Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange

BY: HAROON KHALID

This is the story of two of my friends. Let us call them Salman and Ayesha. When the story starts, it finally seems as though Salman’s and Ayesha’s relationship is heading somewhere. They had been together for two years, but their future was uncertain. At 23, Ayesha’s family was eager to get her married, having completed her graduation, whereas Salman, also 23, was planning to leave for his Masters degree soon, with marriage not fitting into his plan. However now that it had dawned upon Salman that he would be moving away for two years, he realised how much he would miss Ayesha. He was finally getting serious about her, and was thinking about talking to her mother about their relationship.

Both the families knew each other well. They were neighbours in the highly secluded army housing in Islamabad. Salman’s father was a general when he was murdered by the Taliban. Ayesha’s father was a serving General. Ayesha’s mother was looking for suitable suitors in other army families. Ayesha had also decided that it was time that her mother was told about her relationship, so that she could help convince her father. Ayesha was making plans with Salman over the phone when her mother walked in and overheard the conversation. All hell broke loose. She told her husband. They both decided that Ayesha has to be married off as soon as possible. A son of a fellow general living in Australia and working in an accountancy firm seemed like a perfect fit. Ayesha had not even seen his picture. When she refused her mother threatened to commit suicide. Her father told her that he would kill her if she ever talked to or met Salman again. They took away her phone and barred her from leaving the house. She was ordered to quit her job in a couple of months: a job that she had recently taken up and loved. The next day Ayesha was taken to the house of the Australian boy and engaged to him in his absence. She would be marrying him in December and moving to Australia, the first time she would ever be leaving the country and living away from home. She still hasn’t seen his picture. The love story of Salman and Ayesha comes to an end.

The most amazing part of this true story is not the forced marriage. When you grow up in Pakistan such practices are somewhat of a norm. What is intriguing however is that why Ayesha couldn’t be married to Salman. He is also from an army background, lives in the same vicinity and his family enjoys the same social, economic and political status in the society that Ayesha’s does. I found the answer in a Pakistani movie called Mirza-Sahiban (1947) based on the Punjabi folk love legend of Mirza and Sahiban. The movie depicts both the lovers to be first cousins, Mirza being the nephew of Sahiban’s father. Growing up together they fall in love and want to marry. However the union is opposed by Sahiban’s brother and mother, even though the father is sympathetic. They want Sahiban to marry another cousin, who happens to be the nephew of Sahiban’s mother. The objection that they have is not with Mirza but at their audacity to fall in love with each other outside wedlock. Being from Muslim families these cousins would have been eligible to marry each other, but that could not have happened once the society found out about their love story. That of course makes the relationship illegitimate. This is where the question of honour comes in. Had Sahiban’s brother not found out about his sister’s love affair with Mirza, would he have still objected to their marriage? Love, it would seem, is forbidden when disclosed.

Applying this to the situation of my friends, Salman and Ayesha, I also wonder what the reaction of Ayesha’s parents would have been, had her mother never found out about the relationship between the two. Would the family had still reacted and refused to allow them to marry? I have my reasons to doubt. Ayesha’s mother would have reacted differently had Ayesha told her about Salman, instead of her mother finding out. She even would have agreed to marry them off and promised to help with convincing the father. It would have been an acceptable love had it remained a secret.

It is amazing how a love legend that was composed generations go still has resonance with the realities of the lovers in the Pakistan of today. The issues brought up in these stories still plague our society. Ill-defined concepts of honour and dignity are played out on the woman’s body, where a simple act of falling in love is seen as an act of trespass against the patriarch. Despite tall claims of “enlightenment” and “modernity”, we still uphold the same “traditional” “moral” standards that were used to oppress individuality centuries ago and are still used to do the same.

Images Courtesy: Hri Institute and NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati

BY: HAROON KHALID

Every Sunday, Ahmed Saleem travels to Rawalpindi Sadr, from his house in Islamabad to buy books being sold on the footpath. All the vendors know him by now. Some bring special books for him knowing that he will appreciate them and pay the sellers a good amount. “They don’t keep them for sale. First they show it to me. If I reject [the book], only then do they put it out in the open,” he says. Over the past forty years, Saleem has been following this routine, buying and collecting books for his archive. His focus has been the social sciences, history, archaeology and literature. He now has about ten thousand books in his collection.

