The Fort of Jewels
31 January 2022
I first saw this fabled hilltop fort in 1989. It sits above the village of Mari, some 40 kms north of Mianwali and overlooks to the west, on the far bank of the Indus, the picturesque riverside town of Kukranwali.
The Mianwali district gazetteer of 1915 noted it was known as Maniot, corrupted from Manikot, signifying ‘Fort of Jewels’. This, the gazetteer recorded, was because the ‘Kalabagh diamonds’ were found here. Whatever these diamonds were, no one could tell me then nor on a recent visit.Read more »
Labels: Heritage, Punjab, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 13:08,
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IMPERIAL GRIT, SPIES AND LOCOMOTIVES
23 January 2020
In March 1887, Quetta, a compact little frontier town with a British garrison served by businesses owned almost entirely by Parsis and Hindus, saw the first-ever railway train pull into its spanking new station building. This was, however, not in the service of the people of the land. The line, much faster than the earlier camel trains, was to put British troops in quick access of the unruly frontier with Afghanistan, where an ever-expanding influence of Czarist Russia was threatening British interests.
Whatever the case, looking back today, one can but only marvel at the heroic effort of putting this line through. The remarkable thing about the main line up from Sindh into Balochistan is that it was, in the words of railway historian P.S.A. Berridge, “a tale of appalling muddle in the beginning, of extreme privations in the face of terrible heat and freezing cold, and of success achieved through sheer grit and determination to win a route through forbidding and inhospitable desert and mountainous country.”
Labels: Balochistan, Heritage
posted by Salman Rashid @ 17:51,
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Rising from the Sand - The Story of Bahawalpur
17 May 2018
The river Jamuna was home to a fearsome dragon in an age long ago. For some reason the gods became displeased with it and ordered it to leave the river and seek a new home in the vast oceans. But because the dragon could only travel through water, the gods were benevolent enough to order the Jamuna to send a stream southward all the way to the sea.
The dragon left the river by this new stream that was for millennia known as the Hakra. But the long and creative passage of time leaves nothing, not even the work of gods, unaltered. The Hakra that was once the dragon’s passage and which slaked a huge country turning it green with farmland and orchard dried up. The land turned desert and today the only sign of the lost river is a meandering depression through the dunes of the Cholistan Desert.
Read more »Labels: Heritage, History, Punjab
posted by Salman Rashid @ 14:45,
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THE ENIGMA OF RANNIKOT
15 April 2018
In a word, Rannikot (pronounced ‘Runny Coat’ and not ‘Rani Kot’) is an enigma. And that is because medieval history makes no mention of such a magnificent undertaking. As for the name, that comes from the seasonal Ranni stream flowing through it and not from some rani.
Approaching it from the east via Sann village in Jamshoro district in Sindh, one cannot but remark on the resemblance of its fortification to the Great Wall of China. The ramparts, interspersed with stout turrets, dip and rise with the contours of the Lakki spur of the main Kirthar Mountains. If one were to circumambulate the fortification one would see how the builders incorporated the lay of the hills into the defensive scheme: where the hills are sheer and difficult to scale as in the northwest and northern corner, there are no ramparts. In this area of difficult access, there are only watch towers.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:55,
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GODDESS OF THE MOUNTAINS
01 April 2018
My Indian friends insist Sharda was a university in ancient times. I, however, find no reference to a school at the site. Sources only mention the temple. Nor, too, did I find any archaeological trace in the area around the temple compound.
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| The ruins of the Sharda Temple |
Up in the valley of the Kishanganga (duly Islamised to Neelam) River, in the elbow where the Madhumati flows into it from the south-east, the ruined Sharda temple sits on a hill above the village named after the temple.
Read more »Labels: Heritage, Kashmir Diaries, Mountains
posted by Salman Rashid @ 11:40,
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CHILLAS AND PICNICS
11 March 2018
Gods, they say, live on mountaintops. They have Olympus for Greek deities and Kailas for our very own subcontinental ones. But when you roam this great and wonderful land of the subcontinent (even if you have to rely on maps because a border keeps you out of places) you find all sorts of lesser gods shivering in the snowy cold of high mountains.
On Takht-i-Suleman (3,447 metres) and Preghal (3,515 metres) in South Waziristan, I have seen altars where ancient believers of the Earth Goddess (Dharti Ma) would have sacrificed their black goats. So too on Sikaram (4,761 metres) in Parachinar and Musa ka Musalla (4,055 metres) in Kaghan. All have duly been converted to Islam and given proper names. On the Takht, the seven-metre square altar is said to be the grave of Kais Rashid, the supposed original Muslim Pakhtun — whatever ‘original’ might be in this case. Preghal is where Hazrat Ismail allegedly prayed for his progeny to grow. Sikaram is the burial of a fictitious Karam and the Musalla is where Gujjars bring their livestock for salaam so that the animals may bear many more offspring.
Read more »Labels: Heritage
posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:03,
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Once Upon a Line
11 February 2018
Time was that I went around the country riding steam trains. From the narrow-gauge toy train connecting Bannu with Mari Indus to the metre-gauge trains of Sindh and the magnificent broad-gauge workhorses of what was once the North Western Railway, I rode quite a few. The last one I ever rode was the steam-hauled passenger train R-474 from Malakwal to Gharibwal. That was August 1994.
