Movies and Punjab: the Bollywood connection of Sarai Lashkari Khan

Date: 2^nd June, 2012, Saturday

Location: Sarai Lashkari Khan, Settlement Kot Panech, District: Kapurthala, Punjab

Most of my generation wouldn’t know or care two hoots about Doraha Sarai, Sarai Lashkari Khan or the GT or any of the Mughal precincts. What we do care about are our movies, our actors, our celebrities and their lives. When we were en route the GT, headed to the Sarai Lashkari Khan, I was told that this was That Fort-like structure which was filmed in Rand de Basanti- the blockbuster hit movie of 2006, which fetched accolades and critical acclaim for its realism and inspirational value. The scene in the song Roobaroo, where the four renegades – Aamir, Sharman, Karan and Kunal all chase an Indian Army jet fighter flying overhead and jump up in the air attempting to catch it- all shirtless, waving their shirts in the air through a dense and tall growth of weeds running across the courtyard of the fort. It was youth in its full glory. Finding places away from the eyes of the people to be liberated, like free birds. I still get the same feeling everytime I watch the movie and the song with the fort in the backdrop. I call it a fort because that’s what we all used to call it- how most moviegoers- or common man/ men- still call it.

Movie promos of Rang De Basanti, song Roobaroo shot at Sarai Lashkari Khan

No one knew this is a Sarai. We didn’t know what a Sarai was in the first place, least of all that it was on the Grand Trunk road and had a name- Sarai Lashkari Khan. On my way to the sarai I could visualise the whole scene from the movie over and over again, it was one of my favorites. Second only to the scene from Dil Chahta Hai where Aamir, Akshay and Saif are sitting on the parapet of another old fort in Goa planning to come to that spot every year ritualistically as a mark of undiluted friendship. And with each turn, my excitement grew higher.

When we reached Sarai Lashkari Khan, I felt a little bubble inside me go pop, however vane it may sound. I had thought that once RDB was a blockbuster, probably the authorities might have realised the value of such picturesque ruins and might have capitalised on it to open up the monument for the public. I had visualised a-la Bekal Fort – the fort in Kasargode, Kerala which rose to fame upon the release of Mani Ratnam’s Bombay for featuring in the song “Kannanale... (Kehna hi kya)”. While one had become a well kept tourist spot, the other was still in ruins.

  

Scenes from the song kannale/kehna hee kya from Bombay, shot in Bekal Fort.

Sarai Lashkari Khan has an interesting history. To quote from Jaya Basera’s story of Sarai Lashkari Khan : “Information about the sarai in sources is very little. Lashkar Khan was not a name of a person but a title that had been awarded to him. The title suggests that the person was a military commander in Aurangzeb’s army. The sarai is said to have been constructed sometime between 1669-70 A.D as trading activities were on an all time high in Kashmir while Aurangzeb was in Shahajhanabad and to accommodate the traders and travelers to and fro Kashmir new sarai were to be build on the Delhi – Lahore stretch of the road, Sarai Lashkari Khan having been constructed with that understanding.”

But my take on the subject is not architectural. It is social. When we visited the sarai, its courtyard had the same black ‘charred’ soil that many fields en route had. It is an agricultural practice in Punjab(most of agrarian India) that once the crop has been harvested the last crop is burnt for the good health of the soil, to rid it of residues, crop wastes, weeds, insects etc and prolong its fertility before the next crop is sown. Seeing the same charred spots on the soil meant people had used this sarai for cultivation. When I asked around I was told Ajay Devgan was to come here to shoot some scene in which he wanted the sarai’s courtyard to be cultivated with yellow flower-bearing crop (maybe sarson I think) and the crop had to be a certain height- about 4 feet or so. They had prepped the court for that. Once that was done, they burnt the crop when they heard the word from the State Archaeological Deptt. that a few people from CRCI were going for a site visit there soon – that meant us.

To these farmers and the villagers these movies were bringing in revenue. It was much more useful to cultivate crops to the whims of actors and directors than follow conservation guidelines or help us architects preserve the structure the way we foresaw it to happen.