Saleem has dedicated the upper portion of his house to his archive. There are several racks here, teeming with books, newspapers, documents and pictures. He lives in a tiny room next to the hall. This is his bedroom, his study, his office, and more. From here he has written over one hundred books, making him one of the most well-known historians of the country. Almost 70 now, he still writes and collects prolifically. “Around 1974 I decided to write a book on the political history of Pakistan. I made a list of all the books that I would need for my research, but sadly there was no library or archive in the country at that time where I could find these books. Some I found from people’s collections, some from libraries, and some from other places. It was a struggle getting them all together. I decided then to make an archive, where researchers and students could come and research easily,” he says. Now his collection is one of the best known private collections of books, newspapers and documents in Pakistan, popular with students and researchers.

Saleem has particularly focused on books that were written and published from pre-Partition India. These books, unlike other books written during the colonial era and published by world renowned publishers, are not available in the libraries of Europe or North America. These were considered too insignificant to be archived at that time. But now, as they have become rare, Saleem’s archive is one of the only places in the world where these books are available. Most of these publishers have ceased to be. The oldest book that he has in his collection is called “Trade with India”. Published in 1711, the text documents Dutch trade with the Indian peninsula. He also has a collection of books written on freedom fighters like G.M. Syed and Abdul Ghaffar Khan, before the creation of Pakistan. He has books, written in regional languages from the pre-Partition era. The collection also includes a compilation of all the sermons delivered by bishops in Lahore.

Photo credit Amarjit Chandan (2009)

“Back in the 70s, cheap books, which are now referred to as chapbooks, were sold on public buses along with eatables. Waris Shah’s Heer was the most popular book at the time, and sold in various regional languages,” Saleem says. These books are no longer sold, as the book-reading trend has nosedived in Pakistan. Once available everywhere, these books have now become a rare commodity. Saleem has been collecting them since then, preserving an entire era and a genre of literature that is now extinct. He has also been collecting newspapers and magazines since 1947; the collection includes some that are even older. “I have a magazine published in 1901 from London, called the Americanization of the World. That magazine predicts how American culture would dominate the world in the next century. How accurate has that prediction been,” he says.

Along with books and magazines, Saleem has been collecting historical documents. He travelled to Peshawar to collect the documents of the Meerut and Peshawar Conspiracy Case of 1922-27, which indicts communist freedom fighters, including Amir Haider, the cousin of the future President of Pakistan, Ayub Khan.

Saleem realizes that his collection is likely to go to waste if not properly managed. Therefore in 2001, connecting a few like-minded people, he established a trust called the South Asian Research and Resource Centre. The trust is currently in the process of cataloguing the collection. About 20% is complete. “I am now relieved that my life’s work will not go to waste after me,” he says.

BY: Haroon Khalid
(Images courtesy Folk Punjab)

In an empty hall, Iqbal Qaiser stops in front of a picture. This is a partially ruined structure, with half of the building destroyed. It now looks like a broken shell from an egg. “This was the smadh of Pero Preman (a Punjabi poetess from the 19^th century). This is the last picture of this building. It has been destroyed now,” says Qaiser. There are several other pictures on the walls of this spacious hall; of temples, Gurdwaras and other historical buildings in ruins. Some of them have already been destroyed; the others are likely to disappear soon. The 55 year old Qaiser is an historian, poet and anthropologist, who has traveled extensively around Punjab, documenting hundreds of non-Muslim shrines lying in ruins. He has been doing this for the past 30 years. His best known work is his book, Historical Sikh Shrines of Pakistan, which documents and narrates the history of 185 historical Sikh Gurdwaras in the country. Qaiser has a vast collection of photographs of such buildings, which have now been razed or have incurred damage beyond repair.

