LITERARY NOTES: The lethal attraction of Lahore's history and culture.

Byline: Rauf Parekh

NOOR Jahan, Mughal emperor Jahangir's wife, loved Lahore and in one of her Persian couplets has passionately expressed her endearment:

This can roughly be translated as:

I have bought Lahore by paying for it with my life, I have given away life and have bought another kind of paradise!

True to her words, she died in Lahore and was buried in the paradise she bought so dearly.

What kind of charm does Lahore have that bewitches everyone even today? Is it the intellectual atmosphere, the literary aura, the historical buildings, the gardens, the centuries-old traditions? Is it its people or the cultural ambience? Perhaps all these put together create a magical effect that can steal one's heart. But Noor Jahan was not alone to be mesmerised by Lahore's lethal charms and there have been others too who in latter times sang of Lahore passionately.

One such lover of Lahore was Kanhaiya Lal Hindi. In his book Tareekh-i-Lahore, or the history of Lahore, Kanhaiya Lal has not only recorded Lahore's history with a flare but has also expressed his dismay over the calamities that had befallen on Lahore in different eras of its history. Tareekh-i-Lahore was first published in 1884 and since then has been reproduced many times by different publishers. An edition published by Lahore's Majlis-i-Taraqqi-i-Adab (MTA) has an added value because of the preface that Kalb-e-Ali Khan Faiq wrote. The MTA has recently reprinted Tareekh-i-Lahore with a fresh mechanical calligraphy.

The book has four parts and each is subdivided in to different portions according to topics. The first part narrates who inhabited Lahore in which era and what historical events took place. In this portion he tells about 13 great tragedies that befell on Lahore in different eras. It also gives details about the 12 historic gates that Lahore has. Then he gives the accounts of Lahore's printing presses, calligraphers, scholars, prostitutes, poets, hakeems (physicians that practised traditional medicine) and other professionals.

The second part describes different neighbourhoods in Lahore. The third one is about Lahore's famous and old houses, mosques, shrines, tombs, mausoleums and gardens. The fourth part presents Lahore's large houses and the details this portion gives sound more of an architectural natural than historical.

While describing the Mughal-era historical monuments and tombs of Lahore, he laments how they were ruined especially during the Sikh reign when precious...