But is it necessarily a bad thing? What do we have against change and adaptation? Okay, agriculture inside a historic structure can seem horrifying, but these people live in the present, not the past. They associate this monument to Ajay Devgans and Aamir Khans and the movies that have been shot here. If this Sarai has a cinematographic value, why can we not accept it and work around it? Isn’t a structure as important as it is in the present? I mean what use is a structure if its sits dissociated with society and dilapidated as well. Aren’t our methods to emphasize its significance all null and void if a decade after we move out of the place having restored it, it just falls right back to pieces because of neglect or lack of ownership? Isn’t dilapidated yet connected to the people a better treatment than restored yet unwanted? And can we actually just lecture people to stop shooting films here?

Son of Sardar scene shot in Sarai Lashkari Khan

I enjoyed watching the scene in Son of Sardar where Sonakshi Sinha drives into the sarai from the west gateway on a bike. She hits a wheelie in front of Devgan with Sarai Lashkari Khan in the background. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even when we were watching the trailer together Ridhima and Somya were busy spotting the gaping hole in the Mosque at Lashkari Khan visible for split seconds in the scene. I mean, come on…heights of conservationism and maybe institutionalization of our minds to only think as architects before we thinking as common man. Well if architecture is a service to society, then the thought process should be the flipside of this- as a common man (a person at the user end) first and then as an architect.

No one has heard of caravans for centuries now. Trading caravans are a forgone culture of the past. The world moved one to better ways of doing trade. Trade is not really carried out on the Grand Trunk road anymore. And Sarai’s were built to house moving Caravans- they are called “Caravansarai(s)”. So now if the people have started encroachment because they serve as better homes than they do now as trading motels then it is the culture of the present. Culture is dynamic, it is ever evolving. Then why does heritage and architecture have to be static? How can the people associate themselves to the Sarai’s if all we keep telling them is “don’t do this here, and don’t do that here.” If they have forgotten why it stood there in the first place, it is to us to remind them, to teach them and equip them with knowledge, because without knowledge of the past preserving the present is impossible.

Movies were once called talkies. I assume it’s probably because they talk to the people as before them movies might have been mute. I didn't Google it because I want to keep my ignorance intact in this case. And movies have been known to be a social stimulus among the youth. They bring the present and the past to the people and put it out there for them to watch, witness, judge and not just be entertained by. In days when talkies never existed, we depended on the printed word for making ourselves heard. Today the movies do it for us. So I think talkies are good, they are Socially Relevant. Maybe we could use them to convey heritage conservation related issues as well, in the way that it reaches the masses and makes them a party to the responsibility of ownership and belongingness to the historicity of their settlements.

Caravansarai : Short Stories from the GT Road (06)

Day 03: From Rajgarh to Hansali

Woh Bargad ka Paed : A 100 year old banyan tree

Date: 2^nd June, 2012, Saturday

Location: Settlement Sarai Banjaran, District: Patiala, Punjab

Baradari of Sarai Banjaran, Sarai Banjaran, Punjab

The team for the trip venturing into the tree cluster

As we neared the Baradari and the historic tank of Sarai Banjaran located at a distance from the main settlement houses, we also passed by a small stretch of dense green patch with thick foliage. (Baradari also Bara Dari (Urdu: بارہ دری‎) is a building or pavilion with 12 doors designed to allow free flow of air.^[1] The structure has three doorways on every side of the square shaped structure. Bara in Urdu/Hindi means Twelve and Dar is door. Courtesy: www.wikipedia.org.) 

Inside the wilderness

On our way back, our car was made to take us to the forested patch, and it so happened that this wasn’t a patch of trees. It was One tree. Singular! This Banyan tree was over a hundred years old and had a small village Mandir next to it. The branches of the Banyan had evidently just outgrown the mother tree so far off that the viral growth spread across the surroundings to form a dense cluster.

Photos by Author

So what seems like a group of trees are actually all offshoots of the same tree complexly networked together at untraceable junctions. The micro-climate as one enters the dense trees is markedly different. The temperature lowers down as the sun doesn’t penetrate through the dense foliage. 

The biodiversity of the place is quite varied as well. The patch happens to be a little humid as very little wind/breeze passes through the dense trees/branches. But the place is full of peacocks, owls, large spiders, and god knows what else.