The space at Punjabi Khojghar

Qaiser has put up a few of these photographs at his Research Centre, called the Punjabi Khojgarh. Standing in the middle of a deserted area, the Centre is located between the cities of Kasur and Lahore. A door from the hall leads into a small room, which is the library. There are over 5000 books here, in Punjabi, Urdu, English, Persian and Arabic. “A few years ago someone sent me a photocopy of handwritten poetry of Piro Preman. I am the only person in Pakistan who has her handwritten text,” he says. There are several rare books in his collection. One of them is Umad-tul-Tawarekh, the diary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s court, written in Persian, the language it was originally composed in. “Its English version is quite popular, but it is hard to get this one,” he says. One of the oldest books in his collection is History of Boote Shah. Published in 1880 the book is a useful resource for historical maps and geographical description about Lahore. There is a handwritten Quran in his collection too, which is about 200 years old.

 “The idea behind the research centre is to promote the culture and history of Punjab,” he says. “In Pakistan there is a conscious attempt to downplay the Punjabi language and culture and promote Urdu and now English on its behalf. However, it is imperative for the development of a society that it originates from its roots,” he says. A staunch Punjabi nationalist he, along with one other companion, has been protesting outside of the Punjab Assembly for many years on the 21^st of February, Mother Tongue day, for the promotion of the language in schools and colleges.

 “Khojgarh is open for anyone who wants to dig into the rich and diverse history of Punjab,” he says. There are several students from different universities across the country, including Punjab University, Lahore University of Management Sciences and Quaid-e-Azam University who have used the archive here for research, free of cost. To these researchers Qaiser is also willing to provide his own expertise. Besides students, his research center is visited by local and foreign professors who are working on the history of Punjab. He is currently helping out a Pakistani Sikh man from Nankana Sahib, Kalyan Singh, who is doing his PhD from the Punjab University, on the poetry of Baba Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion.

 Qaiser regularly holds literary meetings and conferences at the research centre. Besides inviting intellectuals from Lahore and other cities of the country, he also invites scholars from across the border, India. He organizes an annual event here, attended by hundreds of people, honoring the historical Punjabi poets and intellectuals. The first such event was organized in 2008, in the honor of Baba Fareed Shakarganj, considered to be the first Punjabi poet. The following year the event was dedicated to Baba Guru Nanak. Qaiser makes a conscious event to invite locals from surrounding villages and cities who generally do not have access to many avenues of education. The idea behind the concept is to educate the people of the area about their own history. About a month ago, he organized a book launch, which was attended by farmers and workers of the surrounding area. The book, which is a history of the Lalyani district (the research centre is situated here), was published by Punjabhi Khojgarh. Giving references of particular places, Qaiser, who is also the author of this Punjabi book, educated the people about the history of certain villages, monuments and places. The research centre has published a couple of other Punjabi poetry books as well, all authored by Qaiser. Along with a few other friends, he regularly organizes poetry recitals here, inviting folks to come and listen.

One of the greatest tragedies of Partition, according to Qaiser, is the compartmentalization of communities and histories. As a result of the Hindu and Sikh exodus, the non-Muslim past associated with them has been neglected over all these years. Qaiser has a particular interest in preserving these monuments and stories which he says are “as much part of our history as anyone else’s.” According to Qaiser, however, due to a lack of interest and awareness the non-Muslim history of the country is slowly being obliterated. “But then where the government is putting in an effort even that is in a miserable condition,” he adds. He gives the example of the Land Revenue Records of all the villages of Lahore, collected by the British in the late 19^th century. This vast survey contained the history of the villages, the communities there, the population, temples, and mosques, among other data. “The complete records of Lahore were burned during the sectarian strife of the 90s, when the government building where they were kept was burned down. All that precious information is now lost forever,” he says. “Similarly the records at the Punjab Secretariat, Diyal Singh Memorial and other government institutions are all in a bad state. The problem is that there is no appreciation of such things,” he adds.

Text and Images: Sarita Manu

“The leasehold village of Vikhroli Turuf Marole in the Salsette Taluka … within the Bombay Suburban District” — these lines caught my attention immediately. I struggled to remember the last time any suburb of Mumbai (then, Bombay) had been referred to as a village. This was at the exhibition aptly titled, ‘Pirojshangar: Then and Now’, tracing the transformational journey of the village Vikhroli to the Godrej township that it is today.

