Born of clay, fading into the sands of time

 It is possible that soon, pottery-making will be nothing more than part of a curriculum restricted to art schools.

In this part of the world, where the remains of Moenjedaro and Harappa provide the world with glimpses of centuries-old craftsmanship, the tradition of pottery is still deeply rooted. However, the market for clay items, while it does exist, is not large enough to accommodate potters, leaving traditional pottery-making to wither into a dying art.

It is possible that soon, pottery-making will be nothing more than part of a curriculum restricted to art schools.

Amidst the old quarters of Rawalpindi in Gawalmandi, surrounded by auto repair shops, there is a small market colloquially known as “kumhaaron ki gali”, or Potters’ Street, which specialises in items made of clay. Historically inhabited by non-Muslims, Muslim immigrants from Eastern Punjab moved to the area after the Partition, replacing the existing Hindu and Sikh population.

“We migrated from Amritsar, and pottery has been our family business for several generations,” Mohammad Ishaq Butt, who owns a pottery shop in the market, said. He explained that following the Partition, several potters’ families settled in the area and resumed their old trade.

Along Potters’ Street, a customer can find household items and crockery fashioned out of play. The items range from water tumblers, to water coolers, oil lamps, piggy banks and gardening pots, amongst many others.

However, despite the existing market, and the centuries’ old tradition, several shop owners say pottery is a lost art.

“Traditional pottery is long gone,” one shop owner and clay artisan said. He added that clay pots now are manufactured in factories in Lahore, Gujranwala, and other industrial sites in the country. The pots are then brought here and sold.

The shop owner’s father, who was present at the shop quipped, “We haven’t made pottery for the last three decades – now we just sit here.”

According to many vendors, the present generation has abandoned the profession entirely, choosing instead to purchase factory-made clay items and sell them. However, there are still some items that are made locally. Amongst them is the traditional clay oven – the tandoor, or huqqa.

Potters' street, Rawalpindi

These tandoors, which are made from a mixture of black clay and sheep hair, cost between Rs200 and Rs1,500. He said despite gas loadshedding facing many households and restaurants, no one is interested in buying these ovens.

In Rawalpindi, there are still some spots where one can witness pottery in its traditional form.

Hasan Ali is a craftsman who still uses traditional methods to make his clay huqqa, in a small compound in Gawalmandi. Ali explained that he learnt the art of pottery from his forefathers. “The art is dying, but we cannot do much,” he added.

A VIEW of one of the few clay workshops at the Potters’ Street in Rawalpindi.

According to Shahid Waheed, Associate Professor at the National College of Arts (NCA) Ceramics’ Department, “The reason behind the decline of traditional pottery is that many potters are not educated, and have limited exposure to the commercial market.”

Waheed said that since demand in the market has changed, new techniques more suited to meet the new demand, have evolved, leaving little space for traditional potters and their art.

“The survival of traditional pottery-making and its craftsmen will be difficult without the government’s support.”

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2014

Banni Mai Veero and Muhammad Ishaq: “No I don’t want to visit Ambala”

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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.

Video Market where there was a pool.

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.

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.

Railways Identity Card of Muhammad Ishaq

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).

Banni chowk, Rawalpindi

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.

Then I hugged and thanked him and walked away, promising to meet him again, very soon. 

Current map: Source Google Maps

Pre-partition map. Source: The Survey of Pakistan

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The other side of the city: Parsi Cemetery in Rawalpindi

“I am working here for more than 20 years and during this time none of the elders or even a kid spoke harshly to me” – the 70 year old man told me, while clipping the grass at the lawn of the Parsi Place of Worship. 

“I am their employee and they are always so polite to their workers”, he added.

I guess Baba realized I wanted to know more, and this encouraged him to look back and reminisce. “Once some leaders from the community visited while I was having my lunch. I was about to leave it halfway and get up, in order to serve them. They simply asked me to finish my lunch, take rest and only then come and serve them. That’s how they were, always!” He fondly remembered.

My journey to this amazing place kick-started when a couple of months back my friend told me about the existence of a Parsi Place of Worship somewhere at Murree Road, Rawalpindi.  As I have a keen interest in heritage buildings and old architecture, I kept on searching for this place. I asked around, spoke to people residing in the area but none of them had any idea about such a place!

The irony of the situation is that most of the people living in Rawalpindi (or may be in other cities as well) are too busy with their own lives and do not have the time to look around or know much about their own locality, even if it is right next door. No wonder, this sheer neglect and indifference is turningour historic landmarks into ruins, right in front of our eyes.

