Category Archives: Pakistan

Being a Girl Student in FCC…

09/11/2026 Pippa Leave a comment

While trawling through archives I came across some time ago, I found the following piece of writing in The Folio. Forman Christian College, Lahore dated April 1960. I was intrigued by this short, two-page article on what it was like for female students at the time. What stands out, of course, is how the boys regarded girls as being from “another sphere,” and how this sense of difference is reinforced across the college’s different staff and spaces.

BEING A GIRL STUDENT IN F.C.C. Merel Bhan, VI Year (English)

How well I remember the first day when I told a group of my older acquaintances that I had decided to join FC College for my MA classes. A short silence followed this statement, then a sudden burst of speech.

“You must behave in a most prim and proper way,” advised B-

“Never must you smile or laugh unless you are in the classroom, and except for a few necessary enquiries do not even try to speak with the boys,” declared S-

“But,” I protested, “how will I ever enjoy the next two years if I am not even allowed to speak or discuss a subject with my classmates?”

“Study and only study must be your aim,” said J- with great emphasis. “Always keep your eyes down and look straight ahead, never around you”.

Ah well, it was farewell to all the gay carefree days I had had as a student. From henceforth my college days were to be suddenly very dull, and I tried to resign myself to the fact.

At last the dread day approached and I arrived at the college half an hour earlier than classes were due to start. I wore a very carefully practised sober expression and carried a notebook and pencil – items which I had hitherto been inclined to ignore. My brother conducted me to my classroom. I stood outside, looked around at first, but then, seeing a huge bunch of boys staring at me as if I was a creature from outer space, fixed my gaze upon a spot on the wall immediately above me and so waited. At last another girl came up to me. We both greeted each other enthusiastically but then hastily checked ourselves.

We had both previously studied amongst three hundred of our own species, now we found ourselves suddenly flung into the midst of the very boys who had every day passed the Kinnaird College bus-stand, whistling to the girls and calling out loud remarks, or who had been most vociferous in disconcerting speakers at the various inter-collegiate debates. The advice we had received was the same. Now that there were two of us, reinforced by each other’s company, we entered the classroom.

A steady silence and blear of faces greeted us as we made our way to the closest bench. As our vision cleared saw boys of all shapes and sitting in the class and smoking. Then the inevitable question followed.

“From which college did you do your B.A.?” We replied, and that was the last chance for speech as great deal of information was volunteered to us about courses of study and the professors. Even our monosyllabic answers were not allowed to emerge in the face of that information. We were told how hard we would have to study to pass the December examination, the books we were to read and the books we should have read to provide us with a background. The professors, we were told, were miserly as far as doling out marks was concerned, and then were enlightened about what appealed to which professor. The first conclusion we drew was that we were now firmly in a trap. Not only was the M. A. to be dull, and also very difficult, but it seemed, according to the information we received, that our stay in the college would probably last only until the December examination.

Then we had our first lecture, which was very interesting and that, as well as what the senior girls told us about our college, did much towards toning down the earlier picture. We were told that the time-table was on the noticeboard, and all the girls, in a good, firm group, went to look at it. The notice-board was surrounded by boys of all kinds – bearded boys, chubby cherubie little boys, tall boys, bespectacled boys, fat boys, thin boys, boys with a poetic temperament who had quarrelled with their barbers, and boys sporting the Yul Brynner style. We could not peer over them or around them. We failed even to glimpse the time-table. A girl’s height was great disadvantage, I decided, particularly in a boys’ institution. I made a mental memorandum to buy a pair of high heeled shoes at the first opportunity, but even these, as I have since discovered, have failed to supply a remedy.

At the first lecture we had been supplied with a lengthy book list, and so after a week or two we went to the library to take out some of the books. All of them were out. The librarian told us that we had been very lazy and warned us to be quick next time. The next time, as soon as the book list was handed out, we decided to proceed immediately to the library. However, as the last book was named we heard the squeaking of chairs and a hustle behind us. We saw two boys flash through the door. This occurrence was explained when we walked into the library. All the book were drawn out. From then on we became part of the great “Scramble for books.” This was a great race to decided who would get a particular book first or at least be first on the reservation list. We girls whispered and planned now to get books on a particular subject a week before we were due to start work on it. We wrote down the names and numbers and very confidently handed it to the librarian. He look at it, shook his head, and said, “Sorry, Madam, they are out. However,” he added, “You can take this book.” He drew out the book and gave it to us. We were indeed the first to get it, but, we wondered, would it be worth reading if no one else had wanted to take it?

As we were such a large minority we believed in the maxim, “Unity is Strength,” and we would always sally forth in a group of eight. We would go first to the library or the class or the common room. As time went on and we began to feel more at home, we broke up into smaller groups, and instead of going to the common room to relax we started sitting the lawns. We began to pay visits to the tuckshop as we now regarded this college as ours as well. Thus we girl students were slowly emancipated. We began to have hilarious times here without feeling self-conscious.

Having now been in the college over a year I observed a few things which should prove to be invaluable precepts for girls hoping to join this college.

A girl student must always walk from one place to another at a moderate pace. To run is unforgivable. Even with the rain coming down at its heaviest she must keep up a stately pace, to avoid raising a laugh from the boys.

She must always consider herself as being from another sphere, as that is how the boys regard her. She is a curiosity, not a person belonging to the earth, and because of this she should not mind if the boys stare at her in the same way every day for two years. She is an alien being in their domain.

A girl is the Weaker Vessel. She must always keep that in mind only then can she bear the treatment meted out to her. Thus she can fully make use of the advantages of “Ladies First” — no waiting in queues for her. She must also always be willing to receive information on books and study as she is incapable of finding out for herself. Even if somebody hands her book on the sixteenth century to study Wordsworth from, she must not object. She can never know as much as a boy.