Aerial roots of the Banyan

It is believed that the people of Sarai Bajaran (As almost any part of India be it urban or rural) perceive the tree as sacred and symbolic; vary of cutting any part of it out. All I could feel was an exhilaration as if I was out in the untamed growth, the wild outback. Some strange rush! I was chasing an owl down on full zoom with my camera...and the thing finally sat down on one tree and as if to mock me looked straight into the lens. It freaked the hell out of me with its fixed stare and a single echoing hoot but I got the shot. The others were busy spotting other (more important) things .. hehehe. 

Cobwebs

I got the owl and the spider cobwebs. 
As we walked out of that habitat, we were animatedly discussing how unexplored this mini-jungle was, one would just chance upon it and how it could be observed to get a glimpse into the biodiversity of the region, and maybe even examine the other flora - herbs and shrubs that were growing alongside the tree. Who knew what else would reveal itself? 

The Owl ... Photo : Author

Months later I find myself at Baroda (Vadodara) and I see myself observing more and more of such old trees - Banyan to be precise. There is one right next to the department of Sanskrit at the M.S. University that would least be a half a century old. The tree is again a Banyan. There are a few really old trees a the E.M.E. Temple in Baroda Cantt. The trees in the EME temple even have a story to them. There is one right at the entrance to my office/apartment building and thats where I see my favorite family of seven squirrels.

But Baroda is a different chapter. Read on for more...

Caravansarai : Short Stories from the GT Road (05)

Tombs Strewn about the fields

Location: Settlement Sirhind and Mahadiyan, District: Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab

Tomb of Mir-Miran, Dera Mir-Miran, Punjab

Most of what I learnt of Conservation Architecture comes from the conversations I had with my seniors during my tenure at CRCI. I remember a few of us gathering one of those few times, and discussing why were we conserving the tombs of Sirhind in the first place? I mean, what was the point? They had lost their association with the present society. They were literally “kheton ke beech mein…” (in the middle of fields) if one had witnessed their plight in reality. They were strewn about the vast agricultural landscape of Sirhind, Mahadiyan and Dera Mira Miran. And sadly, many had just been getting worse over the past few decades. They meant as much to the locals who knew better than to destroy them completely as long as the tombs kept out of the way of their agricultural practices. I remember seeing one of the tombs in Mahadiyan within or almost within which the irrigation/ water-pumping system for a nearby field had been installed- so maybe this tomb had gotten in someone’s way after all?!!

Tomb of Hathi & Ghoda, Talanian

It isn’t that we could really make a huge tourist influx into these locations for the locals to value or safeguard these structures for monetary gains. What is that the people would value and that which would still be manifest in these buildings that would make the people want to be active guardians of their own structures? Granted they may have been important in their day, but compared to so many others, these weren’t architecturally marvelous either. I agree that architectural magnificence can’t be the basis of whether or not we choose to preserve historic structures. The very fact that they have history tied to them is criteria enough for us to have to preserve them. But merely preserving the architecture and letting the history die is also an egg and chicken problem. Maybe in the larger context of the Grand Trunk road and the stories that spun it together, it made sense to have to preserve these to join the narrative dots as one went along. But just looking at some of these architectural pieces, one wondered, how would one ever get the community involved into a space which could not fetch them income, which needed them to invest care and attention, and which over time may even get dilapidated? More so than it already had.

Tomb of Haj-O-Taj, Dera Mir-Miran

But then this brought us many larger issues to debate upon. Had the community been involved in the conservation of these structures from inception as ideally, by now the conservation architects would have moved out of here, knowing that the community could uphold their history. The tombs strewn about the fields of Sirhind or Mahadiyan or Dera Mira Miran remind us that this cannot be a solo game-plan. An architect, a historian, a conservation architect, a sociologist, the panchayat, the community and the government, all are players in the game. It has to be a team effort. Often in our idealistic musings we believe that it is our opinion alone that matters- the strongest opinion. Sorry, but if you stood in those fields for years lecturing the villagers to stop plough-ing around the structures, or maybe just help upkeep them, do you think they would listen? Where was the government and its archaeological authority when Kos Minars were falling off left right and center into fields, or people’s neighborhoods or in some cases right into people’s privately owned land or their front-yards?

