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Of Piccadilly and Qissa Khwani bazaar
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A 'Carved House' in Peshawar City
Peshawar looks pleasantly different.

When I last visited the city a year ago I felt suffocated with an intense feeling of claustrophobia, as I had on previous visits, by narrow streets and bazaars, shop awnings or tawaras almost blocking off the light, the ever-encroaching shop fronts and a maddening rush to get ahead of others. I had often wondered about the end point of shop encroachments. If they continue to inch forward, as they had been over the years, then eventually the opposing shops would meet in the middle of the street and the shopkeepers instead of facing customers would stare at each other.

I must thank the powers-that-be, most likely the governor, who used his power of persuasion, a stick in this case I am told, to force the shopkeepers and property owners to retract their fronts to where they used to be in the old maps. I was able, for the first time in many years, to rediscover parts of my city. What a delight it is to be able to walk through Kuchi Bazaar or Yakka Toot or Pul Pukhta without dodging rickshaws, cars and tongas. Or to be able to walk through Qissa Khwani Bazaar un-impeded as one would have walked through the same street - the Piccadilly of Central Asia as the famous American traveller Lowell Thomas called it once - in the fifties and sixties.

In 1997 I published an essay about Peshawar in the Frontier Post. In that provocatively titled piece �The Rape of My City� I lamented the fast deterioration of the old walled city. I protested the unchecked and unbridled construction in and around the city. There are plazas, plazas and more plazas no mater where you ventured in the city; most of them sinfully ugly and painfully unsightly like scars on a beautiful face. Commerce had overwhelmed the sensibilities to the point where it had encroached on and infiltrated into the homes as well. Dukaan and makaan (shop and home) had become one. My dear friend and a dyed-in-the-wool Peshawarite, Johar Mir mourned this trend in one of his touching poems about Peshawar. The poem, �Peshawar Shehr Sehra Ho Gia Hai� (Peshawar City has turned into a desert), was published in my 1999 book Peshawar: Aalam Mein Intikhab:

When the city walls were torn down,

Peshawar turned into a desert.

It was once a city of flowers and gardens,

Its glory blown away like scattered autumn leaves.

The sanctity of homes was stripped when homes turned into shops,

It now stands naked in the public square.

The glittering neon lights are everywhere,

But the lamp-less homes are forlorn with pitch darkness.


In that essay I had also lamented the �all-knowing� attitude of some of the officials who had passed through this city during their tour of duty. Like rulers of a bygone era, they ruled over the city, and if I may be allowed to paraphrase, they came, they conquered, they destroyed and then they departed to their next destinations to a higher rank. These later-day Tughliqs have left the city in a mess. I have said it often but have not said it enough that in order to do something from the heart you have to have a feeling of belonging. There is a difference between restoring a masterpiece and producing cheap replicas. To restore and preserve Peshawar City is not the same as building a new satellite town.

During one of my private visits with General Fazle Haq, when he was living in political wilderness after his retirement, I asked him if he had any regrets about his tenure as the governor. He hesitated but for a moment and said yes he did have one regret. I did not do much for Peshawar, he said, as I had done for the rest of the province. He drew parallel with General Jilani, his counterpart in the Punjab, who according to General Haq, had done wonders for the city of Lahore.

Just imagine the impact it would have had on our city if he had given the same attention and spent the same money on the city improvement that he lavished on some of his pet projects notably the building of a new highway to his family domiciles in Charsadda and Mardan. Nevertheless it was refreshing to hear the irrepressible former governor so open and candid. But then Fazle Haq was nothing if he were not blunt and forthright.

I am delighted to note that some of the policies of conservation and preservations that were put in place a few years ago are bearing fruit. I recall the hard work of the current chief secretary, Shakil Durrani, in this regard. He started the ball rolling when he was additional chief secretary a few years ago. I also take note of the personal attention the current governor, Iftikhar Hussain Shah, has paid to the walled city and particularly to the restoration of Gor Khatree Citadel. In a poor country, like Pakistan, there are hundreds of priorities competing for limited funds. It takes men of unhampered vision and uncommon resolve to look beyond the present constraints and help preserve our heritage and our history. Governor Iftikhar Hussain Shah and Chief Secretary Shakil Durrani deserve our utmost gratitude.

On a recent rainy morning as I sat under the overhang by the eastern gate of Gor Khatree I could not help but think of the long and fascinating history of this city. To the left of where I was sitting along the eastern and southern perimeter are the barracks from the British time still bearing the date from the early 20th century. That is where the police and the fire brigade were housed. A further down along the same orientation is the beautifully arched pavilion from the Mughal period. Its rooms or cells were most likely used for lodging by the travelling caravaneers. In the southwestern corner is the temple that Emperor Baber visited during his visit to Peshawar and dutifully recorded the visit in his autobiography, Tuzk-e-Babri.

Somewhere along the eastern perimeter where until recently there was patwar khana, lived Avitabile, the mercenary Italian governor of Peshawar during the Sikh period in the later part of 19th century. His persona has passed into the collective memory of the city folklore where mothers to this day discipline their unruly children by invoking the name of Abu Tabela, a local corruption of Avitabile. And just to the right, under the shadow of a huge monstrosity called Shadi Hall, is a large excavation pit. It is here that archeologists are trying to put all the historic fragments including the ones I mentioned above in a chronological perspective. Gor Khutree is the only �virgin� site in Peshawar where one can see the past mesh into the present. Before this piece of land gets paved over for public or private use, we must search for the missing links in the history of our city. We have always claimed that Peshawar is the oldest living city in Asia but we have not come up with scientific evidence to substantiate this claim.

The idea came during one of my many conversations with Dr Farzand Ali Durrani in the early nineties when he was chair of archeology department at the University of Peshawar. The first dig was in the northwestern quadrangle of the citadel on a relatively small piece of land. By the time they stopped excavating they had pushed back the age of Peshawar by at least a millennium. Another area in the northeastern corner is now being excavated to help re-write an accurate account of our city. The project has been interrupted many times for the lack of funds and on some occasions a number of sons and daughters of this city from abroad have contributed towards the project. The excavation has again started in earnest by Dr Ihsan Ali, the director general of Archeology and Museums and a former student and colleague of Dr Durrani.

Archeological excavation is a slow and meticulous process. It takes time, money and sweat of one�s brow to find tell tale evidence of footprints that countless visitors to this city have left over the past many millennia. I am sure if the current archeological work continues along with the ongoing facelift of the old walled city we will be able to tell a complete story of Peshawar from its beginning to the present. And what a fascinating story that would be! After all we are the only city in Asia that calls its main street the Bazaar of Story Tellers.

Peshawarite
S Amjad Hussain is a professor of surgery at the Medical College of Ohio and an op-ed columnist for the daily Toledo Blade. He wrote this piece for the Statesman during his visit to the city in April 2003. Contact E-Mail: <[email protected]>
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