The only topic on which girls and converse is study, and that is usually in the form of much advice on the boys’ part. The girl student must receive unquestioningly.

Pakistan, Partition, Short Essays

From the Archive to the Courtyard: Returning to the Swaminarayan Temple, Karachi

08/16/2026 Pippa Leave a comment

Overlooking the entrance is this commemorative clock tower. HM King George Silver Jublee, 1935

In April 2020, I wrote a blog post on the Swaminarayan Temple in Karachi. Calling it a “blog piece” was something of a stretch, it was really a set of fragments from the archive: letters exchanged between Liaquat Ali Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, and Gopalaswami Ayyangar, Minister for Transport and Railways in the Government of India. These letters concerned the Temple and a dispute over the land it sat on, who it belonged to, Hindus or Muslims.

In April 2026, six years later, I finally visited the place I had visited only through those archival documents.

An Impromptu Return

I was in Karachi, visiting the Aga Khan University, but in the back of my mind was a quieter wish: to find the Temple I had read about and see what had happened to it. So, on a day spent exploring the layered history of this remarkably cosmopolitan city, we made an impromptu stop on M. A. Jinnah Road, formerly Bandar Road, a six-kilometre artery running through central Karachi. The location sits at the heart of what was once an old Hindu neighbourhood, not far from the city’s historic civic centre.

Tucked between the noise and clutter of the bustling commercial road, we found it: a small, unassuming archway, easy to miss unless you were looking for it. This was the entrance to the Temple, with a guard monitoring those entering. For security reasons, the complex doesn’t admit strangers or casual visitors, but after speaking with the staff and learning that I was Sikh, they were satisfied the visit was made in good faith and let us in.

Inside, the complex opened onto a large courtyard, exactly as it had been described in the letters I had read years earlier. At its centre stood the Temple and the Gurdwara, side by side, with homes belonging to Sikh and Hindu families arranged around the courtyard’s edges. This question of residence — who had the right to live there — was precisely what Ayyangar and Khan had argued over in their correspondence, with Ayyangar pressing for the space to be reserved for Hindus.

Karachi Before Partition

The dhabawalla
The Gurdwara is currently being renovated
The Gaoshalla, which was inaugurated on 20 August 2003.

Before Partition, Karachi was a major port city, one that had grown from a small fishing village into a vibrant, multi-religious urban centre. Hindus and Sikhs dominated its industrial and commercial life, prominent in banking, education, retail, and local business. Muslims, Christians, and Parsis were equally woven into this cosmopolitan fabric. Traces of all these communities from the pre-Partition era survive today as part of the city’s inherited heritage.

Partition in the Punjab tore the province apart and forced millions to flee from the communal violence. Karachi’s experience was different, and its rupture more drawn out. With limited infrastructure to begin with, the city also became the new capital of Pakistan, and the Muslim League leadership, with its ideological and political roots in Aligarh, relocated there to begin the work of building a homeland for the Muslims of British India.

As the historian Sarah Ansari writes, Sindh was, in relative terms, spared the worst of the violence that convulsed the Punjab. With a population roughly 75% Muslim and 25% Hindu and Sikh, the province “managed to keep a fairly clean record” through the difficult weeks around independence, even as communal sensitivities grew (Ansari, p. 53). Even so, the authorities eventually judged that rising tensions required admitting more refugees into Karachi.

What followed still confounded observers. Unlike the Punjab, where the mass departure of non-Muslims was seen as tragically inevitable, Sindh had been marked by comparatively few communal clashes, thanks to what Ansari calls a “peaceful imprint” in relations between communities, reinforced by the authorities’ firm early efforts to maintain order (Ansari, p. 54). That relative calm did not hold. By January 1948, a serious outbreak of communal violence, instigated by Muslim refugees, first targeting Sikhs travelling through the city and then turning on local Hindus, signalled how far Karachi’s demographic and political character had shifted. By this point, Ansari notes, the city had become heavily “impregnated” with Muslim refugees (Ansari, p. 56).

This violence triggered a rapid exodus of non-Muslims from Karachi, with thousands leaving for India. The economic consequences were immediate. Commercial firms and banks were already short-staffed lost much of their remaining workforce, and, as Ansari puts it, “business virtually ground to a halt” (Ansari, p. 57).

This produced a real dilemma for the provincial government. Ansari records that Sindh’s Chief Minister, Khuhro, and his colleagues recognised that the province’s best interests lay in retaining as many Hindus as possible; Khuhro accordingly moved to cap refugee numbers, with any surplus to be removed from the city (Ansari, p. 57). This put the Sindh government directly at odds with the central Pakistani administration, which was simultaneously trying to resettle the huge inflows of refugees arriving from the Punjab.

At the heart of this stood a genuine contradiction: the instinct of “Sindh for Sindhis,” bound up with a desperate need to preserve Karachi’s economic life, pulled against the equally urgent need to absorb refugees who had uprooted themselves in search of a promised homeland. It was within this contest of high politics that small, local places, like this Temple and the community around it, became caught up in questions far larger than themselves: who could stay, who could leave, and who a piece of land, and the city itself, ultimately belonged to.

The Communities Today

Karachi’s Hindu community is now a small fraction of what it once was. Hindus make up just over 1% of the city’s population today, around 244,689 people, according to the 2023 census, a steep fall from the majority-Hindu city Karachi had been before 1947. Estimates of how many temples remain vary widely, from a handful of prominent citywide institutions to dozens of smaller neighbourhood shrines; what’s clear is that only a fraction of the pre-Partition total survives.

