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3200
BCE and Pir Bhanday Shah City
of love
history
& legend Ancient
pottery shards and a shrine near Bahawalpur... By Salman
Rashid
Ten
years ago, passing through Yazman, my companion had pointed out a large
bungalow behind a high, mud-plastered wall and said that was the old railway
station. I told him he ought to shut up for didn't know what he was talking
about. He argued and I argued right back, only he wasn't sure where the line
went from Yazman. But then he said I could ask any local oldster and they
would confirm the station. We didn't ask, but I came away with a bit of
uncertainty about the whole thing. Back in
Lahore, I forgot all about it. Until Raheal called recently, that is. I
quickly checked through the two railway bibles I have: M. B. K. Malik's
Hundred Years Of Pakistan Railways and P. S. A. Berridge's Couplings To The
Khyber. Not a word on Yazman or Marot railway stations, or indeed on the
line. But there must be something to it, I thought, particularly since Raheal
said he had located at least three abandoned railway stations on this line.
He promised to throw in some old pottery-strewn mounds and a couple of ruined
desert forts as well. And so
we left Bahawalpur on an unseasonably cool April morning. Yazman was
thirty-five kilometres (and an equal number of minutes) southeast of town and
the old railway station lay outside town on the highroad to Fort Abbas. It
was deja vu. Nothing had changed. The wall obstructed the building and it
could only be photographed from the other side, but Raheal said it now being
the home of the local Rangers commander, there would be a bit of a to-do
before we could get in. The way things are with us in the area of paranoia
concerning security, I knew this could mean any number of hours trying to
convince the honcho concerning our bona fides. Even so there would be no
guarantee of our being able to get in until someone higher up convinced the
man that we were no Indian spies, but genuine unpatriotic snoopers.
Pieces
with scales like an alligator's were repeated quite frequently and grabbed
Raheal's attention. We knew of painted fish scales on Indus Valley pottery,
but these were in relief, more like dies for coins, yet not quite because
they were rather irregular and would have made shoddy coins. We made a
surface collection as best as we could of painted pieces to be shown to my
guru Dr Saifur Rahman Dar in Lahore. Among our collection was a piece of a
perforated tube-like utensil and several painted ones. But once again we,
sadly, did not stumble upon any buried treasure of gold and silver. Back in
Lahore, Dr Dar put things in the right perspective. The alligator scale-like
pottery comes from the pre-Harappan period, that is, about 3200 BCE. After
the pot was fashioned and when the clay was still wet, the potter would press
a mat, presumably of palm frond, on the utensil to produce the pattern.
Though Raheal and I had discussed in situ what the purpose of such raised
surfaces would be, I forgot to ask Dr Dar's view on it. But Raheal and I had
concluded that these were probably water pots and the raised scales were very
likely meant to increase their area of perspiration in order to keep water
cooler than in a flat surface vessel. The
perforated item which I have also seen at Vinjrot near Sukker is, according
to Dr Dar a sort of heater. The vessel would be filled with glowing embers
and carried about like the Kashmiris do their kangri -- that is, inside a
loose outer garment to keep the body warm. Conversely, several of these could
be placed around a room as space heaters. Very neat, indeed. But the big
disclosure from the master was that the pottery went from pre-Harappan
through the mature Harappan into post-Harappan period. This means that the
city outside Kudwala, now no more than a large, elongated mound, was a
living, thriving urban centre for no less than three thousand years! I asked
that rather banal question that perhaps all laypersons would ask: if the city
lived for such a long period, why was it that all this pottery was jumbled
together on the surface? It was simply because the mound was eroding in wind
and rain and as the material was uncovered, layer by layer, it was cluttered
about all together. It was for the master archaeologist to put the spade to
work and discover the intricate secrets that lie smothered under the dust of
Kudwala -- secrets that go back a full five thousand years. We drove
east from Kudwala and another ten kilometres on; we reached our second mound
outside the village of Kala Pahar. Strange name, I thought, in a desert where
the nearest mountain was several days' camel ride away. Reaching no consensus
on the name of the village, we concentrated on the mound instead. Though
smaller than our first one, this too was covered with pottery shards. Raheal
remarked on the singular absence of the alligator scales we had seen on the
first mound and wondered why. I could think of no reason and did not even
venture an uneducated guess. On the very crest of the mound was a single
grave which, Raheal pointed out, stood in a square measuring roughly about
twenty-five metres by twenty-five that had been meticulously cleared of all
historical debris. Not
given to the lunacy of tomb worship, we approached with the irreverence due
to all such graves. And thankfully so. On the head or north end of the grave
was the collection box with the legend 'Hazrat Pir Bhanday Shah Sahib.'
