The Lahore that was

by Dr Muzaffar Iqbal

“He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Ghar–the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who holds Zam-Zammah, that ‘fire-breathing dragon,’ holds the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror’s loot.”

–Rudyard Kipling, Kim

All I wanted to do was go to the northern-most building of the Old Campus of the Punjab University, the so-called largest and the oldest seat of higher learning in Pakistan, established in 1882 by none other than our good old colonial masters–gentlemen from the British East India Company, who came as beggars of trade concessions and left as despotic rulers of a vast and uncontrollable subcontinent–in front of the Zamzama gun made famous by Rudyard Kipling. I just wanted to go to that building, which used to be my first home (certainly not second) during 1971-76, and sit in the quietness of its lawn on a certain bench and gaze at the old Bodhi tree in front of what used to be the Institute of Chemistry in those days, because that tree had a magic spell on me the very first time I saw it in the heat of the summer of 1971.

Even the thought of just being able to sit on that bench in the lawn, where I used to spend hours with friends discussing all things under the sun, was soothing. But, when I finally finished my errands in the area, I found myself at the back of the University and that added the additional attraction of being able to walk by the old library building–the General Library of the Old Campus–whose numerous shelves are still etched in my memory with all the books they used to hold in the semi-darkness of the large hall and its surrounding rooms. Looking at the red building with a certain sense of nostalgia, I was about to enter the brick-laden path from the metal gate when I had to confront, one more time, the rude awakening call of visiting Pakistan in 2010: the guards at the entrance wanted to know why I was going in the public building that used to be my first home and which was now filled with hundreds of students of a new generation whom I could see from the gate but who were unaware of the little discussion now in rapid progress at the entrance.

When he finally comprehended the purpose of my visit, the guard at the gate had to call his supervisor, who asked me the same questions, and who then went back to seek permission from some higher authority, someone who happened to be in a meeting at the time, but the supervisor let me go through the narrow opening of the gate, without further investigation. Once on the brick-laden wide path at the back of the library, I quickly walked toward the old café, our one-time haunt, now populated by another generation. The familiar trees, the left-over remains of the old memories, the old majestic buildings with their colonial trappings, the high ceilings of the hallways, a new masjid under construction on the site of the old registrar’s office, the small single-storey which used to be the university bookstore now being used for some other purpose, the still recognisable bus stop with the blue university buses ready to go to the New Campus, and beyond the metal gates, the Ajaib Ghar, the House of Wonders as Kipling would have us natives call it.

When I finally reached the desired building, now taken over by the College of Pharmacy, and entered the lawn where I wanted to sit quietly, two gentlemen arrived from nowhere and asked why I was sitting there. I was not ready for them as I was still recovering from the shock of the disappearance of my favorite Bodhi tree, which had been ruthlessly cut down from its rightful place where it had stood for over a century. When they were satisfied that I was not going to blow myself or anyone else, one of them attached himself to me “to show me the building,” whose every brick I knew. It took considerable effort to finally get rid of my self-appointed tour guide and only then I was able to take in all the changes in one big sweep: the natural wood staircase banister, which used to have a soothing affect in the semi-darkness of the hallway leading to the library, was now painted over in cheap yellow shade, the hallways were randomly filled with Iqbal’s portraits, the old chemistry laboratory still had the same Bunsen burners and the same glass acid bottles which used to be there some thirty years ago. This laboratory, where I did research for my Master’s thesis, and which used to have a metal plate on the door indicating that it was the laboratory of a British chemist, whose name I now forget, who later won the Noble Prize, was now the office of a professor.

I went out to the back of the building from the hallway close to my old laboratory to the small open area adjacent to another historic institution of the city: the Government College. I looked back on the high windows of what used to be my laboratory and saw two pigeons perched on the window-sill, just as they had remained sitting there in my memory all these thirty years.