A few, like the Swaminarayan Temple, the Ratneshwar Mahadev Temple, and the Lakshmi Narayan Temple at Native Jetty, remain architecturally and historically significant, while others are modest sites serving small, localised pockets of the community; Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para, for instance, still gather to worship the goddess Mariamman. Sindh remains home to the great majority of Pakistan’s Hindus, making the community, alongside Sikhs, one of the last visible threads connecting Karachi’s present to its pre-Partition past.

By comparison, Karachi’s Keshdhari Sikh community is smaller still. More prominent are the Nanakpanthis, who live in larger numbers in Thar and practise more syncretic traditions. The Gurdwara, dedicated to Guru Granth Sahib, sits on the ground floor of the complex and, at the time of our visit, was undergoing renovation. It’s a modest, functional space, serving what remains of the city’s Sikh community. There are thought to be around three other gurdwaras in Karachi, together serving a population estimated at somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 people. The population of the Nanakpanthis, on the other hand, numbers perhaps closer to two million in Sindh Province.

Inside the Complex

Walking through the complex today, that layered history is still visible, if you know to look for it. There’s a vegetarian restaurant-cum-dhaba, shops selling religious items, and a shared sacred space that houses both Temple and Gurdwara — a small, living trace of the pluralism that once defined the city.

The tour of the Gurdwara and the Temple was a genuine pleasure. It offered a glimpse of what shared sacred space can look like, of coexistence without enmity, worked out not in the abstract but in the daily rhythms of a shared courtyard. And yet that same courtyard is also a haven, in the truest sense: a refuge for residents who now form a minority in a city their communities once helped to build and run. What was once simply home has become something closer to a sanctuary, but it is also a marker of how much has been lost.

Postscript

Reading the Ayyangar–Khan letters in 2020, I saw this Temple only as a set of claims and counter-claims on paper, an argument about land, rights, and belonging, conducted at the level of Prime Ministers and Ministers. Walking into the courtyard in 2026 closed a strange loop: the same space, no longer an abstraction in an archive box, but a living, if diminished, community still holding on, quietly, amid the noise of Jinnah Road.

These places of worship survive because of the generosity of those who serve the community.

References:
Sarah Ansari, Life After Partition: Migration, Community and Strife in Sindh, 1947-1962 (OUP, 2005)

Original Post Swaminarayan Temple, Karachi

India, Pakistan

A South Asian Feast at Edgbaston

06/23/2026 Pippa Leave a comment

Last week, I indulged in some cricket. Not just any cricket match, but a South Asian feast at Edgbaston, for women’s T20. The morning match, like the morning itself, was relatively mild in temperature, and resulted in Bangladesh winning against the orange army, the Netherlands. But by the afternoon, the temperature was considerably higher during India’s match against Pakistan.

I’ll be honest — I’ve only been to one “proper” cricket match before, which was last year when India were playing England. The prospect of watching this old rivalry play out on the cricket pitch was enticing and irresistible, despite knowing how heated and at times even how ugly the audiences can be. It was also women’s cricket, which has come a long way, and determined to show some gender solidarity, I went along to the historic grounds.

As I arrived at the ground, I could already sense that this match was going to draw large crowds. Indian blue dominated the space, with a few patches of green. Inside, I caught the tail end of the morning match and was in time to see Bangladesh seal victory against the Netherlands. The atmosphere was pleasant and inviting, reflecting the sportsmanship we associate with sport at its best. The Dutch team was incredibly obliging, posing for selfies and engaging warmly with supporters despite their loss.

As the ground transformed between matches, the audience shifted, the tension changed, and crowds began to fill their seats. The ICC T20 match began without a handshake — mirroring the precedent set by the men’s teams and undeniably bringing politics into the sporting arena. As national flags were unfurled across the pitch and audiences rose for the anthems, I noticed the people in the row behind me did not stand for Pakistan’s anthem. From their mutterings, it was clear this was a deliberate decision. I was intrigued and irritated in equal measure. The crowd itself was multi-racial and British-born (Gujarati and East African heritages), yet they chose to imbibe and perform a fierce subcontinental nationalism thousands of miles away from home. This stood in sharp contrast to the joy of Bangladesh’s victorious chase against the Netherlands with the sudden, sharp shift in gravity when India and Pakistan took the field.

I had also been warned not to expect much from the Pakistan team, given how significantly India has invested in women’s cricket in recent years. I therefore found I was decidedly with the underdog; no one really likes a one-sided affair. Also, some years ago, I spent time at Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore for research, and while there, I was impressed by how important an institution it was, as many fine female cricketers have emerged from there. Five players in the current Pakistan squad have ties to the college, including Aliya Riaz, Ayesha Zafar, Iram Javed, Sadia Iqbal and Natalia Pervaiz.

However, despite a few glimpses of determination from the Pakistani side, the match was largely dominated by India’s women. The crowd was loud, raucous and seemingly oblivious to the fact that this one-sided contest was itself displaying the more unattractive face of nationalism. The problem with sport, of course, is that it forces you to pick a side — there is very little room to sit on the fence. As spectators, the crowd creates its own dynamic within the stadium.

Despite the crowd being very multi-racial and multi-religious, the vibe and the chants were distinctly Hindu, with the most popular in my vicinity being ‘Ganpati Bappa Morya’. This was among the sold-out crowd of 18,814, setting a new Women’s T20 World Cup attendance record for a group-stage double-header. While historic rivalries like these are great for drawing crowds and promoting women’s cricket, the flip side is that the political rivalry is imported as well.

I slipped out of Edgbaston before the final ball was bowled, once it was clear that Pakistan’s fate was sealed. The Pakistani supporters were also gradually slipping away, as they were outnumbered by the Indian supporters and defeat was certain. I wanted to avoid the crowds, who were already in high spirits — literally and metaphorically. And yet, leaving early also meant carrying away a cleaner impression of the day. Because for all the noise in the stands, the tribalism, the political point-scoring, the refusal to stand for another nation’s anthem, it was the earlier match that offered a different story. The Dutch women who smiled and posed for photos despite their loss. The Bangladesh crowds pleasantly mingling with the Dutch spectators. The Pakistani team who played with dignity in front of a crowd that had largely already written them off.