Tomb of Ustad as seen from Tomb of Mir-Miran, Dera Mir-Miran

All parties should be made to be a part of the project. I think the approach should be that the communities need our help to comprehend the history and value of these structure and we need theirs to ensure their upkeep. We also need to understand how much a structure means monetarily and how much it means culturally. Neither can function independently. And until we get to understand the system from the people’s point of view and then alter it, change is hard to come by.

Tombs of Ustad and Shagird, Talanian

But then this is just my opinion. Standing in those fields clicking those pictures, I knew it was highly insignificant what I took back from this site, if those who owned those fields took nothing out of this sight. If to them those tombs were just incoherent pieces of history stuck there like museum pieces dissociated with and disowned by the present, then things would just keep getting worse hereon…like tombs getting in the way of agriculture. 

Caravansarai : Short Stories from the GT Road (04)

Day 02

Date: 1^st June, 2012, Location: Lal Masjid, District: Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab

Chhabeel ka Pani

Photos: Author , The Lal Masjid, Fatehgarh Sahib (nr. Railway Station)

Lal Masjid

The Chabeel volunteers

Stopping at the chhabeel tent

Lal Masjid, Beside FategarhSahib Railway Station

The month in which we visited the GT in Punjab was called “Saawan” or “Shravan”- the month named after the monsoons. It is supposed to be the hottest month of the year according to the Hindu calendar which is evident by the relentless Loo winds that blow across the plains of the country during this period.

The time of the year when we visited Punjab was also religiously significant to the Sikhs as the Shaheed/ Shahidi Purab- the day marking the martyrdom of the fifth  Sikh guru- Guru Arjan Dev was around the corner. 

It is said that the Guru was made to go through five days of extreme torture which saw him being subjected to sitting on a hot plate, boiling water and with hot sand poured over his forehead.

Guru Arjan Dev had refused to give the hand of his stunningly beautiful daughter in marriage to the son of Chandu- the financial advisor and a courtier of Akbar’s, and had in return earned the fury of the courtier who subjected the Guru to such grotesque suffering.

The Guru was said to have taken a dip in the river Raavi flowing nearby on the insistence of Chandu who “reveled at the thought that the Guru's body full of blisters, would undergo greater pain when dipped in cold water… Crowds watched the Master standing in the river and having a dip. The light blended with Light and the body was found nowhere.” (Source:www.sikhiwiki.org). 

To commemorate his act of martyrdom Shaheedi/ Shahidi Purab is celebrated. The people of Punjab set up stalls called Chhabeels which distribute sweetened water/ butter milk to the passers-by on the roads as well outside Gurudwaras all across Punjab. 

The Fatehgarh Sahib Station

The act of philanthropy and good will was touching for travelers like us. It has no monetary gains. It has just the satisfaction of serving society and a faith, a respect for the ideology one follows. The water was slightly rosy, and in places tasted like rose-flavored lassi… but it was hard to miss, and was welcome stoppage for almost the whole of our trip.

Caravansarai : Short Stories from the GT Road (03 - B)

Day 01

Date: 31^st May 2012,Location: Aam Khas Bagh, Sirhind, Fatehgarh Sahib

Of practices and mal-practices

He (RaamKaran ji - the Gardener) said it happened a few years ago at a “Jor Mela” wherein people turned up in multiples of lakhs. The story goes that Fategarh Sahib is named after a story in itself. 

The story within the Jor Mela Story is that Gurudwara Fatehgarh Sahib marks the land where the sons of the tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, who were entombed alive. Fategarh Sahib is also the “City of Victory” named after Banda Bahadur. Banda Bahadur razed and overran the Mughal rule and gained control of the Fort built during Balban’s Rule. 

So to commemorate this victory of the Sikhs over the Muslims, the Jor Mela is held every year where people gather in large numbers, nearing lakhs and run havoc over these Mughal Structures, dislodging the bricks from the buildings. Removing one nanakshahi brick per person is a customary act of faith. 

So deeply rooted is this act that it has become a ceremonial symbol of the Jor Mela.

It is much to the shock and regrets of conservationists that popular belief and faith can be detrimental to our built heritage, as we see that not only a heritage structure but even the modern one wasn't spared of this one.

