By Majid Sheikh

Dawn Nov 01, 2020

One of the popular myths about ancient Lahore’s old city is that all the garbage and waste water was thrown in the old River Ravi at Mori Gate. Nothing could be further from the truth and lacks an understanding of what the old walled city is all about.

A lot of ‘fake facts’ have crept into Lahore’s popular narrative. For example the famous slave Ayaz is described as being ruler of Lahore. The fact is he first came to Lahore in 1037 AD – seven years after Mahmud’s death - to serve Mahmud’s grandson Majdud. A year later both Majdud and Ayaz were found poisoned in bed. Majdud on the 5th of August 1040 and Ayaz three days later. Both of them and other Afghans were buried outside the then city walls. Just how one mud grave among scores was identified as that of Ayaz 500 years later when Akbar expanded the city is another story?

The fault probably lies with the poet Iqbal romanticising Mahmud and Ayaz as being sort of ‘equals’ while praying. Before the Almighty we are all equal, but sadly not in reality. Without doubt it is a beautiful myth. But let us return to our main assertion about Mori Gate. For starters the fact that the ‘nullah’ around the walled city is today a most ignored stinking waterway, and the endpoint outside Bhati Gate betrays just how the city rulers treat the old city and its heritage. Their values lie elsewhere.

Just because Mori Gate was the smallest of the 13 gates, it was assumed as being a garbage disposal point. For people who live in the walled city, or once lived there, this is a bizarre insult of sorts. So let me narrate a few facts as they can be seen even today. First we must understand that the original walled city had just two gateways to the south, they being Lohari and Mori. To the west there were none, except when the wall that ran along to the east of today’s Bazaar Hakeeman, it turned inward and then there were three gateways, them being Taxali, Khizri and Kashmiri. These three were located along the current Chowk Taxali that meets Rang Mahal at the mound top turning towards Shahalami Bazaar. In the middle of this old western side in the middle along the mound was the original Delhi Gate. Traces of it still exist.

Now comes the important assumption. Lahore is built on high mounds and to the west they flatten out. Around the fort and the city the River Ravi flowed turning in near the fort and going around the city and heading southwards from after Mori Gate near where today is built Bhati Gate. Almost 150 to 200 yards away from all these original seven gateways, as also away from the present 13 gateways, a waste water outlet exists. It still has the old iron grills to prevent anyone slipping in. These dropped into the river the encircled the walls.

When Akbar expanded the city, primarily to accommodate the fierce Rajput Bhat warriors, who use the surname Bhatti, to the west and to the east the Turkic-Qizilbash horsemen in today’s Mochi Gate area, we see that the southern portion remained the same and the northern was pushed outwards to cater for the growing importance of a river port. This was originally called Khizri Gate and Ranjit Singh renamed it Sheranwala. Akbar’s wife Maryam Zamani built a mosque just opposite the fort’s Akbari Gate and was called Masjidi Gate, now called Masti Gate. Maryam Zamani herself built some massive ships to ply Hajis.

To one side of each gateway ran that particular area’s waste waterway. So it was with Mori Gate. Inside Mori Gate was a huge garden in which people collected to pray before Hindu corpses were taken outside to be cremated at the point where the river turned to the south. This is the place where also the great Lahore Hindushahi Rajput ruler Raja Jayapala committed ‘Johar’ after being defeated by the Afghan invader Mahmud. So to assume that at such a ‘holy’ point is a waste disposal area is not to understand the social history, let alone the geography, of Lahore.

Let me further explain. Akbar moved the western wall outwards along today’s Circular Road. It is a straight wall without any gateway. The reason was that the flow was not towards the river that turned to the south. It was then and naturally still remains flat terrain. What certainly was built to cater for the Bhati Gate area just 150 yards from Bhati Gate was a waterway that even today can be seen. Outside in the once lush green Bhati Gate garden is Lahore’s biggest stinking waste collection point. It is a sort of ‘insult’ to Lahore’s heritage from the current rulers - political and administrative.

At this point an underground huge waste water pipe flows towards the Sheesh Mahal area and later in British days a waste water underground channel headed towards the river. That can still be seen today. Even today the inhabitants of the old walled city every day bring mouse traps to throw their pests in the water channel as it heads underground.

That is why for anyone to suggest that Mori Gate was and remains a waste disposal route is not to understand life and ethos of the old walled city. The river moved on as do all rivers ‘meander’ with time, moving because of terrain and the force of the earth’s rotation westwards. The city on mounds does not need expensive machinery to get rid of its waste water. That flows naturally to a lower level and onto the once river now the remains of the moat built by Ranjit Singh when the river turned its back on the old city. Even he had better sense on how to serve the poor.

From the high mounds water flowed outwards. So the sages of old knew how to design a city and to keep it clean and washed without water collecting along every street when it rains. Even today the old part of the walled city is cleaner than the ‘posh’ areas of an expanding Lahore. So what should be done about Masti Gate?

For starters there is a need to put up a plaque honouring the last of the great Lahore rulers, the Raja Jayapala, the Great of Lahore who committed ‘Johar’ in 1001 AD outside Mori Gate. Outside and inside were holy lands. In my mind they still remain so and should be respected. Mind you there is a Mori Gate in Amritsar, as there is in Old Delhi and also a very ancient one in Bhera where Raja Porus faced the invader Alexander. In almost every old city of the sub-continent there is a Mori Gate, invariably dedicated to Hindu corpses being taken for cremation. This was so because they are invariably located near or by a river. Hence it has always, in the past, been a respected and clean area.