India, Pakistan, Poetry Corner, Short Essays

Between Worlds: On Hate, History, and the Possibility of Belonging

03/30/2026 Pippa Leave a comment

The last three days have been an uncomfortable reminder of how far we have slipped — or perhaps how far we never truly moved — in our relationship with hatred and bigotry. Yet within that discomfort, I also found unexpected moments of beauty and hope, each one a small act of resistance against the noise.

A Sufi Voice in Leamington Spa

On Saturday, I visited the Gurdwara in Leamington Spa to hear Dr Asma Qadri, a scholar of Punjabi language, literature, and culture, speak on Punjabi poetry and the Sufi tradition. Her focus was Baba Farid (1173–1268), a figure of remarkable spiritual and literary stature. In the Guru Granth Sahib — the sacred scripture of Sikhism — there are 112 shaloks (couplets) attributed to Baba Farid, and at their heart is a message of interfaith harmony, compassion, and non-violence. That a Muslim saint’s words were enshrined in a Sikh scripture centuries ago speaks volumes about a pluralism that many today seem intent on dismantling.

Farid, if you are maltreated
Do not react with violence and projection
Visit the Other
And kiss his feet in humility and affection!

Source: Harjeet Singh Gill, Sufi Rhythms, Patiala University, 2007

Baba Farid was born near Multan, his lineage traceable to Kabul, from where his family had migrated to the Indus Valley. He later moved to Delhi, where he received spiritual instruction from Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, a saint of the Chishti Order. He eventually returned to Punjab and settled in Ajodhan (present-day Pakpattan), from where he led the Chishti Order until his death.

What is perhaps less widely known is that Farid is believed to have travelled to Jerusalem around 1200 CE — not long after Saladin had recaptured the city from the Crusaders. A small shrine there, still accessible, is said to mark his presence. Navtej Sarna, a former Indian Ambassador to Israel (2008–2012), writes about this connection in his book Indians at Herod’s Gate: A Jerusalem Tale (Rupa, 2014) — a quiet, often-overlooked thread linking the Indian subcontinent to the Holy City over eight centuries. Read further: Indians Herods Gate and Jerusalem’s 800-year-old Indian hospice

After the lecture, our group of three — drawn from different faith backgrounds — sat together for langar, the community meal served at Gurdwaras. There is something deceptively simple and profoundly radical about langar. The act of sitting together, regardless of religion, caste, or status, and eating the same food dissolves hierarchies that societies expend enormous energy to maintain. It is a challenge that remains genuinely difficult in parts of India, where communal and caste taboos still govern not just what people eat, but with whom and where. In that shared meal, something ancient and necessary was quietly affirmed.

The Descent into Dystopia

The following day, I made the mistake of listening to a News Agents podcast: Why MAGA Hates Britain. I say mistake not because the journalism was poor — it wasn’t — but because the content was genuinely dispiriting. The podcast drew on interviews conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where the blatant hostility toward Muslims was on full display. What struck me was not just the bigotry itself, but the absolute self-assurance with which it was expressed — the sense of a parallel world, hermetically sealed from doubt or nuance, in which hatred had been fully normalised and even celebrated.

It is worth noting that CPAC is not a fringe gathering. It draws senior politicians, media figures, and policymakers, including Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, Liz Truss, who has found the political validation that eluded her at home in MAGA circles. When hatred is mainstreamed in those spaces, it travels outward with authority and legitimacy. The podcast was a sobering record of that.

A Fragment from 1947

Turning away in revulsion, I returned to my own research — a space in which I can explore the ideas that still feel worth holding onto. Almost serendipitously, I came across an advertisement from September 1947 in the Bombay Chronicle, published just weeks after Partition had carved the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, leaving 1-2 million dead and over 15 million people displaced. The advert’s message was striking in its urgency and its pathos: the violence and bloodshed that had torn communities apart must now be put aside. The “children of God” must be taught how to live together rather than being “poisoned” by the hatred that had consumed the preceding years.

The text reads: If there is any image of God on earth, it is the children. Theirs is a world of purity and innocence where hatred and spite are things unknown. They play together and grow together and never care to know which of them is a Hindu and which a Moselm. Let us not poison these flowers with the venom of communalism. Let them grow with a healthy mind and a healthy outlook, so that they can build up a glorious future for themselves as well as for the country. Keep your children away from the deadly communal monster by all means. Hindu Muslim Ek Ho! Advertisement inserted by C.K. Sen & Co. Ltd.
*Bombay Chronicle* 26 September 1947. Photo taken by Pippa Virdee from NMML, Delhi.

What moved me most was the implicit admission within that language: that society had already been poisoned, and that the antidote required active, deliberate effort. It was a call not to innocence but to conscious repair.

The Distance That Grows

That advertisement also stirred a more melancholic reflection. There was a time, however brief and fragile, when greater openness between India and Pakistan seemed imaginable — when the possibility of travel, communication, and even reconciliation had not yet been foreclosed. The Wagah-Attari border crossing, for decades a symbol of that flickering possibility, remains closed following the Pahalgam attack of April 2025. Yet that closure is not merely a consequence of one incident. It reflects a deeper estrangement — one that has steadily worsened since the BJP came to power in 2014, as the distance between the two countries has grown not just diplomatically but also culturally, emotionally, and imaginatively.

When borders close, it is not only people who are separated. It is stories, families, histories, and the ordinary human exchanges that quietly resist the narratives of enmity.

