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Then I hugged and thanked
him and walked away, promising to meet him again, very soon.
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| Muhammad Ishaq |
The history of Rawalpindi is
a scattered one spread across a vast area. To draw a complete picture of our
history, one has to collect the scattered pieces and put them together. No
doubt it’s quite a difficult task and takes time and patience.
Most of us know that
Rawalpindi was used as a convenient route by the invaders coming from North
Western regions and later British Army used the city as one of the most important
cantonments in North Western region of British India in the days of The Great Game.
Before the Partition, Rawalpindi
was an urban center mainly populated with Hindus and Sikhs. Even today, one can
see the old remnants of their existence in the old areas of the city in the form
of houses, abandoned temples and gurdwaras.
However, during the last
60 years post partition, the city has undergone a lot of changes. The Hindu and
Sikh population migrated to India in 1947 and the city provided shelter to the
Muslim migrants from Punjab, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
The city of Rawalpindi,
home to several Hindu temples and Sikh Gurdwaras, was also renowned for some
other historic landmarks, be a Dhobi Ghaat, a Haveli or a public space. With
the passage of time and the increase in population the demography of the city
changed gradually. Most of the old and historic places fell victim to the
advent of modernization and gave way to countless commercial buildings, markets
and concrete matchbox structures.
Mai Veero di Banni (The Abode of Lady Veero) is one such victim.
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| Video Market where there was a pool. |
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| Video Market where there was a pool |
It is said that Mai Veero was an aged
Hindu lady, who was saintly in her behavior others and respected among the
masses. Banni Mai Veero was built by
her, for the benefit of the people where they could bathe, swim and rest and freshen
up. It was a sort of a gathering spot, much like the Greek Agora, for the public in the very heart of the city. The water source
of the pool was from a clean water stream nearby (an area on the opposite side
known as Kartarpura).
Some old residents of Rawalpindi say that the area around
Banni Mai Veero was densely populated
by Khatri Hindus.
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| Marks of a stream between Kartarpura and Emanabad Mohallah |
While hunting for Banni Mai Veero I managed to reach the
exact spot where the pool once had been. Today, it is a market housing video
shops. I met the president of the market who, on my request introduced me to
the oldest living person of the area.
That is how I met Muhammad
Ishaq, popular in the area as Bhiyya ji,
a Fruit-Chaat seller in this market.
Born in Ambala Cantonment
area (now in Indian Punjab) in 1936, Muahmmad Ishaq migrated to Rawalpindi in
1947 along with his family.
“I remember it very
clearly; there was a pool here, I used to take bath and swim in it” says Ishaq.
“When we came from Ambala
we lived in Bazaar Talwaraan, near Raja Bazaar” he added. He goes on to further
narrate that one of his elder brothers was a government employee working in the
Railways and other had a shop of shoes in Ambala.
“I also worked for the
Pakistan Railways as porter after partition, for some 20 years” Muhammad Ishaq tells
me while showing his old employee’s identity card.
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| Railways Identity Card of Muhammad Ishaq |
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| Muhammad Ishaq in his good old days |
Initially, Ishaq started his
Fruit Chaat business in Raja bazaar,
as a part time engagement later shifting his shop to the newly built market
where the government allotted stalls to the street vendors. This market, he
adds, was built in 1980s right on the same spot where the pool of Banni Mai Veero’s
once had been.
Needless to say, today there
are no traces of any pool anywhere near the market that was built in 1982 and
inaugurated on May 5, 1982. The market
has more than one hundred shops, most of them selling CDs and DVDs and a few repairing
shops for electronic appliances.
So, what happened to the
pool? Muhammad Ishaq recalls confidently that back when the pool did exist, the
water had been clean and fresh, there had been stairs on all sides of the pool.
People used to take bath and women washed clothes there. There were even fresh
water fish in water!
Unfortunately people eventually
started polluting it. The link to the stream that was the source of the water to
the pool was cut off; new houses were built and the pool slowly dried up. It did
not take much time for the locals to turn the place into a garbage dump.
Probably that was how Mai Veero di Banni made a silent exit
from the history of Rawalpindi.
Much later, the city
district government planned to use this place for commercial purposes and built
the market in 1982. But the businesses that initially set up shop here didn’t really
flourish. It was only in the late 80’s when the VCR culture was “exported” to
Pakistan (mostly by the overseas Pakistanis in Middle East) the market
gradually became the hub for VCR and video films, as there was a huge demand for
VCR and Indian film VCD rentals.
The main square outside
the “video market” still goes by the name of “Banni chowk”, though some people
tried their best to change its name to “Sunni Chowk” (Why Sunni Chowk? Because
the main procession of Ashura Juloos ends here with Zanjeer-zani: hope you will
get the hint).
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| Banni chowk, Rawalpindi |
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| Flowers shops out side Video Market (or Mai Veero's pool) |
Once, there used to be a
Tonga stand outside the market at Saidpur Road, which is now turned into a Qingqi (Motorcycle Rickshaw) stand.
Added to this crowd are numerous shops selling flowers and materials for wedding
decorations. This area is also known for its desi food culture.
Muhammad Ishaq looks back
at the past and reminisces that he has seen the changing demographics of the
city. “The city wasn’t this noisy, but now it’s traffic and people everywhere”,
he almost laments.
When I asked him why his
family chose to settle down in Rawalpindi and not in any other city, he replied
that they had some relatives in Rawalpindi, so they came here.
“Do you want to see Ambala
once again?” I asked him as I was preparing to leave.
“No,
I don’t want to go to Ambala. Everything has changed. We have some relatives in
Delhi and some other cities in India, but the elders have all passed away and their
children don’t know us”, he answered ruefully.
“But there would be no
Visa issue for you, you know that… “
“I know visa restrictions
are relaxed for senior citizens (above 65), but why would I go there? Nobody
knows me there. That was in the past and that time has passed” he replied this
time, almost matter-of-factly.
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| Current map: Source Google Maps |
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| Pre-partition map. Source: The Survey of Pakistan |
