PART ONE
Lahore and Lahories
Of Long Forgotten 'Savans'
Friend Qaisar Zaidi is young enough to be my son. Or almost. He is a poet (no diwan to his credit yet) and a voracious reader of books. I think he reads 18 hours a day, if not more. He is the biggest buyer of rare books and magazines. He is the patron saint of all dealers in second-hand books who think Eid has arrived when he visits them and for them Eid arrives a minimum of 52 times a years on the average.
Qaiser also likes to gift books. I have received several from him over the last five years. He arrived with the latest a few weeks ago. It is Yunus Adeeb's Mera Shehr Lahore . The dedication: " Lahori ke liey Mera Shehr Lahore-Qaiser Zaidi, August 22, 1990." It is a marvellous book with one major defect. There are hardly any dates. The blurb refers vaguely to the social changes Adeeb has witnessed in Lahore during the last 50 years.
Well, that should take us to the forties, shortly before the creation of Pakistan, when Mr. Adeeb must have been very young, indeed. The author has memorable memories of the city, especially the Walled City, recalled with no great concern for style. Apart from brief literary flashes here and there, the book reads much like the gazetteers the British used to produce on the districts and provinces of imperial India.
Mr. Adeeb talks of the fairs and festivals of sport and superstition, of the games and gup shup , of men and mores, of sorrows and celebrations of fashions and of rivalries and relations of the Ravi and the rains, of life and the living which must read like fiction to young people who were born, says after 1965.
I have decided to render into English most of Mera Shehr Lahore personally because I think little of any consequence has been written on Lahore, the city that was, in the Queen's language, especially since independence.
Since the rainy season is not yet entirely over, let me begin today with the chapter titled Savan ke Purey Jhooley -the Savan Swings. Remember, this is Lahore 1940 take a year or two. Mr. Adeeb's accord:
Wajis Shah's Urs is always celebrated during Savan (the Bikrami month of the rains, together with Bhadon ). The Inner City can be exceptionally hot during Jeth Harrh (roughly corresponding to May, June; perhaps a bit of July).
Here I must disagree with the author a little. Mid-summer was more bearable in the Walled City than, say, on Fleming Road, just half a kilometre away across the Circular Road, down Sarak Barkat Ali, because many of the narrow lanes in Mochi Gate, where my ancestral home stands, never saw the light of day, so to say. So narrow they were, and with all these lovely-ugly houses leaning on each other for support, blocking the sun wherever they could.
The ground floors used to be the coolest in all old houses, the first floors tolerable, and the second floors hot but bearable. And at night, of course, you could go to, Kotha - high-walked terraces-and sleep the night away on stringed cots in royal comfort. But that's my world against Mr. Adeeb's. Let us continue with him.
There were no electric fans in those days, and no water-coolers either, only searing afternoons and singed nights full of agony. People used to stay most of the nights out in the lanes, and if they could get someone who knew Heer, the time out was well spent.
And since they all awaited Savan , they knew when it would be time for Waris Shah's Urs .
The Lahories didn't lose their sense of honour even at the height of summer when the sun and the sun dried air turned the streets and lanes into ovens. They would take baskets of mangoes and betake themselves to the parks, the Ravi or to Emperor Jehangir's mausoleum and have a whale of a time. This was their picnic and people of the old city were no loners. Picnics were community affairs, organised with great aplomb with food and musical instruments, beach rugs and swimming gear and all.
They would soon have stringed swings going on nearby trees. A large barge used to ferry people across the Ravi and back again. Some would throw Choori (corn bread mashed in brown sugar and rarefied butter) generally when a wish was fulfilled.
They used to have a high summer fair- Paar Ka Mela - at Jehangir's mausoleum, attended by virtually the entire city. Lahories would camp at the mausoleum in different groups and spend a whole day and a full night there. There would be community kitchens and cards games. Much gambling there used to be, often inviting police intervention. The night was spent out in the open with gaslights by the dozen.
Amateurs sang Heer, Shoni Maheenwal, and Mirza Sahiban to the accompaniment of traditional music. As day broke, preparations were taken in hand for the halva-puri breakfast for which open stoves were put up. Some people had their early morning bath at nearby wells, but most did so at Mughal ponds around the mausoleum. The fair was strictly a men only affair. Bhang was extremely popular, but the more spirited among the participants were not averse to alcohol. Often there would be drunken brawls but most of them were short-lived.
Another mid-summer fair was the Jorr ka Mela, held by the Sikhs. It was an important event in the old city's cultural calendar. Before the Paar and Jorr Melas, the Hindus used to hold another fair, the Devi Bhadir Kali ka Mela . Although these three summer fairs were religious in nature, Muslims and Hindus used to join the Sikhs in the Jorr festivities. Religious or not, the basic idea behind these fairs was to beat the heat and be generally happy even on the hottest of days.
When the Ravi was in flood, thousands would throng to the bridge to watch the river in spate and even brave it by boat. The floods weren't too destructive and there was little or no habitation near the riverbanks. There was hardly a Lahori who missed watching the Ravi in flood, and when swimmers jumped into the river from the bridge, they used to be cheered by thousands.
Seeing the Ravi in flood was perhaps central to the Lahories' fight against the summer heat, which used to bring life in the Walled City almost to a standstill. There were just a couple of ice factories, and for cold water people went to the wells in their streets. Mosque wells were also crowded places. Very few homes had piped water, but most localities had at least one well, if not more. Private wells were considered community property. Women and girls would queue around these wells with earthen or copper pitchers and take turn at drawing water.
