The Ghosts of Lahore’s Old City

Even though the streets of this Lahore have
had countless names over myriad centuries,
it’s easy to become lost.

And on days like today, I want to get 
lost in this Old City and in the older cities
on whose rubble this one stands.

It’s the spring season of basant when the clutter from
the flutter of kites flown from roof tops
of the Old City reminds me of a band of jockeying bluejays.

Each player seeks to maneuver his kite, whose
string is plastered in glass, to cut down the strings of others’ 
kites until he—always a he—is the last boy flying.

The string is illegal technically.
Necks have been cut, fingers severed, and young children killed. 
But its use perdures because it is effective.

The kites are made of nothing
really, just the thinnest of paper and delicate dowels 
held together with paste. And that dangerous string.

They soar into the sky, buoyed by basant’s famed breezes,
projections of blossoming manhoods, one by one falling, 
forming the latest detritus collecting in these gallis.

From my rooftop repose, I watch the kites leap up, 
jostle, and maneuver to take out the neighbor’s kite. 
It is titillating, especially with the lurking possibility of injury.

On joyous days, it’s easy to forget those who inhabited these houses before
the British cleaved this blood-stained Pakistan from the flesh of the erstwhile Raj,
and the communal carnage that left rivers of blood that soaked these streets.

Sikhs and Hindus made these houses their homes
until the Muslim mobs came to drive them out, while
Sikh and Hindus in nearby Amritsar did the same to their Muslim neighbors.

Trains arrived from the east, red with blood and laden with the viscera
of Muslim escapees while trains from the west returned with the 
corpses of Sikhs and Hindus. No one was safe or beyond suspicion.

There are some men here—in the winters of their lives—who torched a home, 
slit a throat, raped a neighbor or stabbed a communal other lurking
in the warren of the alleyways of this Old Lahore, peering out from their aged, glassy eyes.

Their hands haven’t forgotten their crimes. Their ears recall 
their victims’ cries. Their eyes remember the injured or
lifeless flesh they left behind. And on some days they still weep.

Today the ghosts of those long dead wander these streets,
now festooned with signage for the urses of pirs, scented with the perfume of kabobs 
simmering on charcoals and nan baking in neighborhood tandoors, littered with fallen kites.

Hakims discretely sit on the ground by the sidewalks and intersections
hawking cures for sexual disease and dysfunction—
dried ground lizards and snakes, deer antlers, safed musli.

The haleem vendors lure in their customers with 
the wafting fragrance of their chicken, dal and wheat, a
hearty lava-like porridge with nan still steaming.

The sabzi wallah calls out his vegetable wares
“Mere kol loki, gajjar, matter, methi, sarson”
and assurances of best prices. “Sab ton behter te sasta.”

Rickshaws loiter at the mouth of narrow alleyways
looking for prey, “Kithe ja rahe ho, madam?”
I walk quickly past them and their mendacious offers.

Today I walk. Walking is the best way of trying to remember
all of the Lahores that stood here before the Mughals,
the British, Partition and the emergence of this Land of the Pure, Pakistan.

A Lahore where Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims lived in 
communal symbiosis, celebrated each other’s holidays,
attended each other’s weddings and funerals and raced kites.

Walking is the best way of seeing the markings on the homes
--the oms and ek onkars—that indicate the residents
were not always Muslims.

Walking is the best way of seeing this Old Lahore before
shopping malls and high rises encroached upon the 
horizon from the lumbering suburbs.

Walking is the best way to imagine those who walked
these streets and alleyways whose ghosts also seem
to say “Remember me. Remember. Me. I once lived here.”



Glossary
Basant: Basant is a vibrant spring festival celebrated in parts of South Asia, particularly in Punjab, India, and Pakistan. It is closely associated with kite flying, marking the arrival of spring with colorful kites filling the sky.

Galli: Narrow path or street. 

Urs:  : A commemoration of the death anniversary of a Sufi saint, celebrated with prayers, music, and gatherings at the saint's shrine

Pir: Sufi saint. 

Hakim: In South Asia and the Middle East, a Hakim refers to a practitioner of Unani medicine, a system of healing based on ancient Greek principles

Tandoor: Clay Oven

Sabzi wallah: Vegetable vendor

Mere kol loki, gajjar, matter, methi, sarson: I have bottle gourd, carrots, peas and fenugreek.

Sab ton behter te sasta: The best and cheap.

Kithe ja rahe ho, madam: Where are you going, Madam?

Om: Om is a sacred sound and symbol (ॐ)  in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

 Ek onkar: Ek Onkar is a fundamental symbol (ੴ) and phrase in Sikhism, representing the belief in one supreme reality.

C. Christine Fair is a Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University. She completed her PhD in South Asian Languages and Civilization at the University of Chicago. Her creative pieces have appeared in Hyptertext, Lunch Ticket, Bangalore Review, Glassworks, and Existere Journal of Arts, among others in addition to her prodigious scholarly work. She causes trouble in multiple languages: Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi.