Two important historic structures that are ignored

Almost every tourist to the Lahore Fort and the Badshahi Mosque walk through in awe of these massive structures, ignoring two equally beautiful undertakings outside -- the Samadhi of Ranjit Singh opposite the fort, and the Hazuri Bagh set just beyond.

Last week my daughter headed for Lahore to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the very first class of LUMS, which she attended. To my advice to see these two places, she reported disinterest among her class fellows, who had flown in from all over the world. However, my advice to book a Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA) weekly tourist programme amazed everybody. Now the whole family, after watching pictures of the trip, want to experience it.

But back to the amazing Samadhi of Ranjit Singh and his family, a complex that houses a most important Sikh ‘shrine’ of sorts too. You need special permission to visit the place, which is understandable. As you enter the doorway you notice that its architecture is a wonderful mix of Hindu and Muslim styles of excellent brick work.

As you enter the doorway of the maharaja’s samadhi, you have statues of the deity Ganesh, Brahma and Devi in red sandstone. The visual effect is very positive. As you look up to the roof of the ‘samadhi’ it is subtle, in a way gorgeous, a combination of convex mirrors pieced together in white cement. In the canopy is a huge white lotus flower in marble, and below the lotus roof rest the ashes of the great Punjabi ruler.

The canopy also has a number of smaller lotus flowers in marble, all of which represent the four wives and the seven slave girls who were burnt alive in ‘honour’ of their ‘master’. One Sikh document terms Ranjit Singh as their ‘deceased lord’. Interestingly, there are another two very small lotus marble flowers, which represent two pigeons that accidentally flew over the fire and got burnt alive.

A few years ago, on a visit, I noticed one smaller marble lotus lying outside. On protest to the top person, they apologised and returned it to its original place. Over time as the post-Ranjit Singh era unfolded and more and more of his family died, or were killed, a number of smaller ‘samadhis’ came up. It was the wish of every member of his family to have their ashes finding a final resting place near the maharajah’s. From Kharak Singh, to Naunehal Singh, to even the rebellious Maharani Jindan, who had her ashes finally perched there by the British after they feared the people would rise against them once the ashes came to Lahore.

The story of Maharani Jindan, originally called Jind Kaur, of Chachar village in Gujranwala, we have covered in an earlier piece, and how she died in Abingdon, England, in 1863, and was cremated in Bombay (now Mumbai) and lay there till 1924, when the British finally had to slash a small bit of the outer walls of the Badshahi Mosque to accommodate her. It was her granddaughter Princess Bamba Dilip Singh who managed permission for this feat. She herself lies in a Christian graveyard on Jail Road in Lahore.

But to my way of thinking the ‘Well of Guru Arjan’ is the most important of all the monuments in this historic samadhi. This great Guru was interned in the house of a Hindu bureaucrat inside Mochi Gate on the lane known as ‘Lal Khoo’. The issue was that Guru Arjan, after getting an ‘Istikhara’ done by Hazrat Mian Mir had refused the hand of his son to the bureaucrat’s daughter. He influenced Emperor Jahangir to jail him for ‘rebellion’. So for three months in a bricked up room the guru was left hungry and thirsty.

Outside the rooftop ventilating window was a tree and a well, now known as ‘Lal Khoo’ and a venerated Sikh shrine which a local religious person has taken over with a money box, naturally, outside. Every day Hazrat Mian Mir would come, pray, and throw in ‘bers’ and ‘barfi’ from a shop opposite as well as some water. After three months the emperor returned to Lahore and ordered that the dead body of the Guru be taken out. To their shock out walked a healthy Guru. He was taken in chains to the fort, tortured for a week with hot iron plates, and on the intervention of Hazrat Mian Mir was allowed a wash in the River Ravi flowing outside. In dived Guru Arjan never to return. Some believe he will emerge on the ‘day of reckoning’. At that spot is the ‘Well of Arjan’. To my mind a most important Sikh shrine.

Now to the structure of Hazuri Bagh opposite the main entrance of the Badshahi Mosque. This is where the ‘serai’ of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb once existed. Here 100 of the elite Mughal bodyguards were stationed and the emperor, when he emerged to pray, stopped to meet important people. The empty garden was well watered and was green and in a procession Aurangzeb would proceed to the mosque. This ‘serai’ was initially used by ministers of Ranjit Singh to meet important people, who were cleared for an eventual meeting with the maharajah.

The present building structure of the Hazuri Bagh measures 45 feet by 45 feet and was built in 1818. The marble used by the Sikh ruler was taken from a number of grand Mughal buildings of Lahore, like Jahangir’s tomb, Shalamar Gardens, Nur Jahan’s tomb, and a number of other structures.

On its own it is a beautiful structure that was originally double-storeyed. In 1932, during a storm, lightning struck and damaged the upper storey. The debris of the damage now lies in

a store of the Lahore Fort. In 1936 the British restored the ‘marble jalli’ slabs that had been damaged, and the structure you see today is how they left it.

But then the people of Lahore’s walled city have made good use of the garden of Hazuri Bagh, where on a holiday people collect to hear the great Punjabi bards. The great Punjabi folk traditions are kept alive here, and students interested in them can be seen listening with great interest. It would be interesting if our ‘culturally-aware’ schoolteachers plan visits of their young pupils.

So, between the huge mosque and the massive fort structures lies a very important portion of our history. Why do people, allegedly educated and aware, ignore this amazing part of our past, the answer lies in our colonial complexes, an evil that plagues every aspect of our lives.