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history Spice
and gardens
history Faisalabad has a
brand new institution that recalls the original name of the district:
Lyallpur Museum. Despite its large size,
both in area and in population and its enviable wealth, there was no such
institution in the city. Most laypersons like me believed that the Sandal Bar
(the belt of land in which Lyallpur was built) had no history. I had always
believed that this country between the Ravi and Chenab rivers was a wild and
desolate forest of peelu, tamarisk, ber etc. where bandits lurked to loot
hapless travellers. I knew that after the
laying of the irrigation system that greened this part of Punjab, population
was moved in large groups from the eastern doabas of Jalandhar and Ludhiana.
From those relatives who were allotted land in the Sandal Bar, I had heard
how they slept outside on summer nights to be roused by the wild boars
crashing through the fields and how they had to be wary of snakes not just at
night, but during broad daylight as well. None of my relatives had
any interest in ancient cities or mounds covered with pottery shards and old
bricks. So, I gleaned nothing of
history. In 2008, a certain Amir
Sarfraz, an old Lyallpuri now settled in Britain, with close ties to Mian
Shahbaz Sharif, the Chief Minister, obtained sanction for a museum. Two years later, a lovely
brick building was in place in University Road, cheek by jowl with the old
Coronation Library of 1902 (renamed Allama Iqbal Library — how good we are
at renaming!) and the District Council Hall. Then the illness that
afflicts Pakistan took over. Though funds were in place,
the museum only had a tiny collection of artefacts that seemed to have been
collected almost half-heartedly. From 2010, when the building was ready,
until 2012, Lyallpur Museum seemed to be a non-starter — a stillborn
project conceived by a man who was absent in a distant land. In 2011, with no
qualified specialist interested in taking over the top job at the museum, it
was on the verge of being closed down. But then somewhere a change
of mind occurred. Early in 2012,
archaeologist Mian Attique Ahmad was posted to Lyallpur Museum as the
curator. He went to work as a man possessed. Through the spring and
blistering summer of that year, Attique and photographer Majid scoured the
district like no other archaeologist had ever done. One of his great
achievements was that he acquired the sizeable collection of ancient
artefacts collected by school teacher Jamil Bhatti of Shorkot. Now, the late Jamil Bhatti
was another unique and blessed man who I met in 1993. As a native of Shorkot,
he had always been curious about the items that appeared on the surface of
the mound after the rains. Over time, this man had a large stock of cultural
relics from the mound of Shorkot. Today, these are part of the Lyallpur
Museum inventory, thanks to the efforts of Mian Attique. Interestingly, though the
usual annual funds were sanctioned, they were not released for use by the
museum. Consequently, since 2012, Mian Attique managed to keep the
institution going with financial help from the DCO’s coffers. Also, what
saved the museum from dying before it could get going was the interest
Commissioner Tahir Shah, trained as an anthropologist, took in it. Besides the Shorkot hoard,
Attique managed to collect items from several other sites. However, his
crowning glory certainly is the identification of Mai di Jhuggi as a Hindu
Shahiya site (600-900 CE). Now, Mai di Jhuggi, that
once lay just outside town was, and still is, the bus station. Only, now it
is almost in the centre of the city. From the late 1960s, I remember a
disorderly bus station surrounded by open fields, but I strangely missed the
mound. It is almost completely built over with a few open places in between.
Much of the secrets that the dust of this mound held in its bosom are now
lost. But the little left can still divulge tales and tales without end. All
of these will end up in Lyallpur Museum to enthral and titillate the
inquisitive mind. With only a year and a half
to show for itself, the museum has a pretty respectable display. However,
Mian Attique’s office is still cluttered with cardboard boxes containing
the relics that await going on the shelf. There are more in other storage
spaces. Slowly, painstakingly, the labelling is in progress as more and more
artefacts come on display. Attique notes that British
colonisers listed 120 cultural mounds in Lyallpur district. Many of these, he
points out, are now levelled and under the plough. But there are still a few
dozen left to explore. Among them, Shorkot and Bhir Abdur Rehman (25 km
southwest of Shorkot) are the most significant. As of July 2013, Lyallpur
Museum is in the process of securing permission from the Department of
Archaeology to excavate these and other sites. If things go the way Mian
Attique Ahmad plans, Lyallpur Museum will, in the next few years, reveal the
secrets of places that many of us do not even know exist. We may yet learn if
Sangla Hill really was the Sangala of Alexander’s campaigns and what
transpired within the walls of the fortress that nestled below the rocky
outcrop that once reared above Shahkot town. Like the fortress, the hill too
has been levelled. The archaeologist, however, recognises the remains of the
fortress. I do not know what other
good things happened for Faisalabad in recent years, but this museum
certainly is the big bonus. Surely there are curious minds that want to hear
tales and learn the secrets of ages past. For the first time since the
district of Lyallpur came into being in 1902, the museum will be just such a
teller of tales and divulger of secrets. I hope there will also be a visiting
Lama and an urchin called Kim (even if there is no gun for him to play on)
and someone bewhiskered and bespectacled called Rudyard to record the story
of these two. The beginning for all that
to come to pass has been made. PS. Entry to the museum is,
for the time being, free. Make the most of it!
