Harking back: Long trek through a dilapidating old city of migrants

The best way to study a city and its people is to walk on a predetermined route. So it was that last Friday I set off walking from Regal Crossing towards Anarkali, then to Lohari Gate and through the old once-walled city towards Delhi Gate.

That it was hot and muggy goes without saying, but the route was packed with the reality to which we keep our eyes closed. That the traffic is crazy and the motorcycles dangerous goes without saying. At Hall Road the mobile trade was booming. It seems that the one thing that stands out is that Lahore has mobile and electronic shops and banks in ample numbers. So it seems we have become an information society with an adequate financial network to back it. So this is where the real cash flows are.

But what was sad was that famous bookshops on The Mall have all disappeared, they being Ferozesons, Imperial, Book Centre, Classic, Vanguard, Peoples Publishers, Mirza Books, Paramount and a host of other famous names. What has happened? The answer lies in the fact that newer bookshops, just a few, have emerged in the newer colonies. On a Sunday the old books market at Anarkali-The Mall crossing provides cheap books. What amazes me is the number of classics available at cheap rates. Among them was a new book written in Cambridge just last year in which this column has been referred to a number of times, and for only Rs100, that is just 50 pence. The original costs £20 in England. Three versions of the same book in newsprint were available. Amazing entrepreneurship is how I laughed it out.

At Anarkali crossing it was time to walk the famous bazaar. The number of motorcycles was shocking, all parked to block traffic. Even walking is difficult, and if a family of shoppers is before you then getting on is an effort. I stopped at the old Mokham Din Bakery which was difficult to locate as a narrow entrance is all that is left. Inside the dingy shop a few items looked most uninviting. It was a sad sight for the owner was clinging to his shop while others had moved on. Inside the main bazaar all the famous shops are gone, like China Mart. Today older people remember them fondly.

As I walked on what stood out was the small number of customers and even more starkly the dilapidated buildings falling apart. It is a pitiable sight. Towards the end of the bazaar I searched for the famous Shah Jahan era wooden mosque, now renamed the Forman Memorial Chapel. The small chapel had gaudy tiles and inside the famous wooden roof was no more. A tree had grown on the wooden top so they simply demolished it. A lonely pastor sat there and talked of a diminishing following. “In such conditions what do you expect,” he said. Outside small street vendors seem to have an overpowering effect on the dim small shops. The splendour of the Anarkali of old is no more.

So I moved on towards Lohari Gate. Inside the thin main ancient bazaar the road divides into two. I took the eastern route towards Shahalami. Along the narrow winding lanes small shops operated and one thin old man sat alone sadly. He was selling ‘pure’ desi ghee which his old wife churns out every day from the milk they buy. His trade keeps them going. I chatted him up and learnt that his three sons have left him - two to Dubai and a third to Karachi. They live alone. It seems even in posh areas old couples live alone in huge two-kanal seven-bed houses as the children have moved abroad. This is a social dilemma that needs serious solutions. It is a social time-bomb in the making.

Ultimately through the familiar old lanes I reached Shahalam Bazaar and stood on the ‘ghatti’ where common sense tells us beneath are the foundations of the old walls of the pre-Akbar age. No one in the area knows of any such old walls, which is a reflection of the age in which we live. I moved towards Rang Mahal and searched for the grave of Ayaz, the beautiful Georgian slave of Mahmud of Ghazni. A young goldsmith shopkeeper informed me that the grave of Hazrat Pir Ayaz was inside a mosque. I walked over and within the tile-laden mosque was his grave. Just when did this mosque come up? Surely it must be a recent land grab.

Back at the goldsmith I sat down to rest. My narration of the history of Ayaz the Georgian slave upset him. But then he was Lahore’s governor, he pleaded. Nonsense, the facts are otherwise, which I narrated. But what about Iqbal’s verse he asked. I said if you stood by any of the leaders of the day to pray, would you not line up together. He agreed. He wanted to know of the most ‘effective’ saint. I narrated the earliest ones being Shah Ismail, Zanjani and Ali Hasan Hajweri. So I moved on.

All along in the lanes and streets the old buildings were slowly falling apart with no repair in sight. In one street every tenth shop had caved in and presented a sad sight. As I crossed over to head towards Kashmiri Bazaar the shops were overflowing with plastic and tin goods. At one place shopkeepers had collected to discuss the latest tax forms. Posters of a now jailed political leader were visible. The change towards a tax-paying dispensation seems to have created a lot of ruffles.

Onwards on Kashmiri Bazaar I spent time at the mosque of Wazir Khan, the Shahi Hammam and the Delhi Gate office of the walled city authority, where they insisted I take their tourist guide. A polite ‘Thank You’ and I walked towards the side bazaars of Akbari Mandi. There I searched for a special tea leaf which cost a whooping Rs2,400 a kg. Things here remain the same as the side buildings collapse. Through these shops I headed back and towards Bhati Gate. Now let me sum up the lessons learnt.

The quality of life of old Lahore remains a challenge which it seems in the short term no one has the ability to change. Old buildings slowly disintegrate and traders pounce on such opportunity and build an ugly concrete monster. The enforcing authority is too weak to act against the financial clout of traders. The population is now a majority of new Afghan migrants, whose new generation speak Lahori Punjabi with the flair needed. So they are assimilating well and like in the past will soon be part of Lahore. They start off as cart-pushers on the cheap, then they set up a small street vending business and soon they own shops. They are the new power to tackle inside the old city. History and antiquity is the least of their bothers for they are not part of our past.