On Connecting the Moments

What struck me, looking back across these three days, was how tightly these experiences were bound together — the lecture on a 13th-century Sufi poet, the langar table, the CPAC recordings, the 1947 advertisement, the closed border. They form a kind of map of where we are and where we might yet go.

We are constantly surrounded by voices that insist conflict is natural, that difference is danger, that the world is a zero-sum competition between faiths and peoples. But Baba Farid’s couplets, preserved across centuries and across religious traditions, suggest otherwise. The langar meal, served to strangers, suggests otherwise. Even that desperate 1947 advertisement, placed in the shadow of catastrophe, suggests otherwise — because in the middle of all that devastation, they still believed it was worth trying to preserve unity over enmity.

Conflict has never resolved anything. It only plants the seeds for the next generation’s hatred. What endures are the moments when we chose differently — when we visited the Other, and sat with them, and ate.

It remains up to us to remember our neighbours — not as symbols, threats, or abstractions, but as people, first and foremost. This message is a recurring theme in advertising campaigns that, while not so distant in time, feel increasingly remote in spirit. The YouTube clips, from just a decade ago, speak a language of interfaith harmony that the intervening years — and the political choices made within them — have done their best to drown out. That they once existed, and were made for mass audiences, is itself worth remembering.

Hindu Muslim Unity: Best Creative and Inspirational Indian Ads | Part 1 | Creative Ads

Hindu Muslim Unity: Best Creative and Inspirational Indian Ads | Part 2 | Creative Ads

Humsaye Maa Jaye by Bushra Ansari and Asma Abbas – Official Video

Pakistan, Partition, Poetry Corner, Short Essays

Reimagining Punjab Through Ustad Daman’s Poetry

08/15/2025 Pippa Leave a comment

During the writing of my book, “From the Ashes of 1947: Reimagining Punjab,” I endeavoured to incorporate some of the poetry and literature that encapsulated the emotions and sentiments of the aftermath of the Partition of Punjab. My intention was to highlight the contributions of Ustad Daman, a lesser-known figure in certain regions of South Asia but a significant figure for many, particularly in Lahore, the city of his birth. As another year passes and we inch towards the 80 years of the Partition, his work assumes a heightened relevance in the contemporary context.

Ustad Daman, whose real name was Chiragh Din, hailed from Lohari Gate within the historic old city of Lahore. His father was a tailor who owned his own small shop. His elder brother, Feroz Din, joined his father in managing the business, but young Chiragh had no inclination to pursue the family trade. Instead, he harboured aspirations for education and a clerk’s position. He attended school, but this did not result in a clerk’s job. Disappointed, he returned to tailoring and established his own shop. However, his heart was truly captivated by poetry. He would abandon his shop to attend poetry readings. Inspired by his mentor, Ustad Hamdam, he adopted the pseudonym Damdam, but later changed it to Daman. (Source: Apnaorg)

The pivotal moment came when he received his first payment for reciting poetry in a public gathering. This marked the commencement of his journey as a poet. Initially, Daman composed poetry on conventional subjects, such as matters of the heart. However, as the independence movement gained momentum prior to partition, political themes began to permeate his poetry. Daman was a member of a group of traditional Punjabi poets who would recite poetry extemporaneously, while their pupils maintained the records. This tradition earned them the title of Ustads (mentors). (Source: Apnaorg)

Below are some references and material that highlight the significance of Ustad Daman.

Folk Punjab has a digital archive of his poetry including ‘Es mulk di wand kolon yaro’.

Ustad Daman, ‘The Poet Laureate of the Twentieth Century Punjab’ Fowpe Sharma, Revolutionary Democracy

Ustad Daman lived and wrote poetry as someone always on the wrong side of the establishment By Dr. Afzal Mirza, Apanorg.

Rammah, Safir. “West Punjabi Poetry: From Ustad Daman to Najm Hosain Syed.” Jounral of Punjab Studies 13, no. 1&2 (2006): 216.

Below the opening of Chapter 10, Virdee, P., 2018. From the Ashes of 1947. Cambridge University Press.

India, Pakistan, Partition, Short Essays

What makes you feel nostalgic?

12/31/2024 Pippa Leave a comment

Carefree Days with Pran Nevile, April 2016. © Pippa Virdee

Today’s daily prompt on WordPress was “What makes you feel nostalgic?” I of course immediately started thinking and letting my mind wonder into the past. The past that is often nostalgic and romantic; it is after all the 31 December! Immediately one memory came back like a flash.

I recall the numerous times that I went to visit Pran Nevile at his home in Gurgaon, where we would have meet, chat, drink and eat. And almost always there would be music playing in the background, the kind of music that transports you to a bygone era, along with the conversation. These “Carefree Days” are no more, but those precious memories remain.

Beyond the nostalgia I remember I wrote a tribute for Pran, which was supposed to have been published but I suspect it never was. I most likely didn’t follow up because of work distractions. Upon a keyword search (thank goodness for that!) I found the tribute on my laptop straightaway. I sat there with the melodic voice of Begum Akhtar in the background and re-read the piece, feeling sad but happy to have met someone like Pran at the beginning of my own journey. It makes a fitting post for today’s prompt, as I will always associate Pran with the nostalgia of a pre-partitioned Punjab that is no more.