At the exhibition, a public auction notice released in the year 1940 announced the auction of this leasehold village. The notice was displayed alongside photographs showing a young Pirojshah Godrej inspecting the land.  The land was transferred to Godrej in the late 1940s, and on 4 July 1951, Pirojshah announced the beginning of operations at the first factory building at Vikhroli, comprising a roofed area of 2,33,000 sq ft.

Interestingly, the first production of this plant  was making ‘Ballot Boxes’ for the young and newly independent India’s first general elections between end of 1951 and early 1952. The factory was churning out more than 15,000 ballot boxes in one day. A newspaper article put on show, quoted a Godrej spokesperson mention that if all the boxes (nine inches long) were put on top of each other, they would reach the height of several Mount Everests piled one on top of the other. If placed side by side, they would form a line 200 miles long. It was not hard to imagine that this would have truly been the case, given the number of ballot boxes India would have needed for a countrywide election. An old advertisement of Godrej was also displayed here, proudly featuring the ballot boxes produced at Vikhroli.

As the factory grew, the number of workers at Vikhroli also grew quickly. Always concerned about the welfare of his workers, Pirojshah built worker’s quarters, known as Baithi Chawls, in the complex. Pragati Kendra housed the exhibit today, but its historical role has been more extensive: it is a welfare centre especially for women and children, and Udayachal, a school for the worker’s children, were built soon thereafter. Mrs. Alooben Mowdawalla, the first Welfare Officer at Godrej Pragati Kendra, was instrumental in setting up the Pragati Kendra. Extracts of interviews with her and residents of the Baithi Chawls were present in the form of audio recordings at the exhibition.

The documents, photographs, structural drawings, press clippings, old advertisements and audio-visual material were only a part of the rich collection of the Godrej Archives, but they provided a great insight in to the story of Godrej, the development of the township and its green cover, and the lives of workers lives within the complex. In doing so, they showcased some of the ways in which India’s social changes have been closely tied to Indian industry.

Text and Images by: Haroon Khalid

Sitting behind a desk, Arif Jafri plays with his flute as he talks about his music archive. Jafri is a classically trained musician who has been playing the flute for the past forty years. Now he is heading the program for National Intangible Heritage Archives in collaboration with UNESCO, a project which aims to digitize all music composed from Pakistan to date. There is no doubt that music is Jafri’s first love. There is no other person better suited for this project. His recently published book, Who’s Who in Pakistan’s World of Music, is placed next to the flute. This is an encyclopedia of all musicians, singers and music collectors from the country, and includes their current contact information. His office walls present a history of music in the Indian peninsula, introducing one to the concept of gharanas (families), the different gharanas and their family trees. This is a record spanning over seven centuries in some cases, summed up in a few pages. There are pictures of famous people from particular gharans next to the family trees. In the middle of two gharans, Jafri has pinned up black, round records, which were used to play music before the advent of cassettes. A rack near the entrance has a collection of cassettes. Another one next to his seat has newspapers cuttings about famous musicians and singers. It is, in short, an office dedicated to music, and housed within the building of the Pakistan National Council of Arts, a government institute, built in the 1970s to promote arts in the country.

Part of Arif Jafri’s collection of texts on music	Records from Jafri’s collection	The wall of history: gharanas over time

“We have about 4000 hours of music,” he tells me, as he takes out a thick book from under his desk and places it on the table. “This catalogue contains information about everything we have,” he says. It is a photocopied book, which begins with a description of what musical gharanas are. A page has been dedicated to each collection, and includes the name of the artist, gharana, record duration, songs, and production details, and also the form in which the original collection is available. Their collection, which is available in records, cassettes, and now CDs, is currently being transferred into CDs with golden-plated surfaces. This master copy is guaranteed to live for more than 100 years. Jafri points at three pages pinned up behind his chair. Guidelines to Cataloguing it reads. “These are international standards that we follow,” he says. “Any music, song ever produced in Pakistan is with us,” he says.