Raheal let out a little laugh. Now, a bhanda is a utensil and since the mound
was home to so many shattered and some not so shattered pots and plates,
whoever invented the saint conjured up an appropriate enough title for him:
Plate Shah or Tureen Shah or some such idiotic name. But if non-existent
saints can be called Ghaib Ali Shah then surely a Bhanday Shah wasn't far off
the mark. In fact, Syed Pots 'n Pans Shah could nicely be elided to the
rather cute Syed Puppun Shah -- just the kind of name for a beloved saint.
The suffix of Makki or Bukhari could come later as it suited the creator's
whim. By the
grave lay two pots. The cooking pot was partially broken, the water pot
whole. Though we were a few hundred metres from the village, yet not wishing
to be discovered stealing what gave the saint his name, I, not without
Raheal's coaxing, surreptitiously removed the undamaged pot to the car. There
was also a collection box duly locked that rattled (with a few coins) and
rustled (with notes). If Raheal had wanted the pot, I wanted the box but was
gently dissuaded from petty theft. What was good for the goose was certainly
not good for the gander in this case. Then we drove into the village and
Raheal called for the elders to tell us the tale of the ridiculously named
non-existent saint. "This
tomb was raised in response to a man's dream," came the matter of fact
statement from one of the elders. A man,
it turned out, dreamed of a "saintly figure" telling him of his
burial on the mound unknown to the fools of the world. And saintly figures
being what they are, the superstitious folks of Kala Pahar went out and
raised the sepulchre. There was no death, no funeral rites, no corpse to
inter and no tears to shed yet the grave was created and is venerated as
warranted by a collection box that was not empty. Though it has been a good
few years since he was invented, Syed Puppun Shah nee Bhanday Shah hasn't
really caught the fancy of carnival-goers. The shrine has not yet started to
attract the big money making annual festival for the inventor of the legend
to rake it in. For the present, the man must bide his time. When the
raking in begins, as it surely will, the official vulture that feeds on the
superstitions of illiterate people and which we know by the fancy name of
Auqaf Department will pounce on the shrine. The shrine and with it the
collection box will be taken charge of and a stipend stipulated for the
inventor of the legend who will by then have turned into a direct descendent
of the saint. We have all heard of illegitimate children, this is what I mean
when I say so many of us in Pakistan have invented illegitimate fathers for
ourselves! The
elders believed a venerable saint was indeed buried on the mound, however
they clearly did not like the derision in my tone That was what amazed us:
none of the superstitious folks who believed in this Saint of the Dish had
the capacity to recognise the connection between the pottery-strewn mound,
the saint's name and the cruel joke inherent in the scam. But we did learn
something sensible from the superstitious elders. The name of the village was
not Kala Pahar, but Kala Paar, the former mispronunciation being common with
ignorant outsiders. The second part of the name, we were told, signified a
small lake in Seraiki. Raheal
reminded me that the now dead and all but forgotten Hakra River -- the Lost
River of Cholistan, had flooded in the summer of 2004 when its catchments in
India had received a heavy fall of rain. The water had sluiced down to our
part of the desert and the ancient oxbows of the river filled up. Since the
name Kala Paar is ancient, it signified that this was not the first time such
flooding had taken place, it had happened long before and repeatedly for the
name to pass into common usage. Since the loam brought down four millenniums
ago was darker than the sand, the water looked black and therefore Kala Paar
-- Black Lake. In
Lahore Dr Dar said the Bhanday Shah pottery was pre-Harappan. It goes back
perhaps five hundred years farther into the past than the Kudwala site. But
now the ignorant and superstitious folk of Kala Paar have raised that
spurious grave on it. Soon they will institute the anniversary festival and
all sorts of buildings will come up on this historical site that holds the
secrets of a time when the Hakra River flowed. Once that happens, no power in
Pakistan will be able to demolish the quasi-religious buildings and subject
the mound to scientific inquiry. What a sad loss it will be. We went
on from Kala Paar for we had abandoned railway stations and a ruined fort to
check out. But that is another story.