Pran Nevile (1922-2018): A Tribute

I first met Pran Nevile in 2001, when I embarked on a new journey in my life of pursuing a PhD. He was recommended to me by my supervisor, Prof. Ian Talbot. We met, like on many subsequent occasions, at his favourite place in New Delhi, the India International Centre (IIC). I was beginning my research into the impact Partition had on Punjab, exploring this through first-hand accounts of people, who were forced to abandon their homes and leave during that tumultuous and violent time. Pran was born in Lahore in 1922 and thus could recollect stories from the colonial period thereby contextualising this impact on Punjab following Partition. At the time I didn’t know much about Pran, beyond that he had written a book on Lahore and that he had a previous career in the Indian Foreign Service. In many ways, I was an outsider to both the intellectual Delhi circle and academia, more generally. We sat in the café at the IIC and had tea, while chatting about an array of subjects. Almost straightaway we bonded as he radiated with an old-school genteel charm that belongs to a by-gone era; certainly not of the India and Pakistan today. He paid me a wonderful/witty compliment, by saying that when I speak in Punjabi, I sound like a Punjaban and when I speak in English, I am a mem. He would repeat this on numerous occasions. This was the beginning a friendship, which endured until he passed away on 11 October 2018. He was my connection to the pre-partitioned Punjab, and I was his connection to Lahore, exchanging notes and comparing the-then and now.

Growing up in Lahore

Pran’s family lived in Nisbet Road in the walled city of Lahore, where his father had migrated to in the early 1910s from their ancestral village of Vairowal, in neighbouring Amritsar district. Following his education at the DAV School, he was successful in getting a scholarship and got admission to the prestigious Government College Lahore, from where he graduated in 1943 in MA Economics. He recollects many of his early memories of growing up in Lahore in his autobiography, Carefree Days (2016), recounting the days of “pastimes, fairs and festivals”, which would keep them amused all year round. His favourite pastime though was kite flying, as he writes: “I cannot recall anything more thrilling than kite flying in my boyhood” (pp. 10-11). Pran, like many others, lamented the later ban on kite flying in Lahore, which has seen the demise of the popular Basant festival.

Writing Lahore: A Sentimental Journey (1992), a book that instantly resonated with many Lahoris, enabled Pran to visit the city of his childhood. He was one of the lucky ones because he was able to visit Lahore with ease, a romance that he rekindled with this tribute to the city of his birth. He often recited, Jine Lahore nahin Vekhya oh Jamya hi Nahin (One who has not seen Lahore is as good as not having been born at all) (p. 193). Like many other people who left their ancestral homes (thinking they would be back), he had a photographic imprint of the city in his mind, remembering every nook and cranny of the congested Androon Shehr. Professor Tahir Kamran organised a two-day conference at GC University on ‘Punjab and the Raj’ in 2006 and Pran was invited to speak at this conference. I distinctly remember a moment from then, when another friend from Lahore, Bilal Ahmed was driving the car, and Pran was seated in the front and me in the back. We were in the walled city, trying to locate a venue and unsure about the exact location. Immediately, Pran started to navigate and provide directions. He said he can never forget the streets of his Lahore, despite all the changes since his he was a student in the city. It was a heart-warming and amusing moment we never forgot.

Never-ending Retirement

Pran graduated during the political and international upheaval of World War Two. His desire was topursue a PhD at the London School of Economics, but the uncertainty of that period prompted him to take up an opportunity at the Bureau of Public Information in 1944 as an assistant journalist. After a series of different posts, he was selected for the Indian Foreign Service Board in 1955 as second secretary (commercial) (Carefree Days, p. 46). He joined the Ministry of External Affairs as an attaché in March 1959 and subsequently was posted in Warsaw (1962), Belgrade (1966) and Moscow (1969). By 1974, he was back at the Ministry of Commerce as deputy secretary (East Europe). After that came the opportunity to go to Chicago in 1977, which he recalls ended his “eventful official link with the socialist world of East Europe” (p. 148). During this period, he also had a short stint in Geneva which allowed him to develop his links with the UNDP, which ultimately paved the way for a second career. Soon after in May 1979, he took premature retirement, leaving after 35 years of professional life. He was now the programme coordinator for the UNCTAD, based in Geneva and this allowed him to rekindle his relationship with East Europe until 1985, when he returned back to India. One of the highlights of this stint surely was when he took on the role of a priest and performed the marriage rites for one of his friends in Geneva; a story he often shared with relish.

For a conventional diplomat, Pran was more austere and radical in his personal life. As he recalls in his autobiography, he developed an “abhorrence for this ostentatious tamasha and meaningless jubilation” (p. 49) that surrounded elaborate engagements and wedding ceremonies. In this endeavour, he developed a friendship with Savitri (daughter of an uncle who was married to Pran’s father’s first cousin!), often acting as her mentor and encouraging her towards the pursuit of knowledge and education. He first noticed her in July 1941, as a young man discovering his own self, and by January 1947, they had eloped and had a civil ceremony in Delhi. Early reservations against this marriage were put aside by their families, and he remained with Savitri until she died in 2013. A spark in him went after that.

The Last Calling

After his retirement from work, he decided to embark on yet another career, but this time, it started as an unplanned script. It was in 1987, when he first started making frequent trips to the IIC, spending his days in the library and often using this as office space for his writing. Initially, he only ventured towards his expertise area and wrote on economic matters, but it was not long before his real passion emerged and he turned his gaze towards other subjects, which included his hometown Lahore, nautch girls, dance and music. Feedback from these early forays in small articles gave him confidence to continue with this newfound passion; although one of his earliest writings dates back to 1949, when he wrote ‘Problem of the Mother-in-Law’ which was published in Caravan magazine. His first full-length literary work was inevitably on Lahore, as he recalls: “My desire was to take the reader on a pilgrimage to my Lahore of a bygone era of peace and plenty” (p. 171). The idea for the book was actually conceived way back in 1963 in Hotel Astoria, Geneva. On his seventieth birthday he received the advance copy from the publisher of his first book, Lahore: A Sentimental Journey.