Some wells were noted for their cold water. There were separate wells for Hindus and Muslims. A small well was called khooi and the bigger one khoo . The large wells used to have three pulleys to draw water upon. The Mamoon-Bhanjay ka Kooan was reputed to set the malfunctioning of throat glands right. Almost every child born in Lahore at the time used to contract what was called Kunn-pairray , a disease that led to a painful swelling of the throat, which made eating extremely difficult. Mothers would apply soil taken from the Mamoon-Bhanjay ka Kooan to the necks of the afflicted children and the swelling would subside.
The street, which led to Moti Bazaar from Haveli Kabuli Mal, housed another haveli belonging to a Muslim General, Ilahi Bux. It had a well famous for its sweet and cold water, which would be in great demand at the height of summer. Likewise, Baoo Ishaq's well was in demand all over the town. Some of the lanes used to be roofed. They were known as Chatti Shpaat . Each covered lane used to have a small well. In summer, women would come out of their homes and spend the afternoons there, sitting on caned stools. Since these lanes were closed from either end, it was not possible for strangers to trespass on their privacy. These women would do some singing, share each other's problems, sew, or knit. The lanes were air conditioned, so to say, and gave great comfort to summer-besotted women.
The Lal Khoo and Thandi Khooi in Mochi Gate were great landmarks and drew large crowds during summer because tap water and electricity were not available to most households and they had to depend on these wells for their daily requirements of water, especially when the queues grew at public taps. Although there were notices stuck on walls close to them saying: Yahan Nahana aur Kapray Dhona Mana Hey (Bathing and washing clothes is prohibited here).
However, it became impossible to reject this order during the energy sapping heat of May and June, which reduced the efficiency of artisans because the nights were no less enervating than days. People used to sleep on housetops. They would sprinkle water over the roofs before retiring for the night. They would also have earthen water pitchers and (hand) fans made of date leaves. The nights were particularly hard on children.
The sun began to rain fire, while milk and sherbet shops did roaring business. Many people would take days off from work and look for cool niches to escape from the sun. The lanes were usually cooler than streets, which were totally deserted at noon. Before sunset, people would go to Hazuri Bagh , the Manto Park (since named after Iqbal) Badami Bagh (now an industrial slum), and the parks, which girdled the old city.
Dhaka muslin and viol, patent leather "pump shoes" (moccasins), and black-hemmed dhoties were the sartoriald, favourites with old Lahories. Lassi and falloda shops were patronised by the sun-seared citizenry. Another drink, sardai or almondade was taken twice a day. As the summer persisted, people would get prickly heat and rashes all over their bodies. The latter could develop into running sores. Unrelenting heat would then force the people to play a game they had played for countless summers. The streets of Lahore began to reverberate with calls for Roda (Baldie). Roday da munh kala, roda meenh mangda ( Roda is black-faced and Roda calls for rain).
Roda would enter scene when streets became so hot that mothers confined their children to the four walls of their homes. Roda could be any boy. Only he had to have his head shaved and face blackened with soot. And he would have a string of boys behind him, chanting Roday da moonh kala. Roda meenh mangda . These boys would carry lots of soot taken from tanoors (open-ended earthen ovens used by bakers). With it, they would blacken the face of any child they came across.
The girls would consign dolls to the flames on housetops and sing:
Allah Mian meenh wasa, sadi gali daney paa.
Asi guddi-gudda sarria, duss Rabba Kalya.
(O God, let there be rain and let our homes be full of grain.
We have burned our boy-doll and girl-doll. Tell us now, God Black).
Together with this, water was thrown on old men and women because it was believed that the angrier the old person got, the harder it rained. Women would drench other women in water and in streets and lanes men and boys would throw pails of water on passers-by, causing much noisy merriment all round. And then the rains would come at last to mark the advent of Savan .
Housewives would cook special sweet, pakoras, and poorrah. And people would go out on picnics along the Ravi , and at Jehangir's mausoleum with qeema-parathas , basketful of mangoes and all. People would bathe in the rain and summer-afflicted sores would begin to subside. It was in those days that I [Yunus Adeeb] heard Ustad Barkat Ali Khan sing.
Savan kay parey Jhooley
Tum bhool gaey humko,
Hum tum ko nahien bhooley.
The Savan swings are here.
You have forgotten me
(But I haven't).
Saigol was also heard on the neighbour's His Master's Voice gramophone.
The Mian Mir Canal was favourite picnic spot with the Lahories. One of its tributaries coursed through the parks around the old city. Starting from the Akbari Darwaza Bagh, this small channel ran through the Mochi, Shah Alam, Lahori, Bhati and Taxali Gate parks before falling into the Buddha (old) Ravi or tapering off into open fields. Along its banks were chinar , mango, and jaman trees making the small watercourse altogether exquisite. Often in Savan , one could net small fish from it.
Sometimes, the joys of Savan gave way to stark tragedy. When it rained too hard, streets would become lakes, roofs would leak and old houses collapsed. When I [Adeeb] was in primary school, Savan brought a cholera epidemic in its wake and death stalked a terror-stricken city. Operation cleanup was taken in hand in home and street, open drains were lined with lime, and people were inoculated against cholera. That was a very sad Savan , indeed.
Nevertheless, I cannot forget the joys of Savan in the old city. And the rainbows (called peeng -swing-by the Lahories) would enchant me beyond description and give me limitless joy.
Friday, September 14, 1990