Anyway, after many such visits around the city, I finally managed to find out the exact location of the place and one fine Sunday morning I went out to visit the place.

As it is, Murree Road is the commercial hub of Rawalpindi city. Moreover, near the Benazir Bhutto Hospital there is a sprawling jewelry market and one cannot even imagine that amidst this congested area there could exist a historic landmark!

However, it is a fact that hidden behind these lavish jewelry shops, there is indeed the Parsi Worship Place that I had been looking for. I already knew that such a place, according to Parsi traditions, would be called a “Fire Temple” and I was excited that finally I had my chance to explore it in detail.

As I reached the area, close to the location, I came across a commercial place, and took the lane behind it.

My earlier experience with several old Temples and Gurdwaras had prepared me well and I was expecting to walk into an old building in ruins, its architecture in shambles, its walls crumbling and the ever-present foul smell of garbage rising from its grounds.

And here came a pleasant surprise as I came face to face with a completely different scene! A red-bricked single story building stands there. Neat, clean and well-maintained. The path below was shadowed and lined with rows of tall trees of Evergreen and Dates variety. It was a treat for the eye and I was taken by surprise, almost awestruck.

One the right hand side there stood an old colonial style building and in front there was a gate to the Parsi Graveyard. A lush green lawn surrounded the building and an old man was busy with his gardening tools, digging the clay and cutting the grass. It was a peaceful scene.

The stone plate at the gate of read:

“This cemetery

together with the buildings well and compound wall was erected to perpetuate the memory of the late Set Jahangiriji Framji Jussawala

and

Set Jamasji Hormasji Bogha

both of the Rawalpindi Parsi merchants  

by their respective grandsons

Set Dorabji Cowasji Jussawala

and

Set Nasarwanji Jehangiriji Bogha

Shahshai month Tir 1367, January 1898”

The graveyard was also very calm and clean. 

I asked the old man(the gardener)if the Place of Worship was still functional.

“Yes” he nodded, “There are some 30 to 40 Parsi families in Rawalpindi and whenever someone passes away in their community they perform funeral and religious rituals here”

A member of Rawalpindi's Parsi community Feroze Bhandara tells that "It is not a Parsi temple. There is none in Rawalpindi. However this bungli is part of our Parsi graveyard and is used for the purpose of washing the dead bodies and saying last rites."  Mr. Bhandara is currently based in Houston, United States and his brother Minno Bhandara of Rawalpindi is buried here.

 Mr. Bhandara says that "About ten years ago the frontage along Murree Road for our Parsi grave yard was illegally taken over by developers who have built shops along Murree Road and literally blocked off access into the grave yard. Proceeding in this case are pending in the local courts."

Given that we all know that there was a Parsi community (mostly merchants) in Rawalpindi, some hundred years ago, it was indeed news for me that they still live in Rawalpindi in present day and time!

The old gardener also informed me that this place belongs to the owner of a famous brewery company and they often visit this place to pay homage to their elders buried at this graveyard.

I also noticed that the doors to the building are kept locked and the whole premises is well taken care of.

While walking back,what I felt was immense joy and relief that a place of worship, which belongs to a minority community of Pakistan, is well managed and looked after.

All I can wish for is to see our tolerance towards the other religious minorities in Pakistan and that we live along with each other in harmony, peace and prosperity. 

Text and Photos by: Shiraz Hassan

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Holi Celebrations in Rawalpindi

Holi - The Festival of Colors - celebrated across Pakistan by the Hindu community of the country. 

In Rawalpindi, there are hardly 600 Hindu families, mostly belonging to the Valmiki sect of Hinduism. There are two Valmiki and a Krishna Mandir in Rawalpindi. With the Colors of Holi being still in the air, sharing some photographs of a Holi celebration at the Valmiki Mandir in Rawalpindi. 

The curator of the temple, Shri Jagjit Bhatti says that “ tell the world that Hindus in Pakistan are celebrating Holi in its full colors and glory, we are safe here.” This Valmiki Mandir, located at Chaklala area of Rawalpindi is a temple from the pre-partition era. It was built in 1935 and active since then. Post partition, most of the Hindus migrated from the area, thus drastically reducing the Hindu population in the city to bare minimum. This Valmiki Mandir is among the three active temples of the city where Hindus come to pray and celebrate their religious festivals on a regular basis.

A friend comments that these are sad pictures. The faces in these pictures reflect their minority status and not their religious freedom or their festive mood - as Holi is not a 'temple festival’ to be celebrated indoors, in the evening, but rather a celebration out in the open, during the day.

I have no words to counter my friends observation, but all I have, are these photographs and they are what I would like to share with you.