It raised a lot of questions in my mind. Principally, was building a modern structure in historic precincts a recipe for disaster to begin with? If we build a boutique hotel in a Mughal Garden complex we would be catalyzing commercialization of the surroundings. As the tourist inflow increases, the ancillary facilities will increase. Like in most cases the growth could be uncontrolled, unforeseen, unplanned and mushroomed. Unless if we forcibly lay down guidelines for the facade treatment/ architectural vocabulary to be followed so that the streetscape around the complex doesn't turn into an abomination- which seemed highly unlikely as it would stimulate a high-maintenance and a premeditated involvement of urban/rural planning/development authorities of the state. As the infrastructure required to facilitate tourist inflow would increase, the urbanization could perhaps become an eye-sore and as was inevitable the agricultural landscape of the area might even get compromised. But there is a flip-side to this.

What if the hotel would end up being a grand failure? I feared that the amount of revenue that was going to be invested into building this structure may not reap as much profit from it. Does the community here really need a Spa and Recreation facility or is it just an eye-wash? Will they even use a hotel and if yes, then for how many months of the year? Probably just during the festival/ religious/ pilgrimage season. A commercial facility inside a historic complex just seems like fuel for a major row waiting to backfire. This was one lingering thought – an anticipated time bomb.

An afterthought of the sight of Aam Khas Bagh is that of how cultural practices and traditions can be detrimental to "built" heritage. The religious beliefs of the Sikhs and their devout following of their Gurus’ is a revered fact.  But destruction of buildings to commemorate the martyrdom of the massacred children of their saint… even if we try to argue it intellectually, can we stop people from practicing what they believe in? If yes, how? Conservationists may hold their stead that this reinforces their perception that cultural practices if allowed in endangered/ dilapidated structures may be detrimental to the tangible architectural heritage of the region, but can anyone stop the people from dislodging these bricks as a custom? 

No amount of fortification of the structures can stand the tide of time, faith or popular belief. It made me wonder that in a multicultural society such as India how does one resolve such issue and what do we keep as a higher priority over the other? Do we even need to resolve them? Isn’t architecture a manifestation of culture? Then whichever era that the Bagh was built in, if we argue to preserve the heritage of that era...what about the prevalent Sikh culture that encourages the Jor Mela and the symbolic vandalism associated with it? Their faith in their act is like our faith, our practices that evolve like our culture overtime… so how much of our tangible heritage needs preservation? And how much of it do we need to “let go” of.

Caravansarai : Short Stories from the GT Road (03 - A)

Day 01

Date: 31^st May 2012,Location: Aam Khas Bagh, Fatehgarh Sahib

What is the Maulsari in Maulsari Hotel? (Gyan ki Prapti)

Photos: Author, Eucalyptus trees alongside the Approach road

It started rather slow, with the Bharat Bandh making it difficult to navigate to the station. Nevertheless we made it to the fastest train in India- Shatabdi (theee fastest train that got delayed by an hour due to constant stoppages because of the Bandh). 

It was frustratingly slow. But we didn’t realize that we should have enjoyed that while we could because the moment we stepped out the heat slapped us flat across our faces.

We entered the car that awaited us outside and by jove no one could feel a whiff of air inside, although the air conditioner was blowing away to glory. We unconsciously napped in the car till about 1:00 pm in the afternoon we reached Mauslari Hotel, Aam Khas Bagh. 

The heat and the sun were getting to me, this being the first day. When I reached the to-be-Maulsari-hotel and was roaming around the structure, I hadn’t anticipated the disorientation the heat would cause. 

But then I started taking data down, from my file, my camera to the pencil, the dupatta and the disto: it slowly started driving me crazy. Soon the gardener of the complex, Ramkaran Ji joined me. The old man was gracious enough to offer me help seeing how hassled I look. He carried my stuff as I took down data and checked the drawings.

Bakul ke paed trees at a distance

He also talked me through the history of the place. He said this used be much more jovial than the battered junk it looked like now. It was like a family evening outdoors or a picnic spot with a restaurant to facilitate the locals on weekends and leisure time. I could only imagine what must have happened. 

Maulsari : I learnt today the meaning of the word ‘Maulsari’ – it was the name of the most widely planted trees in the complex. It helped to have Priyaleen ma’am join us the next day, since she answered my question on what was Maulsari.

