The Lost Glory
There is nothing like Lahore,( Lahore Lahore Hai ). The city of Lahore is famous for Mughal era buildings, warmth of the people and lively atmosphere. According to one saying , one cannot look at the modern buildings without thinking about the historical ones. Old buildings are rare, unique, magical, artistic and poetic which captures the hearts . So, to feel the magic and beauty of visual art, our last session for lifelong learning class at Amal Academy went to old city of Lahore. The purpose of this session was to released the stress of journey by witnessing the rare beauty of so called structured walled city. We started our tour with class on Metro at 9:00 am in the morning . It was my first experience of travelling on Metro Bus. I felt that it was great bus service. We reached at Minar-e-Pakistan station in twenty minutes. It was bright sunny day. At start, I felt that we will be tired soon and this trip will not be fun at all. But, I was totally wrong. First we went to Minar-e-Pakistan to have a photo session. Unfortunately, we could not stayed there more because of scorching heat and construction work .
After that , we went to Badshahi Mosque where our guide ( Mudaser) joined us. My group has been assigned to told the history of the Mosque . We enjoyed this activity a lot . Our guide also told some amazing facts of history . At that time, I could felt that how Kings used to lived in their full majestic rule.
The walled city of Lahore had basically 12 gates and one mori ( hole) . Unfortunately , today there were no gates and walls because habitants of these areas need no fences and hindrances in their lifestyle. there was only gate left in its original form that was between badshahi mosque and Lahore Fort is known as Roshnai Gate.
After that , we went to Lahore Fort , our guide told really interesting things about the Mughal regime and we enjoyed being guided in such a wonderful way. After ending the tour of Lahore Fort, my real surprises started when we entered into the streets of old city.
The streets were so narrow with open drainage system and full of bad odor. I was wondering one thing on my whole tour, people did not changed their living conditions even after 400 years . They have blocked the drainage with all types of garbage. People had thrown their garbage in front of their streets. To clean the streets and building sewerage system is only the duty of government ? People are not responsible for this. After 1 hour of walk, we reached Wazir Khan Mosque. I was really excited to see this mosque . As i have never seen this place before, The mosque was really beautiful having colorful calligraphy and tile painting.
Our last destination was visit of Shahi Hamam ( Turkish style bath )near Delhi gate . This place was renovated by Agha Khan Cultural foundation in 2015 and won the award from UNESCO as one of best heritage site. I loved this place , it was so peaceful and calm . This hamam was built for rich people of that time to had steam and cold bath for relaxation. It was magnificent piece of best architecture . I was impressed by the wall and roof paintings. One best thing was how they thought of such bathing system at that time. The planning and structure was so perfect.
At end of the day , we had covered 14 km of distance by walking in almost 8 hours. We did not get tired because we need to explore more and more . The trip was life time memorable trip. I really felt relaxed and super energetic. I think we forget to maintain a balance in life which is very important. We should take some free time from our busy routines to explore such places .
As every journey leaves some thoughts to ponder upon, I have also some questions to be answered. Everyone said that old buildings are part of rich heritage , then how will we able to conserve the old buildings ad rebuild the walled city. The most important thing we should realized is that how could we declared the damages walls and gates as a heritage. Who will come forward for saving the lost glory of walled city. It is the high time to think upon.