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Kalyan Das Temple: Blindfolded Heritage Sees Humanity Eye-to-Eye

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Kalyan Das Temple: Government Qandeel Secondary School, Rawalpindi

Blindfolded Heritage Sees Humanity Eye-to-Eye

A trek through the old areas of Rawalpindi reveals to us many examples of old architecture: silent testimonies of our heritage, narrating tales of our past, stories of our land. Unfortunately, these exponents of our history are in a state of utter neglect and cry out for immediate attention by the authorities.

In the middle of the area that is commonly known as Kohati Bazaar, one can see the dome of a temple which is almost blinded by the high walls of an academic institution. Here stands one of the beautiful, historic landmarks of the city: Kalyan Das Temple.

Outside this building, you can see the board of Government Qandeel Secondary School for visually impaired children. On entering the main gate of the school, one is at once confronted with the sight of a magnificent architectural form which stands right in the middle of the school courtyard

As I entered the building, I turned to the security guard, and queried him casually, "I just want to see." He nodded his head in agreement and asked me to go ahead.

This temple was named after a generous resident of Rawalpindi, Kalyan Das, who laid its foundation stone in 1850s, and it is said that it was completed in 1880. The Kalyan Das temple is believed to have had more than 100 rooms and was spread over an area of about seven acres, besides a vast pond around the main temple building.

According to some reports, Kalyan Das had no children but his brother had. One of the grandchildren of his brother is Saghir Soori, the owner of Saghir Apartments — the tallest residential tower in Delhi. Kalyan Das’ family had a residence by the name Soori Building in Kartarpura (a locality near Kohati Bazaar), which is now known as Noori Building.

One of the significant facts of the Kalyan Das Temple is linked to the Amarnath Yatra, which is an important religious ritual in Hinduism. Hindu pilgrims used to stay at this temple en route to Amarnath in the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir, making it a very important place for Hindu worshippers

Like many other temples of the city, in 1947, during the partition of India, Kalyan Das temple was also left abandoned as the Hindu population left the city. Today this magnificent architectural piece still stands tall but the complex has been brutalised and vandalised over decades and is in a state of decay.

The beautiful paintings engraved on the walls of the temple are fading away; the damp roof of the main architecture pours in rainy days. The rooms of the main complex are used as store rooms and are kept locked. The idols are missing but their marks attract the attention of visitors. The many spires in the temple complex are still imposing but 60 years of neglect has made them colourless. The white paint used to brighten a canopy inside the complex has, in fact, buried its original floral work.

After the partition and migration of the Hindu population from Rawalpindi, the temple remained functional. In 1956, it was taken over by the Auqaf Department and survived as a place of worship until 1958 when a school for the blind, started by Begum Farooqi, was shifted into the complex. At that time it had a Baradari with rooms for worshippers, a pond and an Ashram.

In 1973, the school was taken over by the Punjab government. A new building was erected for the school in 1986 during the time of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, when the wave of Islamisation was in full boom. It was the time when the original buildings surrounding the temple, the rooms and the pond were demolished and deprived of their beauty. A seminary nearby acquired almost half of the temple land.

The security guard at the school’s gate said that Muslims vandalised the temple at the time of partition. In 1992, in the wake of the demolition of the historic Babri Mosque in Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh) by Hindus, when several Hindu temples were demolished across Pakistan, luckily the school administration prevented this temple from meeting the same fate.

"Its our national heritage and we should preserve it," the security guard asserted!

According to him, some people in the school’s administration are thinking of demolishing the temple to increase the space for the school. But there are some good people too who do not wish so, he added, urging that this heritage building should be renovated so that it doesn’t meet any mishap.

The Punjab government has constructed some new rooms and hostels for the visually impaired students of the school in the complex. It can be claimed that despite its decaying condition, this temple is still much better preserved as compared to other abandoned temples of the city.

I saw some visually impaired kids playing cricket in the school yard. I asked one of them named Mustansir, “What are you doing here?” He said, "I am studying." On asking what he was studying, he said, "ABC and 123." It made me smile.  When I was leaving, he urged me, "Where are you going, stay here!"

In my view, this is the best use that an abandoned temple can be put to: for providing shelter and home for visually impaired kids. And I think Kalyan Das will also not be annoyed with us, seeing this magnificent building being used for a good cause.

That said, it is also true that this architectural marvel is in desperate need of renovation and restoration work and the government must take notice of this need; this is not just an abandoned place of worship, but also an important heritage site of the city. And given the noble cause that it endorses now, this place serves to provide a huge symbolic impetus to people to open up their eyes blinded by hatred. 

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