Within an hour
after my arrival in Colombo, I went on a walk to the Wellawatte, Galle and
Fort roads — in search for a blister medicine. I was able to get one
without a doctor’s prescription. A day later I went to Kandy,
where I met up with Professor Kalinga Tudor Silva, a senior professor at the
University of Peradeniya. He took me to the botanical garden of Kandy. The beauty and silence of
the garden was a pleasant surprise. While walking through the garden, we
ended up at the spice garden. I looked at the spice plants and trees,
experiencing cinnamon, cardamom, clove, nutmeg, vanilla, peppers, ginger and
a lot of other spice plants, with their natural aromas and green blooms. With considerable knowledge
of ayurveda, Professor Silva had spent time to understand how people cure
themselves. A few years ago, he said, a lot of people used ayurvedic
medicines but now many were shifting to allopathic treatments. My tour guide Shanta told
me that even ayurvedic practitioners are prescribing allopathic medicines. I
was perturbed. This is despite the fact
that Sri Lanka provides good academic training to ayurvedic professionals.
The ayurvedic teaching institutes enroll hundreds of students in ayurveda
degree programmes every year. Only those students become eligible for
admissions who have studied physics, chemistry and biology. The building of the
Institute of Indigenous Medicine at Colombo University is serene. The funding
it receives from the government, although much less than the funding of
western medical education, is sufficient. The Ministry of Indigenous
Medicine is a big source of patronage for the ayurvedic medicine. It has a
department of ayurveda. In a short visit to Sri
Lanka, it is not certain whether ayurvedic medicine is at par with allopathic
medicine, however, the number of hospitals and amount of state patronage
provided to it makes it an important player in the country’s health sector.
I spent a day in Kegalle,
where I learnt Sri Lankans are plant lovers, and medicinal plants even more.
Sri Lankans use plants in pooja (worship) as well. While returning from
Randeniya in Kegalle to Kandy, I stopped at many herbal and spice gardens for
a quick view. Most of them were privately-owned. Shanta convinced me to visit
Green Land Spice Garden in Anwarama in Mawanella. Shanta introduced me to the
head of the garden, Ganini Bandara, a longtime professor of ayurveda, who
served me two kinds of herbal teas. Both had a relaxing effect. With his life
spent in ayurveda, the professor showed me all the plant varieties and
briefed me about their usage. Later, he arranged an
ayurvedic oil massage for me containing six mixed oils, extracted
traditionally to give head, back and foot massages. Shanta bought some herbal
balm and asked me to smell it. I did as asked and felt immense relief for my
troubling sinus and headache. Bandara told me the composition of balms had no
camphor, eucalyptus, and menthol. Bandara was excited about
cocoa. “It has no calories, no caffeine and polyphenol. Since you are a
professor, you should drink hot cocoa before going to bed every night,” he
recommended. Then he informed me about
the uncountable blessings of aloe vera. “You do not need anything else, if
you have aloe vera. It can fix anything,” he said. Next day, I wandered from
one temple to another in Anuradhapura, another ancient city in Sri Lanka. The
whole city, its temples, and water arrangements enchanted me. I went to the
temple Ruhanwali Maha Stupa, where monks were distributing offerings, from
note books to umbrellas to decorative pieces — and spices among the
visitors. I took a round and saw an enormous preparation of spice pooja near
the main gate. Throughout my life, I have
never seen a better connection between human beings and spices. Different
people would walk through the dishes arranged in long queues and drop a spice
or herb in them. Next to that was Bodhi
temple, where the sapling of the Bodhi tree, where Gautama Buddha became
enlightened, stood as a young tree. A lot of things fascinated
me in Sri Lanka but its herbal and spice gardens and its ayurvedic
temperament fascinated me the most. I observed the way the 200-year-old
allopathy is slowly taking over the 2500-year-old ayurveda. Amidst this
expansion of allopathic medicine, some people are trying to strengthen the
ayurvedic curative way, which is encouraging. One reason for ayurveda to
be still trendy in Sri Lanka is its strong association with Buddhism. In
fact, Emperor Ashoka’s brother Mahinda brought Buddhism and ayurveda to Sri
Lanka together. Not only this, Mahinda sent monks to places such as China and
Greece to share ayurvedic treatments. Mahinda’s efforts played an
instrumental role in bringing Greek medicine to Sri Lanka. It is because of
this that unani medicine is practiced widely in Sri Lanka. I learned at University of
Paradeniya that Sri Lankan unani medicine was broader than unani medicine
practiced in Pakistan. The unani medicine department at the Institute of
Indigenous Medicine, University of Colombo, offers courses of Kulliyat,
IlmulAdvia, Moalijat, Niswanvo Qabalat, IlmulJarahat, and Hifzan e Sihat. I
was amused to know that unani practitioners have a considerable knowledge of
medical sciences and are formally regulated and licensed. A friend told me
that Sri Lankans believe unani medicine is Muslim medicine yet it is not
rejected by people there on this ground. Observing such an
unbreakable bond of the people with ayurveda and to some extent with unani
medicine and getting relief, one wishes to for such a trend in Pakistan. Unfortunately, most of the
unani hakeems (traditional doctors) in Pakistan are too busy treating all
kinds of male power deficiencies. The writer teaches at
Forman Christian College University, Lahore.
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