This is a project currently sponsored by UNESCO. The total duration of the grant is three years. 

Text and images: Chintan Girish Modi

The welcome sign

On a recent trip to Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, I came across a gem of a place called the Desert Cultural Centre, run by Nand Kishore Sharma. I also had the opportunity to meet him, the author-teacher-historian who set up this amazingly well-resourced centre near Gadisar Lake in 1997, years after he founded the Jaisalmer Folklore Museum in 1984. At 77, Sharma is pursuing quite passionately the love of his life – documenting and celebrating the history of Jaisalmer. Although I landed at his doorstep unannounced, he was happy to spend time answering my queries.

What can one find at the Desert Cultural Centre? Old photographs, maps, manuscripts, paintings, musical instruments, puppets, local costumes, coins, camel ornaments — and much more. A catalogue of these materials is available for purchase. The entire collection has been put together largely through Sharma’s own efforts. He has written several books on Jaisalmer, many of which have been translated into other languages with the help of scholars and researchers who have visited him.

The entrance to the Desert Cultural Centre

Apart from serving the interests of tourists and academics, Sharma feels that it is very important to generate curiosity and interest among the local population of Jaisalmer, especially youngsters who are not too aware of their heritage. He regularly organizes puppet shows and cultural festivals, writes columns for newspapers and radio plays, and offers translation assistance in order to share his expertise and to bring in revenue to cover administrative costs.

Along with the satisfaction and pride I hear in his voice when he talks about his work, I also encounter disappointment. He says, “There are many who can come and donate money but it is very difficult to find committed people to come and work here. A lot of interest and dedication is needed to do this kind of work. What if I get some person who sells off the original things and replaces them with duplicates?” He is afraid that much of what he has to share will not last beyond him. “I have trained my son. He will able to show the museum to visitors. But the inscriptions I can read, what I can explain, my understanding of history and culture – where will that come from?”

District map of Jaisalmer that is part of the collection

Sharma’s passion for his work is inspiring. It is perhaps best described in a piece titled ‘Behind the Scenes’, written by Ratna Rao Shekar in the Nov.–Dec. 2003 issue of House Calls. I came across this in a compilation I picked up at the centre – A Single Man’s Imagination: Folklore Museum and Desert Cultural Centre Jaisalmer – History and Introduction.

Shekar writes, “Meeting Sharma is a moving experience, for we learn that this simple schoolmaster has walked and bicycled around villages in the district of Jaisalmer, assimilating its history and collecting artifacts that he has paid for with his meagre schoolmaster’s salary. He has written 40 books in Hindi and English, as he believes his knowledge of English is inadequate to say all that he wants to about Jaisalmer.”

Shekar adds, “Meeting him and witnessing his zeal I am convinced that it is the small Indian who will teach us how to be big. It is not corporations and institutions hankering for their share of publicity when they fund the restoration of a monument that will keep the architectural heritage of this country alive. Anonymous Indians like Sharma will. And there are many like him working in the remote corners of this country, even if we’ve never heard of them.”

We at the Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange celebrate the initiative and ingenuity of people like Sharma all over the world, and our Archives project hopes to bring many such stories to the fore.

Nand Kishore Sharma

Contact information

The entrance to the Alpaiwalla Museum

Text and Image: Sarita Manu

Housed in a quiet corner of the Kharegat Parsi Colony, the Alpaiwalla Museum of Mumbai opens its doors willingly to all curious visitors. And there can be no better guide than Ms. Nivedita Mehta, the curator, who took me through each exhibit in detail and entertained all my queries, patiently.

