By Majid Sheikh

Dawn Oct 18, 2020

As we remember different areas and people of Lahore, we tend to forget the relatively poorer areas today that were once among the richer and housed the influential and educated among us. Invariably they have a richer history than the posh of today.

As McLeod set about after the events of 1857 to develop areas to the east of the old walled city, influenced as he was with developments like the railways and the first traces of industrialisation, the areas to the west were also touched upon. But after 1947 they were completely ignored. It was, and remains, as if these areas did not exist for the variety of rulers that came our way.

So in this piece let me pick up just one such example and dwell on different aspects of the area. The area of interest is Bagh Munshi Ladha, or the garden of Munshi Ladha. Who was Munshi Ladha? In a typical Lahori twist to names of people, ‘Ladha’ is the twist given to the name Latif, and Munshi is the correct description given to his actual work. The Punjabi language provides us examples of the use of the word ‘ladha’ or ‘labha’ which means ‘to find’, while the Arabic meaning is ‘to be kind’.

The given name of Munshi Ladha was Mehr Latif Arain, and he was related to Mehr Mokham Din, a leading Arain of Lahore who for a short while was the Governor of Lahore in the days of the ruling Sikh Triumvirate. He gave his nephew the lands engulfed between the main road leading to the Ravi boat-bridge and the road that led to the shrine of Ali Hajveri, known as Mohni Road. The current Ravi Bridge did not exist, but once the railways were built this boat-bridge was abandoned and dismantled.

This prized piece of land started yielding most of the fruit and vegetables to Lahore, and the first dent in this was when Maharajah Ranjit Singh cut off a front piece for the Christians who died in Lahore. The graves of the first East India Company non-military officials, primarily traders, and their families who died in Lahore can be seen among the neglected graveyard. There was also an older but much smaller Christian graveyard just near Nila Gumbad, where even today one can see the graves of indigo farmers and traders of Mughal days working in Nil Gali inside Lohari.

So here a twist comes to the story of Munshi Ladha, who kept account of all the lands and tenants that he had leased out. As the Sikh Triumvirate started to pressurise the traders of Lahore for higher taxes, Mehr Latif, probably acting at the behest of Mehr Mokham, contacted the Afghan invader Ahmed Shah in 1765 and promised to assist in retaking Lahore. The Sikhs retaliated and defeated the invader and Mehr Mokham Arain was removed and punished. Immediately Mehr Latif turned against his uncle and told the Sikhs that he was preventing all traders from paying a higher tax. He also provided them with a handsome amount and a lot of gold. His lands were secure.

By this time Mehr Latif Arain had managed to marry his daughter in the Hujra Shah Muqeem family of pious preachers and ‘pirs’. This provided him a certain respectability. By the time Ranjit Singh had arrived at the gates of Lahore to capture the city, he was among the over 12 Arain traders of Lahore who backed him, and also assisted in opening the Lohari Gate for its ultimate capture. In a way his dice was always loaded and no matter who prevailed he was a winner.

It was in this period that the first housing colonies started coming up along Mohni Road. The first housing meant that increased traffic would stay away from his prized lands. But then as the walled city expanded the family of Mehr Latif Arain started buying up land nearer Hujra Shah Muqeem. Even today his Arain family is among the big landlords of that area.

But Bagh Munshi Ladha continued to grow as during the British era the Katcha Ravi Road that originally led to the boat-bridge and Mohni Road started to be inhabited by the richer families who were wanting to move out of the walled city. Huge villas sprang up and soon Bagh Munshi Ladha came to be known for its excellent food outlets and people from the old city would come there for breakfasts. When Sir Ganga Ram purchased land for his own use, land prices shot up.

But as Pakistan became more and more communal, we see pressure on the inhabitants of the Taxali area. It started to house classical musicians and poets and writers, what to speak of famous actors. Among the most famous to live there was the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz. In a small house he started his career as a journalist and became the Editor of the famous ‘The Pakistan Times’. It was here that he came to frequent the nearby house of Ustad Daman, whom he revered.

It was in Bagh Munshi Ladha that he was arrested in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. As he was being taken away all the neighbours collected and pledged that he need not worry as they would take good care of the family. That they did, and Faiz was eternally grateful for the ‘mohalla-dari of Lahoris’. In 1961 he shifted to Empress Road opposite Radio Pakistan.

But with the coming of Gen Ziaul Haq, the Taxali area was virtually shut down out of ‘piety’ and most of the inhabitants moved to Bagh Munshi Ladha. Then come the Nawaz Sharif era and the edge of Shahi Mohallah was forcibly taken over for a Food Street. Very few care about what happened to the inhabitants who were forced out. I remember going there with my father to the house of Ustad Akhtar Hussain Sahib, father of Amanat Ali, Fateh Ali and Hamid Ali, who invariably wished that we listen to the great classical ragas.

When the Taxali Food Street was inaugurated I was sitting next to Hamid Ali. He kept looking at his old house balcony with tears in his eyes. He turned to me and said: “Sheikh Sahib, remember the times you came, the music and happiness can never be the same”. He invited me to his house on the edge of Bagh Munshi Ladha, but the feeling was never the same.

The change of location of Lahore’s greatest classical music and classical dancing centre was a terrible blow for the arts and culture of our great city. Though most of musicians moved there, it could never have the same integrated dynamics. Also to go to Bagh Munshi Ladha were a lot of the inhabitants of the ‘Red Light’ area, who mostly spread all over the city. Piety for public consumption damaged the city’s cultural ethos.