The
capital of Turkmenistan is a city of modern architecture and ancient
tradition By Ishrat
Hyatt
Ashgabat,
formerly known as Ashqabad, was originally built on the remnants of a village
which had the same name. Its founding fathers were Russian troops, who
arrived in 1869. A great earthquake leveled most of the city back in 1948; as
a consequence the city lost its historical look but is a model of modern
building technology. Buildings, whether of Asian origin with blue, green and
gold domes, or European design, have been given beautiful exteriors. Impressive
but symbolic 'gates' have been erected to go in or out of Ashgabat and here
checking takes place when you enter and leave. Sculptures of horses and
eagles, considered to be the national mascots, are seen everywhere Roads of
the city are lined with newly planted trees, row upon neat row waving gently
in the breeze, which is a constant in this oasis surrounded by mountains.
This sparsely populated country is sitting atop major gas reserves and as a
consequence, the locals have free access to this natural resource as well as
water and electricity. And talking of water, there was water everywhere,
spewing forth from imaginatively built fountains, both big and small. It was
a pretty sight to see that even the medians between some of the main roads
had small fountains.
Major
places of interest in Ashgabat include the Turkmen Carpet Museum, a
multi-storey building which houses a collection of very beautiful, rare,
handwoven carpets along with historical related items and data about the
industry. In the carpet factory, one of the carpets on display, among the
largest and heaviest in the world, covers an area of 193.5 square meters and
weighs 885 kilograms! A visit
to the newly constructed, gigantic Azadi mosque, which looks somewhat similar
to the Haga Sofia in Istanbul, is a memorable experience. It has a beautiful,
fully carpeted hall under its awe inspiring dome. The Imam briefs us about
its capacity and points out the interior of the dome which is decorated with
blue motifs in a symmetrical design. In a
square in the western part of Ashgabat, surrounded by trees, shrubs, and
flowerbeds stands the statue of Mkhtumquli, the noted 18th century Turkmen
thinker, educator, and poet. Each spring, Turkmen poets, writers, and
intellectuals gather here and pay their respects to the founder of Turkmen
literature by reciting poetry and competing in forums created for the
enhancement of Turkmen arts. Art and
drama are given much importance and besides the Makhtumkuli theatre, there
are two others, one for stage shows and the other dedicated to puppetry,
which is a traditional form of entertainment. Apart
from the carpet Museum, Ashgabat has other museums like the National Museum,
and the White Wheat Museum: dedicated to the fact that white wheat as we know
it, was first discovered in this area 5000 years BC, and has many ancient
tools and utensils gathered from archaeological sites. There is the Coin
Museum, a white and gold dome shaped structure, while the museum of Fine Arts
has a collection of paintings from around the world.
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Raheal
Siddiqui, my civil servant friend called from Bahawalpur. Here I was making
out as the travel writer who knew all about railways and yet had never
mentioned the remains of a line that connected Samasata to Fort Abbas via
Yazman and Marot. A total of a hundred and forty kilometres, this was a line
I had never read of. But then, a little bell did ring somewhere.
Raheal
offered to speak to someone in Bahawalpur, but I relegated the old Yazman
railway station to another time and we drove on. About a dozen kilometres
northeast of Yazman we skirted the village of Kudwala Bungla (the suffix
because of the Irrigation Department rest house) and came around to the large
mound about a kilometre due south of the village. The mound was spread over
some thirty acres and appeared to have been a central concentration of
habitation with a few outlying groups. As we walked up the furrowed mound
strewn richly with terra-cotta shards, I felt again the same impotence I
experience every time I am in such a place: the impotence of not knowing what
I behold. Like always I marvelled, once again, at how an archaeologist would
handle what was once pottery and unravel tales of past glory; of how its
maker fired it and how its users lived and died.
Situated
between the Kara Kum Desert and the Kopet Dag mountain range, Ashgabat, the
capital of Turkmenistan, is a beautiful city with magnificent buildings, many
parks and wide open spaces. There are several folk etymologies for the name
Ashgabat - the closest being the compound of the Arabic word for love ishq
and the Persian suffix abad, meaning habilitated. Thus translated the name
would mean the city that love built or the city that was built by love.
The
memorial of the Great War, a statue of a bull carrying the world on its head
is next to the Arch of Neutrality, one of the most unusual buildings in this
city of modern architecture. It is a high three-legged tower at the top of
which a big golden statue of the president is placed, his arms open, his face
turned towards the sun. A clockwork mechanism slowly rotates the statue to
follow the disc across its journey in the sky. 