He had arrived.

On the death of Guru Arjan, the fifth Sikh guru, the Muslim sage Hazrat Mian Mir cried for three days or so, a Sikh account states. The guru had been kind enough to request Mian Mir to lay the foundation stone of Amritsar’s Harminder Sahib, the holiest Sikh site. The toleration that they showed for the beliefs of the others is an example before all of us. It is also an example for all of us to take note of the hundreds of such small sites within the walled city, all of which need to be looked after.