In 1958 my grandfather, who was called Aladdin, wanted to move his house, so as to accommodate the needs of his growing family. The choice was to move to Mela Ram Road or, to the up-and-coming suburban developments, such as Saman Abad or Gulberg. My uncle Salah-ud-Din was adamantly opposed to the Mela Ram Road option. Unfortunately, he was overruled. He refused to move from the house in Anarkali and went on a hunger strike. It took a week for his uncles to persuade him.
The Anarkali house had seen the birth of the two younger children. My mother - who was the eldest - and three uncles were born in the old city, in Kucha Chehl Bibian (The Street of Forty Ladies). It was in Anarkali that the Bibi ji arrived from Ludhiana, having lost her husband during the 1947 massacres. She was hired to look after my grandmother and the young children. She stayed with her adopted family till her dying day. One day, she found an abandoned child in the street (after her father died) and brought her home. That is how Parveen Akhtar or Peeno also came to live in the house.
Old Lahoris would call a child who would not stop crying 'Mela Ram da Ghuggu' (The Siren of Mela Ram)
Aladdin himself had been orphaned at a young age. Through diligent hard work and a reputation for honesty, he built himself a leather goods business in Anarkali, which is still running to this day, although under a different management. The new house was located outside the walled city, on the Mela Ram Road.
The road was named after Rai Bahadur Mela Ram, one of the foremost Lahori businessmen and philanthropists of the nineteenth century. He established a textile mill near the Data Darbar. The textile mill was run on modern lines, with a siren sounding at the start and end of shifts. Old Lahoris would call a child who would not stop crying, ‘Mela Ram da Ghuggu’, (The Siren of Mela Ram). For the entertainment of his workers, he built an aviary, on the Mall, and called it ‘Chiriya Ghar’, the current Lahore Zoo.
Opposite my grandfather’s house was the Lal Kothi, a palatial building with extensive lawns, adjacent to the Mela Ram Textile Mill. It was on these lawns that my uncle Sami was playing cricket when he was asked to come home, one afternoon in the spring of 1961. His father had dropped dead in the Mayo Hospital, where he was visiting a relative. The family had to learn to adjust to this catastrophe. It was not easy. Uncle Salah-ud-Din was now the head of the family. He had to provide for and educate his younger brothers and a sister. He went on to become a business leader in his own right. At the age of 24, he was the president of the Pakistan Leather Goods Manufacturers Association.
The Mela Ram building on Mall Road Lahore, built by industrialist and socialite Rai Mela Ram, was pulled down in the early 1960s - Photo credits - www.lahore.city-history.com
My first memory of my Nani’s house is one of looking down from the first floor at my uncle Iftikhar, combing his luxuriant hair, in front of the mirror in the inner courtyard. He had a talent for music and calligraphy. He, and the son of Ehsan Danish, who was a neighbour in Anarkali, used to play duets on the flute. I had lovely specimens of his calligraphy and his postage stamps collection, when I was at school. He was also given to bouts of black depression. He travelled to Multan, to visit Uncle Hameed, a friend of his father, in 1966. One morning, he left the house and never came back.
When I was enrolled into the Junior Model School, Lower Mall, Peeno would bring me a glass of milk during the break. The glass was covered with a piece of cloth and she had to walk slowly so as not to spill it. She was always late and I had to come out of the class of Mrs Qasim Ali, to drink it. I felt so embarrassed, that I begged my mother to stop her.
A nearby house belonged to Dr. Shafiq, who was an Ahmadi dentist. He had his clinic across the street. He also had a large family. I still remember their names - Api, Micky, Bheni, Baba, Kuku, Laji and Bachi. The younger boys were the same age group as my uncle Sami and were flying kites with him all day. This was in spite of the fact, that my grandfather actively supported the Jamaat-e-Islami and was friends with the founder. He never stopped his children from mixing with the neighbours. Over a period of time, Dr. Shafiq’s family left, and now none of them are in Pakistan.
Two houses away on one side lived Dr. Sardar Ali Sheikh who was later Professor of Surgery and the Principal of the King Edward Medical College. Two houses to the other side lived Dr. Altaf, whose son Saleem Altaf went on to play cricket for Pakistan; and the other son Naeem Bukhari became the famous lawyer and media personality.
If we were good, we would to be taken to the English Bakery, in the Bhati Chowk, by one of the uncles, to eat pastries or cream rolls. The fish would come from Dar-ul-Mahi. There was a cinema, in the Bhati chowk. This was, of course, anathema to any self respecting Jamaat family.
You could enter the house from the front door, which led into the guest room, or the ‘Goal Kamra’. This translates as the ‘Round Room’. I still have not figured out the reason for this name. This is where Grandpa Aladdin would spend his time, playing with his children and welcoming friends, including Maulana Maududi, who was a frequent visitor.
The usual access was in the back street. Straight on was the inner courtyard, the central space around which the house was built, in the traditional Lahori style. You climbed the spiral stairs, to the first floor. Halfway up was a mezzanine room, on top of the garage where the family car, an Opel Rekord was kept. The driver was called Taj Din. He had also driven his first car, which was a Morris and needed the crank handle to start. The mezzanine room was occupied by Uncle Rafi. He later became a major in the army and served in East Pakistan in 1971.
On the first floor, as you came up the stairs, there was the bathroom and the kitchen on the right side, followed by my Nani’s room. It branched out into another small room, which housed Uncle Razi and Zaki. On the left side of the stairs was a scullery for storing coal, further on, an open terrace, flooded with lovely sunlight during the winter months. Next to the terrace, facing the the main road, was a living room with a balcony overlooking the road. This is where the supposedly talking parrot was kept and we spent long hours trying to teach it to talk.
In front of the stairs was a railing, running on all four sides, overlooking the courtyard. On the second floor were the toilets with clay receptacles, removed by Labha the sweeper once a day. There was also a rain shelter (barsati), converted into a room by Uncle Sami.
Eventually, Uncle Salah ud Din built a house in the Shadman Colony and the family moved there in 1967. I remember one of my uncles spelling it out to the neighbours that it was Shadman and not Shadbagh. Nobody had ever heard of Shadman.
We still used to get a man on the bicycle who brought bread and cream rolls from the English Bakery. He kept coming for a few years.
I went back to visit the house after fifty years. Every trace of the Lal Kothi has disappeared. The house is owned by a doctor who has a clinic there. The back entrance is still there. The courtyard has now been roofed over and serves as the waiting area for the patients. Nobody remembers the old occupants, or the neighbours. Across the alleyway is a printing press, which prints Islamic books. They are renting the upper floor of the house. The metro bus passes, as if, through the living room. You can almost reach out and touch it. The side street has a barrier to stop the motorised vehicles. The motor bikers have wrenched it out to make enough space for them to squeeze through.
The English bakery is not there anymore. If you want to cross the road to go inside the walled city, you do it at your peril. The maniacal traffic will get you. The era of Aladdin and Mela Ram is long past. It has yielded to the era of the Metro Bus and the Orange Train.
Athar Ahmed Saeed is a physician and lives in Durham, United Kingdom. Send him an e-mail at hakimhazik@gmail.com
