Published on
February 24, 2009 in
Books, Heritage and Pakistan.
Tags: All Things Pakistan, Ashfaq Ahmad, Darwaish, Gawalmandi, Gayan Chand, Ishtiaq Ahmad, Lahore, Lawrence Road, Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Old Anarkali, partition of India and Pakistan, partition stories, used books.
A mixed neighbourhood, wonderful used book shops and bakery shops that sold the yummiest cream rolls. Darwaish goes down memory lane in All Things Pakistan
I grew up in Androon Shehr (old city) of Lahore in the 1980s.
Most of my childhood and teenage years were spent in my Nana Jan’s house located at Lodge Road in Old Anarkali. It was an old but large house, left by a Hindu migrant family, located inside a narrow street of hundreds of years old neighborhood with Jain Mandir (when it existed) just two blocks away and Mall Road merely a ten minutes walk.
Nana used to tell us that Gayan Chand, the head of that Hindu family, spent three long years building this house and it was a strange twist of fate that finally when it got completed in 1947 and he was just about to move in, partition took place. Not only did he lose his newly built house but he also had to flee the city where his forefathers had lived for centuries. Just like Nana Jan had to leave everything behind when he migrated from Amritsar, a high price that millions of people paid in 1947.
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In Mint Lounge, Sidin Vadukut takes a trip to the Taj Mahal, Agra, and finds out how poorly we treat one of the world’s greatest works of art:
And then we saw a lady in a shimmering yellow sequin-studded sari suddenly emerge from behind a bush, quickly drape one end of the sari over her head and shuffle away. There was a large wet puddle behind the bush where she had just relieved herself in the Mughal lawns in front of the Taj.
After standing in another line to get inside the monument we took one of the less crowded, longer paths around the lawns to go back. Mistake. This route turned out to be Urination Alley. Several men stood leaning against trees while little children, egged on by their mothers, squatted by the edge of the walkways. We didn’t wait to look at the Taj reflected in their pools of water.
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From The Telegraph, UK:
Gandhi gave his metal rimmed, circular lensed glasses to an army colonel with the words: 'These gave me the vision to free India'
The sandals were given to a British army officer in 1931 prior to the Round Table talks in London that were held to discuss Indian self rule. Gandhi gave his metal rimmed, circular lensed glasses to an army colonel with the words: “These gave me the vision to free India.”
His Zenith pocket watch was given to his grand niece, Abha Gandhi, his assistant of six years, in whose arms he died after being shot in 1948.
As Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, commonly known as Mahatma, had few possessions these items are of huge interest and are expected to well exceed the estimate of £30,000.
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Afghanistan’s most venerable relic faces its greatest challenge. Graeme Wood in The Atlantic [via 3quarksdaily]
Image credit: Louie Palu / The Atlantic
Mullah Masood Akhundzada, guardian of the Shrine of the Blessed Cloak of the Prophet Muhammad, in Kandahar, is wary of guests. When his brother was the guardian, 13 years ago, he accepted an insistent visitor. Today, a youngster with a Kalashnikov shadows Mullah Masood around the shrine, just in case the visitor, Mullah Omar, or any of his friends return.
The mosque itself is a modest cube with filthy blue-and-gilt mosaics. But in a poor city, it is an outpost of opulence and safety. When Masood and I relax in the courtyard, sipping imported packets of Iranian cherry juice, it seems as if we’re at the estate of a country lord. Its most aggressive resident is the goat that mows the lawn. Aside from the bodyguard, there’s little hint of the dangers outside: the area’s main boulevard is Khuni Serok, or “Bloody Road”; on the way to the shrine, I passed the blackened divot left by a suicide bombing.
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From a press release from the Embassy of India, Washington:
A few days before the Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Holiday in the U.S., researchers in India have rediscovered an electrifying message that Dr. King taped at the conclusion of his historic 1959 visit. The message underscored the legendary civil rights leader’s intellectual debt to Mahatma Gandhi and foreshadowed Dr. King’s deep commitment to “nonviolent resistance” in the civil rights movement yet to come.
Below, the radio address to India broadcast on All India Radio in March, 1959:
Leaders in and out of government, organizations, particularly the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi1 and the Quaker Center2, and many homes and families have done their utmost to make our short stay both pleasant and instructive. We have learned a lot. We are not rash enough to presume that we know India, vast subcontinent with all of its people, problems, contrasts and achievements; however, since we have been asked about our impressions, we venture one or two generalizations.