This journey led him to write prolifically on the era of the British Raj. Being a product of that era, he imbued the character of the Brown Sahib and carved out a niche for himself, focusing on the social and cultural history of the British Raj. His fascination for visual and performing arts led him to unearth a vivid and richer history, which he energised many around him with. During the last few years of his life, he reserved his love for K.L. Saigal, the “immortal singer and superstar” (p. 189). My own recollections of Pran were always of visiting him in Gurgaon, chatting at length while nibbling on namkeens, and with the nostalgia of 1940s and 1950s music playing in the background. Those days are no more nor are those, which is his own words read:

“I belong to the vanishing generation of pre-partition days who were forced to leave their homeland but carried ‘Lahore’ in their hearts like the memory of a first love. Overpowered by nostalgia, we still recall the days when Lahore had attained the reputation of being the ‘Paris of the East’ where people of different communities live in harmony in the sunshine of their common heritage, historic bonds and flamboyant Punjabi culture.” (Carefree Days, p. 194).

India, Pakistan, Partition

Ludhiana and Lyallpur: A tale of two cities

08/14/2024 Pippa Leave a comment

I was preparing for a forthcoming History conference in Lyallpur when I started browsing and jumped from one rabbit hole to another. Sometimes research is like that, you need to explore and get lost in the lanes of history to find something. I did get the inspiration I wanted but I also ended up with more information than I needed. Amongst all of this is a list of some well-known people who were born in Ludhiana or Lyallpur. I was more interested in the direct links between these cities and the people that migrated between these two, as my I have a long-standing research and personal interest in both cities. However, those links were not always present, but it is still interesting to see the kind of people who emerged from these localities and migrated following the Partition.

Ludhiana and Lyallpur were in fact only small towns before Partition, and interestingly both have iconic colonial clock towers in the town centre; both are important industrial textile hubs in the region; both had 62% ‘other’ populations prior to 1947 (according to the 1941 census, 62% Muslims lived in Ludhiana and 62% Sikhs/Hindus in Lyallpur); and finally, both function as important diasporic cities in contemporary Punjab(s).

Typically I tried to find women, but sadly the list of people is mostly male bar two! I hope to continue adding to the list as I find more people or please leave a comment if you know any other people with Ludhiana-Lyallpur links.

Note: the source for the information below is mainly through browsing and do not claim it as my own work. I have only selected a people I was interested in and that were born before 1947 and migrated following the Partition.

From Ludhiana…

Abu Anees Muhammad Barkat Ali Ludhianvi (1911 – 1997) was a Muslim Sufi who belonged to the Qadiri spiritual order. He was the founder of the non-political, non-profit, religious organisation, Dar-ul-Ehsan. Abu Anees’s followers spread all around the world and especially in Pakistan. He was born in Ludhiana where his father was a landlord.

Agha Ali Abbas Qizilbash also known as Agha Talish, (1923 –1998) was a Pakistani actor who made his debut in 1947 and was mostly known and recognized in Pakistan for playing character actor or villain roles. Talish was honoured by a Pride of Performance award, by the Government of Pakistan in 1989. Talish was born in Ludhiana, and his breakthrough film in Pakistan was film producer Saifuddin Saif’s Saat Lakh (1957) where his on-screen performance for this popular hit song was widely admired, Yaaro Mujhe Maaf Rakho Mein Nashe Mein Hoon.

Ajaz Anwar (1946-) is a Pakistani painter. He was a gold medalist at Punjab University, and he completed his M.A. in Fine Arts from Punjab University. Later, he went to teach at National College of Arts Lahore. His watercolour paintings show the grandeur of the old buildings and the cultural life in Lahore. Born in Ludhiana in 1946, his father was a cartoonist who apparently had stirred his passion from childhood and from whom he drew his inspiration.

Anwar Ali (1922-2004) was a Pakistani Editorial Newspaper Cartoonist in Pakistan Times based in Lahore. Anwar Ali was the creator of famous character Nanna, was the first newspaper cartoonist associated with The Pakistan Times. He was born in Ludhiana, where he spent his childhood. He did his BA from Government College Ludhiana.

Chaudhary Abdul Hayee Gujjar (1921 – 1980), popularly known by his pen name Sahir Ludhianvi, was an Indian poet who wrote primarily in Urdu in addition to Hindi. He is regarded as one of the greatest film lyricists and poets of twentieth century India. Sahir was born in Karimpura, Ludhiana to a Punjabi Muslim Gujjar family.

Habib-ur-Rehman Ludhianvi (1892 – 1956) was one of the founders of Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam. He belonged to an Arain (tribe) and was a direct lineal descendant of Shah Abdul Qadir Ludhianvi, the freedom fighter against British Colonial rule during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. He chose to stay back in Ludhiana to continue representing the thousands of Muslims still remaining there after the partition in August 1947. The ancestral masjid in Field Ganj still exists today.

Hameed Akhtar (1923 – 2011), was a newspaper columnist, writer, journalist and the secretary-general of the Progressive Writers Association in Pakistan. He was also the father of TV actresses Saba Hameed, Huma Hameed and Lalarukh Hameed. He finished his basic education in Ludhiana and was a childhood friend of renowned poets Sahir Ludhianvi and Ibn-e-Insha

Munawar Sultana (1924- 1995) was born in Ludhiana and was a Pakistani radio and film singer. She is known for vocalizing first ever hit Lollywood songs like, “Mainu Rab Di Soun Tere Naal Piyar Ho Gya” (Film: Pheray 1949), “Wastae Rab Da Tu Jaanvi We Kabootra” (Film: Dulla Bhatti 1956),and “Ae Qaid-e-Azam, Tera Ehsan Hay, Ehsan” (Film: Bedari 1957).

Saadat Hasan Manto (1912 – 1955) was a Pakistani writer, playwright and author who was active in British India and later, after the 1947 partition of India, in Pakistan. Saadat Hassan Manto was born in Paproudi village of Samrala, in Ludhiana district to a Muslim family of barristers. Ethnically the family were Kashmiri.