According the Pradip Krishen, in his book Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide (pg 49) :-

Saptaparni 

The Maulsari/ The Maulshree/ The Bakul tree is a middle sized- tree branching low and forming a dense, dark, glossy head. Reputed evergreen it goes through a somewhat lean patch in Delhi in the month of March. A quintessential tree of the Mughal Gardens where it is pruned and shaped to look like a toy tree. Common in Delhi’s Parks and gardens but not often used in avenues. 

Cheeku ka Paed

Where to see it: The Mughal Gardens of Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Buddha Jayanti Park, planted along Saint Martin Marg – Chanakyapuri; at the western end of Rajpath, abutting Vijay Chowk. Most large parks have specimens. There are some large trees in the Humayun’s Tomb complex and in the Red Fort. He further mentions that “(it is) Widely cultivated in Inda and Pakistan but not much further North than Lahore and Delhi,” thus implying that the Mughal Gardens along the GT Road such as the Aam Khas Bagh/ Bagh-i-Hafiz Rakhna must have had large plantations of the maulsari. In its uses, he mentions “A traditional Ittar (perfume from the essential oil) is distilled from maulsari flowers.” Also many parts of the tree are used to cure various ailments ad have a range of medicinal and functional purposes.

We drank “Bael ka juice”, manufactured within the complex by the Horticulture Department. Sorry to say but the “Fruit Processing Lab” as they called the approx. 3m x 4m room was nowhere nearly as technical or fancy as it sounded. But for the primitive processing methods being used, the nectar of the fruit really eased out our irritated tummies… 

While we were exploring the exteriors- more like the outback of the hotel- we came across peacocks, peahens, weird (weird as in ones that I don't know of) birds, huge eagle feathers and snake skins.

Caravansarai : Short Stories from the GT Road (02)

Day 02

Date: 1^st June, 2012, Location: Sirhind, Talanian, Dera Mir Miran

Day two was dizzying. Priyaleen ma’am had joined us from Delhi, and after we picked her up from the station we headed for the first stretch of sites- Mahadiyan, Talanian, Fatehgarh Sahib- Sirhind and Dera Mir Miran.

And this was the longest stretch with more than a 100 structures amongst these settlements. So we started.

Through the course of this day, there were three things that I just had to write about.

1. The Chabutras of Punjab’s villages/ towns
2. Chabeels distributing water as respite
3. The tombs scattered across the fields of Sirhind.

Talanian ka Chabutra – A vantage point

Location: Talanian Settlement, District: Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab

Photos by Author, Talanian ka Chabutra, Talanian, Punjab

Wikipedia says the word Chabutra or Chabutro is (also) sometimes used to indicate a sitting platform, usually under a tree or beside any water-body like lake, pond, etc. But commonly it is used to indicate the tower-like structure…

Photos by author

This definition of a chabutra / chabutro (being a tower-like structure) is what the rural landscape of Gujarat would substantiate, but in Punjab a chabutra is quintessentially a circular platform about a meter in height built under a large-size tree, which usually bears a canopy of more than 10 m in diameter. This is a community space that may also be used to address public gatherings of villagers like Panchayat meetings (Bollywood style). The older folk of the village, mostly the men-folk are seen gathering at these chabutras playing taash, drinking chai or just chatting in the afternoons.

The menfolk seated at the Chabutra

The Chabutra of Talanian is ideal to peek into the function of a chabutra in an Indian village. Talanian settlement now looks like a town mainly rural which in perhaps two or three decades (speculation) may head into urbanization. As one enters from the narrow lanes of the village shops towards the Chabutra, the large space with a huge shade-giving tree in the center may read as an ‘Incidental Nodal Space’ ( a term  I learnt from a senior conservation colleague) within the rural settlement.  

But a closer look reads the space as more than just "incidental". From this locus various other loci can be charted. Like the village Post Office, the Mosque of Talanian (wherein lies a sacred Sheesham tree), an old colonnaded structure leading to the mosque- arguably a sample of colonial architecture, and a dilapidated building made of nanakshahi bricks in the backdrop of the chabutra, next to the post office.


Standing at this junction, one can just rotate at their station point and see all these loci manifest the critical location of the village chabutra- right at the centre of all the action. One could think on the lines of proposals to use this existent space, or rather build a plan around it to generate awareness and increase local knowledge of the history and the historicity of the settlement wherein the chabutra could function as the landmark / a vantage point.