First we think that the spirit of Gandhi is much stronger today than some people believe. That is not only the direct and indirect influence of his comrades and associates, but also the organized efforts that are being made to preserve the Mahatma’s3 letters and other writings, the pictures, monuments, the work of the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi and the movement led by the sainted Vinoba Bhave 4. These are but a few examples of the way Gandhiji5 will be permanently enshrined in the hearts of the people of India. Moreover, many governmental officials who do not follow Gandhi literally apply his spirit to domestic and international problems.
Continue reading ’50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s India visit’
The fake...
The real
A Bangladeshi film director has built a life-size copy of the Taj Mahal, and India is hopping angry. The $58-million replica is located about 30 km (20 miles) northeast of Dhaka.
According to reports, Ahsanullah Moni came up with the idea when he first visited the real monument in Agra, India, built by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth in 1631. He imported marble and granite from Italy and began building it five years ago.
An AFP report says India’s embassy in Bangladesh says it would investigate to see if any copyright laws had been breached. “You can’t just go and copy historical monuments,” fumed a spokesman at the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.
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Long neglected by its own people, the treasured buildings Le Corbusier built for the capital of Punjab and Haryana are now decrepit, and in need of preservation. A Unesco World Heritage Site nomination, likely to come through in early 2009, is the city’s last hope. Melissa A. Bell in Mint-Lounge:
Outside India, though, the city has been a source of fascination for the international architecture community that has both vilified and adored Le Corbusier, “the father of modern architecture”. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) approached the city in 2001, with a plan to nominate the city as a possible modern World Heritage site. Design students constantly make pilgrimages to the city. And, last year, foreign furniture dealers auctioned off original Le Corbusier items from Chandigarh. A typical piece, such as a wooden coffee table, which fetched around Rs100 at a government auction, went for over Rs67.7 lakh at Christie’s in New York.
After years of dragging their feet, the city’s authorities have finally gone into an overdrive to protect their heritage, spurred on by a group of architects and design lovers in the city, and by the embarrassment of the Christie’s sale. Not only have they created committees to oversee the preservation of its historical core and organized community outreach programmes to educate citizens, but, in a major coup, the three governing bodies in Chandigarh-the Punjab, the Haryana, and the Union government-have finally agreed to submit the Unesco nomination. The preservation, maintenance and repair work done at a Unesco Heritage Site can only be carried out under the UN body’s supervision.
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There is a flood of investors in Rajasthan, looking for royal homes that can now be turned into boutique hotels. From The Indian Express:
Artisans restoring an old haveli in Rajasthan
A six hour drive from Delhi, on a picturesque winding road off the Jaipur highway lies the Shekawati belt dotted with old, forgotten havelis and crumbling forts. Right alongside, in glaring contrast are several new buildings and the occasional Pepsi hoarding. Though most of the colourful frescoes and arches on the old houses are peeling off, a closer look shows the attention to detail in the painted mythological themes on the walls. One such haveli in the main bazaar of Nawalgarh was in wretched disrepair when it was bought by Kamal Morarka, a Mumbai-based industrialist. “I grew up in Mumbai but my roots are here,” says Morarka, 60, who then hired an archeologist from Archeological Survey of India, ASI to restore it. He also runs a non-profit foundation in organic farming to help farmers in this region.
Like Morarka, there are a surprising number of outsiders, Indians and foreigners, who are investing in Rajasthan, captivated by its arid beauty and magnificent architecture. And of course, the romantic notion of living in a 200 year-old structure that’s witnessed history and once belonged to Indian nobility.
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A beautiful fleet of gondolas struggle to stay afloat on the Dal in Srinagar, bobbing to a different rhythm from the times they hosted the rich and the famous. Talal Ansari in The Indian Express:
A houseboat in Dal Lake, Srinagar
High above the banks of the Dal stands a 600-year-old chinar tree. Under its canopy lies a sinking, decaying houseboat of 1942 vintage where George Harrison of the Beatles once struck his early, tentative notes on the sitar.
Those were, however, the days of Kashmir’s glory as a Shangri-La high up in the Himalayas and a haven for foreign holiday makers. And Claremont Houseboats, a fleet of gondolas at the far edge of the Dal near Hazratbal shrine, served as a special retreat for diplomats and international celebrities.
Then came 1990 and everything changed in Kashmir. The guest book at Claremont’s front desk is a story of Kashmir’s days and nights of war and peace. Beaming in times of peace and enduring in the years of conflict, the Claremont Houseboats still manage to stay afloat.