The museum is named after Mr. Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla, a Parsi, who collected several items in the early 20^th century. Ms. Mehta recollects that typically collectors would spend around 10 to 15% of their income on collecting, but Mr. Alpaiwalla who worked in a bank, put everything into building his collection. His passion for collecting overtook all other interests, and it is said that he eventually lived in his kitchen after he ran out of space in his 11-room home, where he housed the collection. Alpaiwalla first set up the museum at his home and following his death, his entire collection was handed over to the Bombay Parsi Punchayat (BPP). The BPP started a Parsi Punchayat Museum in 1954 at the Kharegat Memorial Building; this was reorganised and renamed Mr. Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum in 1981. The museum was established under the guidance of Alpaiwalla’s friend, Dr. Jamshed Unwalla, a well known religious and Avestan scholar. An archaeologist who trained at the Louvre School of Archaeology, Dr. Unwalla also worked for ten years at the historical city of Susa, in Iran. His archaeological collection from Iran is also housed at the Alpaiwalla museum.

While the museum today highlights the rich history and heritage of the Parsi community, Alpaiwalla collected not only Parsi items, but many others. He was most interested in items that reflected the new and changing ways of the world, and bought frequently from art and antiquity dealers. Among other items, he collected stamps, coins, solar water bottles and perfume bottles from across the world, Indian art pieces, Egyptian antiquities and books. When his collection was bought to the museum, one of the nicest things found was a picture of Dhobi Talao, Mumbai before it was filled up. A huge collection of picture postcards of old Mumbai, India and the world beyond is present in the museum. The collection also includes the calling card of Dadabhai Naoroji, when he was elected to the British House of Commons between 1892 and 1895. Within the collection lies a manuscript of ‘Ijashne’, one of the most important Parsi ceremonies. The manuscript is in Gujarathi, and dated 1850 C.E. The museum also includes the Vendidad Avesta, a sacred book of Zoroastrianism dated 1816 C.E. One treasure is an original firman of Emperor Jahangir issued in 1618 C.E. granting a jagir (a type of land grant) of 100 bighas (4 bighas = 1 acre) to Chandji Kandin and his nephew Hoshang Ranji; Dadabhai Naoroji was their descendent.

Ms. Nivedita Mehta, the curator of the museum, has been collecting material on the Parsi history herself. This includes several photographs of Parsi families, portrait and family paintings of Parsi families, traditional Parsi clothing and photocopies of portrait images of important Parsis that are exhibited here. Although the museum draws only a handful of visitors, it is an effort that will go a long way in sharing the history of the small but influential Parsi community.

By: Haroon Khalid

Lahore, the city of gardens, has lost most of its gardens. The few that have remained have been abandoned out of fear of dengue fever, a disease that haunts Lahore after the monsoon rains. It’s a congested city now, with millions of cars. It is the second most populated city in the country. Millions moved here after the Partition of 1947, changing the landscape of the city forever. Sporadically, in between several commercial plazas, one may notice a historical monument, built during the colonial era or even before that. But in the modern Lahore they seem to be out of place, lacking context. It is impossible to visually imagine the city as a spacious one, with plenty of gardens, and aesthetically pleasant buildings. Project Lahore is aiming to do just that.

“It’s a visual history of Lahore,” says Siddique Shahzad, a 35 year old, IT professional, co-founder of Project Lahore, along with Qasim Khan. “I have always been fascinated with vintage photography. It’s very popular in the West. I have been collecting old photographs of Lahore since the past many years. Recently I decided to put them all together for the people of the city,” says Shahzad. Launched in February 2010, the Facebook page titled “Lahore – the city of gardens” now has almost 6000 ‘likes’ or followers. The group’s various albums have over 500 vintage photographs of the city. It is a collection of old maps, monuments, activities, statues, and paintings, among others. The collection depicts a Lahore that no longer exists. There are several other photographs that will be put up soon. The entire collection is digitized.

One image from the Project Lahore collection

Siddique explains how he collected the photographs from different sources, including the British Library, the Columbia University Collection and other sources on the net. His aim has been to put all of them in one place. He has visited antique shops all over the city, purchasing old paintings of Lahore, which he has now also put online. “I always contact my sources and assure them that we will give them the required credit, which helps in convincing them to allow us to use the photographs. We use watermarks to make sure that these pictures are not used commercially from our end, as most of them are commercially protected or have copy rights,” he says. Another project that they launched recently, called “Lahore Memories” aims to use family albums of residents to offer insight into the past.