From Lyallpur

Grahanandan Nandy Singh (1926 – 2014) was an Indian field hockey player who won two gold medals, at the 1948 and 1952 Summer Olympics. There is a documentary film on the team by Bani Singh titled, ‘Taangh/Longing’. Singh began playing hockey while studying at the Government College in Lahore, serving as captain of their hockey team in 1945 and 1946. After the Partition, he moved to Calcutta and played for Bengal when he was selected to the 1948 Indian Olympic team.

Harnam Singh Rawail (1921 – 2004), often credited as H. S. Rawail, was an Indian filmmaker. He debuted as a director with the 1940 Bollywood film Dorangia Daku and is best known for romantic films like Mere Mehboob (1963), Sunghursh (1968), Mehboob Ki Mehndi (1971) and Laila Majnu (1976). Rawail was born in Lyallpur and moved to Mumbai to become a filmmaker.

Inderjeet Singh (1926 –2023), also known as Imroz, was an Indian visual artist and poet. He was the partner of the poet, novelist, and writer Amrita Pritam, and they lived together until Amrita’s death in 2005. Inderjeet Singh was born in Chak number 36, Lyallpur.

Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri (1917 –2013) was an Indian politician. He was the oldest surviving member of the founding Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Prior to the Partition of India, Lyallpuri’s family owned roughly 150–180 acres in Lyallpur. The family moved to Ludhiana following the Partition.

Jaswant Rai Sharma (1928 –2017), popularly known by his pen name Naqsh Lyallpuri, was an Indian ghazal and Bollywood film lyricist. He is best known for the songs “Rasm-e-Ulfat Ko Nibhayen” (Dil Ki Rahen, 1973), “Ulfat Mein Zamaane Ki” (Call Girl, 1974), “Tumhe Ho Na Ho” (Gharonda, 1977), “Yeh Mulaqaat Ek Bahana Hai ” (Khandaan, 1979), “Pyar Ka Dard Hai” (Dard, 1981), and “Chitthiye Ni Dard Firaaq Vaaliye” (Henna, 1991). He was born in Lyallpur to a Punjabi Brahmin family, where his father was a mechanical engineer.

Lal Chand Yamla Jatt (1910 – 1991) was a noted Indian folk singer in the Punjabi-language. His trademark was his soft strumming of the tumbi and his turban tying style known traditionally as “Turla”. Many consider him to be the pinnacle of the Punjabi music and an artist who arguably laid the foundation of contemporary Punjabi music in India. He was born to Khera Ram and Harnam Kaur in Chak No. 384, Lyallpur. After partition, they relocated to the Jawahar Nagar, Ludhiana.

Prithviraj Kapoor (1906 –1972) was an Indian actor who is also considered to be one of the founding figures of Hindi cinema. He was associated with Indian People’s Theatre Association as one of its founding members and established the Prithvi Theatres in 1944 as a travelling theatre company based in Bombay. He was born in Samundri into a Punjabi Hindu Khatri family. His father, Dewan Basheshwarnath Kapoor, was a police officer in the Indian Imperial Police. His grandfather, Dewan Keshavmal Kapoor, and his great-grandfather, Dewan Murli Mal Kapoor, were Tehsildars in Samundri near Lyallpur.

Romesh Chandra (1919 – 2016) was a leader of the Communist Party of India (CPI). He took part in the Indian independence struggle as student leader of CPI after joining it in 1939. He held various posts within the party. He became president of the World Peace Council in 1977. He was born in Lyallpur and got his degree in Lahore and another one from Cambridge.

S.D. Narang (1918-1986) was born in Lyallpur. He was a director and producer, known for Dilli Ka Thug (1958), Anmol Moti (1969) and Shehnai (1964). He graduated in Biology from Government College, Lahore and did his MBBS from King Medical Collage, Lahore.

Sunder Singh Lyallpuri (1878 – 1969) was a leading Sikh member of the Indian independence movement, a general of the Akali Movement, an educationist, and journalist. Lyallpuri played a key role in the development of the Shiromani Akali Dal, and in the Gurdwara Reform Movement of the early 1920s and also founding member of Central Sikh League.

Teji Harivansh Rai Srivastava Bachchan (1914 – 2007) was an Indian social activist, the wife of Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and mother of Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan. Teji was Born into a Punjabi Sikh Khatri family in Lyallpur.

Gallery, Pakistan, Poetry Corner, Short Essays

Bahar ayee (It Is Spring Again) by Faiz

03/31/2023 Pippa Leave a comment

bahār aa.ī to jaise yak-bār

lauT aa.e haiñ phir adam se

vo ḳhvāb saare shabāb saare

jo tere hoñToñ pe mar-miTe the

jo miT ke har baar phir jiye the

nikhar ga.e haiñ gulāb saare

jo terī yādoñ se mushkbū haiñ

jo tere ushshāq kā lahū haiñ

ubal paḌe haiñ azaab saare

malāl-e-ahvāl-e-dostāñ bhī

ḳhumār-e-āġhosh-e-mah-vashāñ bhī

ġhubār-e-ḳhātir ke baab saare

tire hamāre

savāl saare javāb saare

bahār aa.ī to khul ga.e haiñ

na.e sire se hisāb saare

Source: Rekta.org

English Translation by Agha Shahid Ali

It is spring, And the ledger is opened again.
From the abyss where they were frozen,
those days suddenly return, those days
that passed away from your lips, that died
with all our kisses, unaccounted.
The roses return: they are your fragrance;
they are the blood of your lovers.
Sorrow returns. I go through my pain
and the agony of friends still lost in the memory
of moon-silver arms, the caresses of vanished women.
I go through page after page. There are no answers,
and spring has come once again asking
the same questions, reopening account after account.