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Moving beyond the colonial-era understanding of the history of the Subcontinent gives us a whole new way of looking at the Subcontinent’s past. This now includes not just the usual explorations of politics and economy, but also of social, cultural and religious issues – as well as the writing of history in the first place. Historian Romila Thapar in Himal Southasian:
Sixty years ago, at the time of Indian Independence, we in the region inherited a history of the Subcontinent shaped by two substantial views of the past: the colonial and the nationalist. Both were primarily concerned with chronology and with sequential narratives. The focus was on those in power, a focus that has been basic to much of the writing of history. There was information on the action of kings and dynasties, on governors-general and viceroys, and on various national leaders. On these, there was broad agreement. What was contested, although only partially, was the colonial representation of early Indian society. The colonial view was a departure from earlier Indian historical traditions, and drew on European preconceptions of Indian history. The use of history to legitimise power had changed from the rule of dynasties to colonial and nationalist definitions of power.
Three arguments were foundational to the colonial view of Indian history. The first was a ‘periodisation’ (the dividing of history into periods) that was to have not just consequences for the writing of history, but also major political impact during the 20th century. Indian history was divided into three sections – the Hindu, the subsequent Muslim civilisation, and then the British period – as formulated by James Mill in The History of British India, published in 1818. In the first two cases, these labels were taken from the religions of the ruling dynasties. The divisions were endorsed by the assumption that the units of Indian society were monolithic religious communities, primarily the Hindu and the Muslim, and were mutually hostile. Religion was believed to have superseded all other identities. This periodisation also projected an obsession with the idea that Indian society never changed throughout its history, that it was static.
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From The New York Times:
When Afshan Durrani and her husband, Nusrat, left India in 1990, they set their sights on a modern future: he would pursue a career in music at MTV in New York, where they settled in 1995, while she attended the Fashion Institute of Technology, designing dresses with a dash of punk. But Ms. Durrani, above, who grew up in Kashmir, found that India’s traditions held sway over her imagination. During a trip home for a wedding, she was astounded anew by the embroidery on the wedding regalia and aghast at the working conditions of the craftsmen who made it. So in 2002, she founded Lost City Products, a company that now employs 125 artisans making fabrics using centuries-old techniques in Lucknow, the center of the Indian crafts industry.
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http://www.lostcityproducts.com/
Roger Highfield in The Telegraph, UK:
In 2001 the Taliban destroyed two ancient colossal Buddha statues in the Afghan region of Bamiyan, around 140 miles northwest of Kabul, which were hewn out of sandstone cliffs in the sixth century and, measuring up to 55 metres, were the biggest of their kind.
Although caves decorated with precious murals from 5th to 9th century A.D. also suffered from Taliban attacks on this World Heritage Site, they have since become the focus of a major discovery, revealing Buddhist oil paintings that predate those in Renaissance Europe by hundreds of years.
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From The National, Abu Dhabi:
Faithful tides and trade winds carried Arabian sailors to India each summer and brought them home every winter. For hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, these sailors returned from their journeys bearing spices, wood and with newly charted routes for others to follow.
The town of Julfar, north of modern-day Ras Al Khaimah, was testament to this flourishing trade between the 13th and 16th centuries. Several dhows tied to one another would return each year to Julfar, one of the main trading towns in the lower part of the Arabian Gulf.
“It was like Dubai today. It dominated the area,” said Christian Velde, a resident archeologist at the National Museum of Ras Al Khaimah. “In their heyday, they traded with everyone.”
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(Updated on April 13)
From The Telegraph, UK:
The case is further complicated by the late Nizam having sired over 100 illegitimate children from 86 mistresses who may lay claim to the fortune as rightful beneficiaries. But the Nizam’s grandson, now living in Istanbul in a small apartment after having lost most of his family fortune in India and Australia, is likely to be one of the main parties in the negotiations.
The Nizam’s surviving 173-piece jewel collection, that is periodically displayed at various museums across India includes the legendary 187.75 carat Jacob diamond, the world’s fifth-largest diamond which is valued at over £100 million.
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Finally, India settles the one million pound Nizam dispute. Rahul Bedi in The Telegraph has that report.
India has opted for an out-of-court settlement with Pakistan and the heirs of the Nizam or ruler of Hyderabad State, once the world’s richest man, to resolve a piquant six-decade old dispute over a million pounds.
The money, which has lay in a London bank account since 1948, has since grown to around £30 million. Known as the ‘Hyderabad Funds Case’, the dispute centres around £1,007,940 and nine shillings that were transferred in 1948 from the Nizam of Hyderabad to Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola, the high commissioner to London of the newly-formed Pakistan.
