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"LAHORE
LAHORE HAI"
Lahore, The City of
Kemc !
They
say you can never get tired of wandering through
the streets of Lahore. They also say it's
the "Paris of Asia". Ask any Lahori today
what Lahore is, what it is all about. You
will only get a warm smile, his dark black
eyes shining with mischief and a blunt statement
with an air of unquestionable certainity "Lahore
Lahore hai"(Lahore is Lahore) .
Since
ancient times, thousands of years ago, brave
and merciless conquerors have taken control
of the Punjab, their powers waxing and waning
through the ages. But one thing remained endlessly
through the centuries: their lust for Lahore....be
it Alexander of Macedon...Akbar the Great...Jehangir..Shah
Jahan, or Maharaja Ranjit Singh..the love
for Lahore was there...is there and will be..in
all its beauty...
The Lahore of Kipling,
Salim's Lahore, Anarkali's Lahore, the Lahore
of Shah Jahan, of Dara Shikoh, of Aurangzeb...
" ...a glance tugs
at the heart's skirt, saying...this is the
place...!"
Emperor Jehangir's
exclaimation upon visiting Lahore
" Ah, if I could behold
the face of my beloved again... I would give
thanks unto my God till the day of Resurrection..
- The Bereaved Salim, Son of Akbar "
Inscription on the tomebstone at Anarkali's
tomb, by Prince Salim
What is it then, about this
magical City, this magical City of The Thirteen
Gates, the City about which countless epics,
legends and romantic lores abound....the City
where the legendary Fort was built, the City
where Akbar used to hold his Deewaan .
The lovely city Rudyard Kipling called home.
It was this City wherein the mysterious Naulakha
was erected, the City where Shah Jahan
laid out the great Shalimar Gardens, the very
City where Prince Salim romanced the beautiful
Anarkali...the latter still resting in her
tomb, the tomb from where, to this day, the
lively Anarkali Bazaar sprawls towards
the Gates....
That remains unanswered as yet, for the greatness
of Lahore is a culmination of centuries of
happenings, experiences, the integral culture,
and the people..combined with the physical
form of the City. All of which has been preserved
with great austerity since the olden times,
and is, to say the least, awe-inspiring.
As one enters Lahore from
the north along the ancient Grand Trunk Road,
the changes to the senses are all too evident,
even at a distance of more than 10 miles from
the Outer Boundary of the City. The dense
presense of the tall eucalyptus and cypress
trees lining the Grand Trunk Road is all too
noticable, and as the afternoon sun casts
the long, frail shadows over the Road, the
heart rejoices in natural anticipation of
the experience to follow(of course, a just
prelude to the greatness to come.)
- Dawn over the Badshahi Mosque
Later, the Outer Boundaries
of Lahore are encountered...and one winces
at a tall, faint Minar that rises
in the extreme distance, trying to see what
it is, whether it is one of the minars of
the Badshahi Mosque, or something else. About
half an hour later, the giant white marble,
onion-shaped domes of the red sandstone Badshahi
Mosque are visible, and as the whole of the
mosque comes into view sooner or later, one
desperately starts trying to peep through
the trees to get a better view of the marvel.
-Morning prayers at
the Badshahi Mosque
As
if the magnificience of the Mosque wasn't
enough, the corner of the eye catches sight
of the massive Lahore Fort, and the beautiful
Iqbal park between the two great architectural
marvels, in the center of which stands the
Minar-e-Pakistan , the monument of
pivotal patriotic importance to all Pakistanis....
The
site where the Minar-e-Pakistan was built
is the site where the Pakistan Resolution
of 1940 was passed in that historic session
of the Muslim League, where millions gathered
in what is now known as Iqbal Park(named after
Dr.Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the great poet and
leader of the Pakistanis, one of the greatest
supporters of The Two Nations Theory).
"May God keep the Punjab all flourishing!
May He preserve the country of the saints!
May Lahore be always full of bliss! May death
and plague be always far from it!
Prince Dara Shikoh's
poetic verse
- Minar-e-Pakistan
By now the circular main
center of the city is reached, and the hustle
and bustle of Lahore is now to be experienced.
With the Mosque, the Fort and the Park surrounding
it, this is the place from where the different
roads take you to the various parts of the
City, radiating from this awesome center like
the spokes of a wonderous wheel of integrity
and spontaneity, each road, in fact, possessing
a particular aura, each part of an ancient
legend, but those are different stories altogether....
Lahore is just so great,
so wonderful, so very fabulous, that every
nook and corner of the city speaks of a certain
vibrance, a certain zeal, a spirit of life,
which cannot be found anywhere in the world.
Perhaps it is the awesome maturity of the
city, which manifests itself (sometimes whimsically)
in the various parts of Lahore. It is present
in the monuments, in the bazaars, in the old
buildings lining the Mall, or in the vast
expanses of the sports grounds in the Cantonement.
But most vividly, this great Lahori
spirit is visible in the people
of Lahore, the Zinda dilan-e-Lahore
(The Zealous of Lahore).
Lahore is a city of culture,
of history, of an unrivaled charm that sets
it apart from every other city on Earth. It
seems that great Lahori Spirit has invaded
and saturated this city over the centuries,
to the effect that Lahore today is not just
a city, not just a place in one corner of
this planet, but a whole universe in itself;
what to say of similarities to other Mughal
cities...the average Lahori is that same old
Mughal prince of bygone ages, one only has
to get to know him. There is an old saying,
that in every Lahori, there is a Mughal prince.
This saying has been verified more than once
by the author.
The description of the pure
Lahori spirit conveniently evades the mind,
adding to the mysteries of this city. At best,
it can be said that this Spirit pervades the
citadel and the slum alike. The city has known
ages of cultural, intellectual, musical, literary
and humanistic evolution, which has consequently
led to the fermentation and over fermentation
of this rich brew we call Lahore. Few cities
of the world, if indeed any, can lay claim
to such a wonderful past or present.
All this makes Lahore a truly
rewarding experience. The buildings, the roads,
the trees and the gardens, in fact the very
air of Lahore in enough to set the mind spinning
in admiration. Many a poet has written about
this phenomenon one experiences in the environs
of Lahore. When the wind whistles through
the tall trees, when the twilight floods the
beautiful face of the Fort, when the silent
canal lights up to herald the end of another
chapter in history, the Ravi is absorbed in
harmony, mist fills the ancient streets and
the havelis come alive with strains
of classical music, the spirit of Lahore pervades
even the hardiest of souls.
It is said that maturity
of age brings about a certain beauty in an
object. It may well be true in the case of
a city. It seems as though that ancient spirit
lingering on through the ages is behind all
the wonderful beauty of Lahore. One would
strongly oppose such traditionalistic, abstract
ideas, ideas that can be conviniently labeled
as the classic subcontinental stereotype,
if one hadn't been to a "newer" city in the
West.
The Lahori spirit cannot
be defined, as definition is confinement,
and confinement is unknown to the spirit.
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