People often question the real difference between life in the old walled city and the newer colonies like DHA and beyond. A few recent happenings will bring forth the change - they concern food, neighbours and clothing.

But first a brief description so as to base these recent happenings in their context. Almost 500 years ago the population of the walled city was barely 100,000 persons, or let’s say 135 times smaller than the present number. The radius of the city was barely a mile. Today it is almost 65 miles if official statistics are to be believed. Constant invasions and massacres saw people flee to their ancestral villages. Till very recently almost everyone belonged to a village, and had large houses in the city. So the sociology of the walled city was, primarily, a sophisticated version of village life.

This can be gauged from the fact that school children still taunt their non-English speaking friends as ‘Paindu’. The fact is that such taunting children are, in reality, far removed from their family and language roots. Hopefully, this will be reversed as awareness increases. Now let me move on to the examples I have in mind.

Last week my wife decided that she had had enough of her daughter ordering strange Chinese, or Thai, or American burgers. She scolded her for ‘eating strange foods’. “In our days eating food from outside was considered a sign of poor upbringing”. Then she declared that she was going to make Warian, or Vadian. “What is that?” came the query. “You just wait” says the Begum.

So we went searching for the Punjabi Vadi, or Warian as we called it. My grandmother was an expert at making them, though my wife had picked it up from her own mother. It was old city tradition. It is simply ground ‘Maash ke Dal’, or ‘Urid’ as the Indians call it, mixed with a variety of spices. All over the sub-continent the spice input varies, but the ‘Maash ke Dal’ or ‘Urid’ remains the constant factor. These are made into small dumplings and dried in the sun over four or five days.

I remember my grandmother making them and putting them out to dry in the sun on a charpoy. Then what followed was almost a sociological miracle. For example one ‘sair’ (almost a kg) of ‘dal’ produced almost over 100 ‘warian’. Housewives in the old walled city ground almost ten ‘sairs’ at a time and spread them on rooftops. The neighbouring ladies all assisted and in return were all provided enough for a family meal. Whole neighbourhoods would know in which house ‘warian’ was being made. During this process they would sing beautiful simple songs. It was a sure sign that everyone would soon be enjoying this delicacy.

These dry ‘warian’ keep well for over a year, and with potatoes, or in ‘channay ke dal’, they make an amazing dish. So it was that my daughter tried ‘wadian’ and then accused her mother of hiding this amazing delicacy from her. Just to get to know how foreign was ‘warian’ from our ‘distantly-located’ Lahoris, I rang three families these days in DHA and another one in the Lahore Cantonment, I talked to the children. Not a single one had any clue as to what a ‘warian’, or ‘vadi’ was. They probably concluded that uncle had gone over the top.

Next I rang a dear friend who is a top Punjab bureaucrat, but originally belongs to the walled city. He started telling me about a friend - who originally belonged to the walled city but now lives in a posh two-kanal house in DHA with three cars and four servants - who rang him up to inform that his mother had passed away. The family had decided to take the dead body back to the old walled city inside Bhati Gate near Chomaala. His description of the experience was moving.

“As I stepped out of my official chauffeur-driven car at the ‘darwaza’ to walk through Bhati Bazaar, suddenly my youth returned. The shops, the friendly people, the very sweet smells of my youth returned. In Chomaala what was amazing was that the entire bazaar was closed in respect for my friend’s mother. This is, and always was, the culture of old city people. The Namaz-e-Janaza was held in the garden inside the Circular Road, and shopkeepers and clients in the main bazaar and Circular Road on seeing the congregation rushed to join in. Amazingly almost 700-plus people were there for a little-known original inhabitant of old Lahore”.

Would this ever happen in the DHA where people do not even know their neighbours. Let me explain this in the context of one of the greatest Urdu novelists of the century, Abdullah Hussain, who died in Lahore a few years ago. He lived in the posh DHA of Lahore. At his Namaz-e-Janaza a total of 32 people turned up. After the prayers people slipped away. In the end only six persons were left, including the writer Mustansar Hussain Tarrar who was his lifelong friend, his publisher, two domestic servants and two gravediggers. Mind you this is not always the case. But then who cares about neighbours in these new colonies? Friends and relatives connect depending of financial clout. But this certainly is never the case in the old walled city, for it is one large family.

Every time I walk through the lanes of the old city, a fair number of people, especially older citizens, are wearing ‘dhotis’. If you look at old photographs of Lahore, you will be amazed just how many people wore ‘dhotis’ just 100 years ago. Even the Mughal emperors started wearing them, as did the Sikh Maharajahs. But then came the shalwar, which in our youth only women wore.

I recollect once going to the house of an Indian neighbour in Birmingham, England, where I worked in a newspaper. It was Eid and I went in a posh ‘shalwar-kameez’. The Indian laughed his head off, almost falling to the ground. He probably thought that I was gay or something in-between. I tried to educate him that this was the standard dress in Pakistan, introduced as an ‘awami suit’ by the late ZA Bhutto.

That was the virtual end of the ‘dhoti’ in Lahore, though in our villages it still remains the standard attire both in the Punjab and Sindh. Beyond the River Indus the ‘dhoti’ is replaced by the ‘shalwar’ till it becomes a ‘pantaloons’ in Turkey and beyond. To the East the ‘dhoti’ reigns supreme in India, while from Bengal to Vietnam the ‘lungi’ - a very small ‘dhoti’ - is a colourful national dress.

But inside the walled city of Lahore life is lived very much on its own terms. Respect for the elderly, sharing good food, respecting those who pass away, sticking to a dress code that is grouted in time with gradual changes. The quality of the food there is legendary and at each corner a ‘pehlwan’ sits selling milk and ensuring the peace of the ‘mohallah’ he guards.

Just one parting comment. When my Punjab bureaucrat friend was informed that ‘Warian’ or ‘Varian’ had been cooked by the Begum, his comment was that of a typical Lahori: “Uff, just listening to you is making my mouth water”. That was enough for me to get up from the computer and heat up a small morsel from the fridge. Divine taste from over the ages and across the sub-continent.