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A gold encrusted dagger that was once owned by Shah Jahan (1628-1658), the builder of the Taj Mahal and an aesthete whose love for beauty is well known, goes under the hammer on April 10. Inscriptions on the back of the blade include the Mughal emperor’s official titles, date and place of birth, and an “honorific parasol” — an ancient pan-Asian symbol of divinity of royalty, according to Bonhams auction house.
[Pic: Reuters]
From The Times of India:
Not many would have heard of Burhanpur today, but it occupied a promi
nent place in the empire during Mughal times, since it was a strategic point from which to control the Deccan region. It was here that Shah Jahan spent a considerable number of years as governor of the Deccan region, before his ascension to the throne. And it was in Burhanpur, two years after he became the emperor – on June 17, 1631, to be precise – that his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal passed away, while giving birth to their 14th child.
A grief-stricken emperor had her laid to rest near the banks of the Tapti river and a monument was built, where her remains were kept. Simultaneously, work also started on a grand mausoleum near the kabr (grave). Shah Jahan wanted it to be a monument of unparalleled beauty, conceptualised in white marble, whose reflection in the Tapti river would increase its beauty manifold. Yes, the Taj Mahal was initially planned to be built at Burhanpur. However, destiny had other plans.
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In openDemocracy, Arthur Ituassu’s has an internal dialogue with Amartya Sen as he travels through Goa:
“Our food is Goan. It is not Indian, nor Portuguese. It is Goan. We are not Portuguese. We are Indian for sure, but we are also Goan.”
The speaker is Jeanette Afonso, a middle-aged Portuguese teacher in Panaji, the small, historic capital city of the Indian state of Goa. As well as teaching, Jeanette runs a small guest-house at her Cantinho dos Afonsos, a double-yellow house in Panaji’s beautiful Old Quarter. At the end of the street, the little white church of São Francisco de Assis bathes in the light, blessing the neighbourhood and enshrining its history – there is even a crucifix that had given authority to the trials of the Goan inquisition (1560-1774).
For a Brazilian, this is a very interesting place to be. It is so clear that both former colonies of Portugal (Brazil 1500-1882, Goa 1510-1961) are products of a shared history.
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[via 3quarksdaily]
Amelia Gentleman in International Herald Tribune on why the world’s antique dealers love the avant-garde city of Chandigarh in India:
Every working day for the past 20 years, Suresh Kanwar, a civil engineer in Chandigarh’s forestry department, has been sitting on the same battered wooden chair, an object which he said had “no beauty,” even if it was, “for office use, very comfortable.”
Hazarding a guess as to its value, he suggested 400 rupees, or $10, “perhaps, at a junkyard.” A pair of identical chairs, instantly recognizable to collectors as Pierre Jeanneret teak “V-chairs,” will go on sale at the auction house Christie’s in New York this month with a reserve of $8,000 to $12,000.(Photo: Discarded teak chairs designed by Pierre Jeanneret)
A handful of antique dealers from around the world have become regular visitors to government junkyards in Chandigarh, the experimental modernist city 250 kilometers, or 155 miles, north of New Delhi, conceived by the architect Le Corbusier in the 1950s. They buy up disused stocks of furniture that was specially created by Corbusier’s colleagues to fit out the new city.
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In Hindustan Times, Nayanjot Lahiri, author of Finding Forgotten Cities: How the Indus Civilization was discovered, profiles K.M. Panikkar, scholar, administrator, historian, ambassador, and his contribution to archaeology in India.
Archaeology is as much about the thrill of discoveries as it is about the exploits of discoverers. Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey who made our ancestors older by several million years, the geologist, Arun Sonakia, who uncovered a hominid skull cap in the Narmada valley, the archaeologist John Marshall who unearthed the splendour of Taxila – these names evoke the harvest of riches to be had in pursuing a study of the past. Such explorers and excavators certainly deserve the credit that is accorded to them. But their claim to fame is frequently anchored by people who remain unknown to most of us. One such story revolves around India’s successful recovery of her Indus past in the first five years of independence.
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Murals from the 14th to 17th centuries in temples across Tamil Nadu, India, are being painted over or ‘restored’ gaudily (right) by unqualified personnel. David Shulman, renowned Indologist, says in The Hindu that if action is not taken soon, these treasures will disappear. Dr Shulman is currently Professor, Department of Indian, Iranian and Armenian Studies, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
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Fifth-century painters created stunning murals in dim man-made caves in India. Benoy K. Behl, a gifted photographer, brings them to light in National Geographic.
Behl visited the Ajanta caves 15 years ago with the challenge of photographing the murals inside using only natural light. After studying every crevice of the caves, he photographed several hundred other sites in India, focusing on rarely documented early murals.
Click here to see his images of paintings and murals and hear him describe his long journey.
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