Harking Back: Of a red letter-box and walks along old and the new paths

The great poet of Peru and Nobel Prize winner, Pablo Neruda, once said that if humans do not notice the small things of life, even a letter box, then in my view they are lost in useless pastimes.

Just last week as one waited for the Cambridge University bus, I leaned against a very old red traditional letter box. Suddenly an old postman came to clear the contents. “Just make sure it does not topple over, for it has been here since the days of Queen Victoria”. “Oh, we had a lot of those in Lahore in Pakistan once”, I added. “I am not surprised, the old lady sent them to India first and then Britain”.

Now that sent my mind rolling back to my college days and the evening walks to the old walled city, or along The Mall. On the way there were many such red post boxes, which when one graduated to journalism we read stories of them being stolen. “Oh, they cost a pretty penny”, said the old English postman.

So at home immediately one took to the internet and typed in ‘post box sales’. The output was shocking. There was one red post box like the one that once stood outside Lahore’s GPO which just last week was auctioned for UK £7,950. In Pakistani rupees that comes to Rs2,100,000 (Rs2.1 million). My mind raced to when as a journalist covering stories about a mystery iron smelter accused of stealing gutter tops and letter boxes. No proof was ever found.

But in our college days there were two routes we would walk in the evening with our neighbours and brothers. One was from Rattigan Road to the gate of the Governor House and back, and the other with my college friends from Rattigan Road to Bhati Gate and through Bazaar Hakeeman and back. Just before Taxali we used to turn back lest we be seen in “that area”. My younger brother Matin once panicked after Eid prayers on being told who those women standing in balconies were. He never again took that route.

But let us walk the Bhati Gate route again. As we left home and turned at the corner of Central Model School, a big red letter box stood there. On my last visit to the place we found it missing. My brother Karim said: “You will find it in Bilal Ganj”. Makes one wonder. At the Central Model-Lower Mall corner was another one, which has also disappeared. As we proceeded towards the Pakistan Talkies corner, there were two there, a red one and a blue one. Now both are no longer there.

A bit of history might help. In the building at the left corner lived Dr. Bukhari, or in local parlance known as ‘dabb kharaba doctor’, and no malaise meant. His sons are better known these days. In the right buildings once lived a few famous pre-Partition actors, including the Indian icon Dev Anand, a distinguished Ravian. At the corner of Bhati Gate again there was a red letter box. Interestingly it is now part of a shop.

Along the road towards Tehsil Bazaar at two points were red letter boxes, and one at Taxali Bazaar crossing. In days of old a few shopkeepers would collect the ‘mohallah’ letters and drop them in the nearest box. The ladies of the families certainly did not want to be seen walking far from home with a letter in their hand. The logic being why give stupid gossip a chance.

Also at two ‘hakeem’ shops on the main bazaar road were small tin boxes into which people would drop letters, which the postman would collect. These ‘hakeem’ shops also served to keep the record of all births and deaths in their area.

In our college days every mohallah had a number of book libraries called ‘anna library’ and these were mostly used by women to read Razia Butt mystery novels. They secretly kept Wahi Wahanvi ‘jinsi’ books. Oh they were popular, and cost twice the norm. These shops also served as a sort of informal post office with envelopes and stamps being available. So the old walled city had an intricate system to serve for an amazing array of needs.

Lest one gets carried away let us explore the Rattigan Road-Governor House walk. This trip saw us walk through the District Court passing by the ‘tibba’ of Baba Fareed. In this mini-bazaar my brother Karim and his friends were invariably to be found, all of them would immediately stand in respect till we had passed through. It was, for us, an embarrassment of sorts.

So our walk started opposite the GC Hostel from whose balcony Bhagat Singh shot an English policeman emerging from the police lines opposite the DAV College, now renamed Islamia College Civil Lines. Then through the ‘Gol Bagh’ we walked. We had memories of ZA Bhutto and his public meeting which Gen. Ayub Khan disrupted by filling the place with water and letting electric currents run through them.

Now come the ignored part of that history. A GC student who later became a prime minister and now is ‘sick’ in London, lifted ZAB on his shoulder and carried the politician into GC and deposited him at the principal’s residence. My elder brother was with him and there the late Jehangir Badar put him in a rickshaw and dropped him at the Falettis’ Hotel. So past the band stand, now removed by the pious, past the Town Hall we used to walk past Woolner’s statue. Next to it was a red post box. Yes, it’s missing.

This is one statue no one dares to touch. Given all the evil that exists today, at least this professor is respected still. At the Tollinton Market a stop was optional depending on our pockets. Then on towards the GPO where outside stood three massive red letter boxes. They have now been moved inside the premises. This was not the first post office of Lahore, for that existed in Old Anarkali. This was built in 1887 on a design by Bhai Ram Singh and built under the supervision of a PWD engineer named Ganga Ram. This historic building recently had started decaying, only to be conserved in 1996 by Yasmin Lari and Fauzia Qureshi.

So onwards we walked past the Regal Crossing and then outside the once famous Indus Hotel we enjoyed some amazing ice cream. In those days the Beadon Road ice cream was yet to emerge, and the cone ice cream had not yet arrived, and when it did the first shop was at the Regal Crossing. A Pakistani gent working in Italy brought over the first machine and named it ‘Go-Go’. The joke in our family was that once my aging grandmother held the cone from the top, not the wafer.

At the Assembly Chambers crossing, known as ‘Malka da Buth’ were two huge red letter boxes. They no longer stand there. Who removed them my guess is as good as yours. Surely not a member of the assembly.

But as the electronic age moves ahead rapidly we see in the West that the postal service is returning. People are writing more letters than before. Will this happen in Lahore? Maybe, if our literacy rates jump up, and our red post boxes reappear. To end this piece a few lines of hope from Neruda might help: “All the broken people I know, are also the kindest”.