In
the walled city of Lahore, Sheranwala is one of the twelve gates. It is also
known as ‘Khiziri gate’, and in olden times the River Ravi followed by the city
walls and the ferry was near this part. The gate was, therefore, named as
Khiziri after the name of Khizzr Elias, the patron saint according to the
Mohammedan belief, of running waters and streams, and the discoverer of the
water of immortality.
Ranjit
Singh kept here two domesticated lions in a cage, and the gate came to be
called as ‘Sheranwala gate’ or ‘Lion’s gate’. It is an old crowded area with
all the needful facilities including markets and schools. There are two major
schools, Government Islamia High School Sheranwala Gate for boys, which is the
oldest school and the best training centre for the youth of the vicinity. Then
there is the Government School for the Deaf and Dumb Khizri Mohala, which is a
mannequin school and also and a banquet hall. There is a Madrassa (an
institution for religious studies) established by Moulana Ahmed Ali Lahori, and
the Anjuman Khudamu-ud-Din (a great name in the Islamic religious revolution in
the sub-continent). There are also many higher secondary private schools in the
area to educate the coming generation of this historical soil.
This
is the same hinterland where people used to live in joint families sharing
their happiness and sorrows. The whole mohala was like a family, and everyone
was close to each other and respected each other. However everything has
changed now, there is no mohala, people have migrated to other places. Now, you
go there and you’ll find a big market of Press Calendars (a heavy machine to
iron unstitched cloth). I am not saying that people don’t live there; they do,
but the way they are living is worse than anything. Poverty is a big ugly
vampire sucking the blood of dwellers.
The
rich are getting richer and poor poorer. People don’t want to talk about
culture, the poor man wants shelter and the rich man wants to invest his money,
buy land and make sky high plazas with two or three basements (where parking is
virtually impossible) and consequently destroy heritage. They don’t care about the
heritage and architecture; they want money to eat food or on the other hand to
make a huge plaza, which is an open invitation to the investors, to come there,
earn money and destroy the heritage. The biggest example of their negligence is
when a rich resident planned to build a plaza on the ‘Bangla Ayub Shah’ site
where a monument was found when workers were digging to make a basement for the
intended building. The owner had to pay a fine for violating building laws,
which require permission before digging a basement inside the Walled City. The Archaeology Department has disallowed
digging or construction in the area without permission and owners of
residential plots need the department’s permission to commercialize their land.
Concerned
residents protested against building plazas in the Walled City, ‘at the cost of
the national heritage’ and said that most commercial site owners did not get a
No Objection Certificate from the Archaeology Department.
The
discovery triggered a debate over the monument’s importance. An Archaeology
Department report said that the mehrabs, paka kali plaster and paintings
hanging ten feet above the floor suggested the building was from the Mogul or
Sikh era. Now, you decide whose fault it is that we have lost another architectural
heritage just because of our greed and negligence.
The Ravi Town
Municipal Administration (TMA) has earmarked 506 buildings and 1056 basements
as dangerous premises, and the lives of the people residing or working in these
buildings are perpetually in danger. 485 out of the marked 506 buildings and
all the dangerous basements are located in the Walled City, which could cause a
tragic mishap during the coming rainy season.
I
have no words to explain my grief regarding the current situation of my
historical neighborhood; this place seems like a haunted citadel, preoccupied
by human phantoms. It is my humble request to all of you to preserve this
heritage as well as the humanity that remains in our souls!