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| Gharibwal Railway Station |
On that trip I met Iqbal Ghauri, foreman at the steam shed at Malakwal. Speaking only sparingly, and then unhurriedly, he kept his voice low, but exuded the air of a man who knew his job and was proud of it. All his life he had worked on steam locomotives and even as Pakistan Railway was phasing out steam, he was hopeful of keeping his engines going. It was clear he was terribly in love with those dark beauties. His commitment and dedication was remarkable and one could not but like the man.
Read more »Labels: Heritage, Pakistan Railways, Railway
posted by Salman Rashid @ 13:09,
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The Search For Hathi Khan
19 November 2017
"Hati is the bad man round-about; he it is robs on the roads; he it is brings them to ruin; he ought either to be driven out from these parts, or to be severely punished.” So said Malik Asad, the leader of the Salt Range Janjuas, to Babur after peace had been made between the two.
The dam abutment which once ran right across the Chanel seen in the center of the image
The year was 1519. Hati (sic) was Hathi Khan Gakkhar, ensconced in the hill fortress of Pharwala outside modern Islamabad. From there he made sorties to harry the surrounding country.
Babur had returned to India, won battles and was enjoying the beauty of Kallar Kahar — where he laid out a lakeside garden — when the Janjua chieftain petitioned him against the Gakkhar. Babur learned that Hathi had, only shortly — earlier treacherously poisoned his cousin Tatar Khan — to assume the mantle of leadership. Besides that, Hathi had arrested the dead chief’s sons Sarang and Adam.
Read more »Labels: Heritage
posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:48,
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The Jaleebi Maker of Jhelum
30 October 2017
Motorcyclists pause at the hut with the wattle roofing. Even cars make the hundred-metre detour from the Grand Trunk Road (N-5) at the sign that says ‘Domeli Mor’, where the road for Domeli branches off to the south-east. It is said that no gala at Jhelum, Dina and Sohawa — the three nearby urban centres — is gastronomically complete sans the jalebis of Shabir Butt.
It was about the time of his birth in 1964 that Shabir Butt’s father moved his jalebi business from Taraki, about eight kilometres to the north. Taraki, incidentally, is where the railway line forcing its way through the Nili (or Sohawa) Hills makes one dramatic loop along the contours to attain the height of the Potohar Plateau. Friends who know tell me that the Chinese, being what they are, will straighten out this scenic hitch to cut the distance between Jhelum and Rawalpindi by a few kilometres.
Read more »Labels: Heritage
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:56,
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The Forgotten Hamlet
09 October 2017
I knew Domeli from my few years in the army back in the 1970s when we did exercises (or as the Americans would say manoeuvres) in that area. I had no real memory of the town itself, located near Jhelum, but I recall seeing ravine deer in the hills not far outside the built up area. That past though is another country, for now we have successfully shot most of our wildlife.
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| Domeli Railway Station with 102 Down coming through; notice the raised platform on the left from where the signal, hidden behind a knoll, could be checked |
Recently my friend Haris Kayani hailing from Domeli phoned to tell me of the several spreading graveyards around his hometown. What could they possibly signify, he had asked. Large graveyards meant either a populous, prosperous town of the past or a staging post where caravans routinely tarried. The latter then pointed to a busy highroad through the area. Haris said I simply had to return to check out the burials of Domeli.
Read more »Labels: Heritage, Pakistan Railways, Punjab, Railway
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Rock of all Ages
07 August 2017
The legend in Saddo Mazzo, Sindh that lives on through the ages is that of the sisters Saddo and Mazzo, princesses who ruled from a hilltop castle in the rugged and largely barren hills west of Johi (Dadu district). As their forces prepared to set out to attack a neighbouring settlement, the duo instructed the general to see that the flag was kept flying high for them to spot from their hilltop eyrie. This would tell them the proceedings were going in their favour.
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| The Dancing Girl of Saddo Mazzo |
Any lowering of the standard would indicate the field had been lost. Then, in keeping with true Rajput tradition, the princesses were to fling themselves off the lofty ramparts to death on the rocks below. But as the distant fray unfolded, for one brief moment, the flag was lost from sight in the dust and commotion. For the princesses this was enough sign of defeat. Both Saddo and Mazzo leapt off the castle ramparts and died even as their victorious army turned homeward.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Buddhism is 5000 years old!
10 June 2017
On or about 5 June 2017, a tweet appeared with an image of Pattan Minara near Rahim Yar Khan. The tweeter, one fool named Shiraz Hassan, wrote that it was a Buddhist temple and that it was believed to be five thousand years old! And this man claims to be a BBC correspondent! So, if this is BBC, I refuse to ever watch their television, listen to their radio or read their web pages.
Below is the lowdown on Pattan Minara. But first of all on Buddhism.
The great Buddha lived in the 6th century BCE, that is, just two thousand five hundred years ago. Buddhism dates from that time. One would have to be an utter idiot completely ignorant of an historical timeline to believe that Buddhism dates back to the 6th millennium.
This brings to mind one item from about twenty-five years ago. At the end of a season of work at Harappa, archaeologist Mark Kenoyer did a lecture at the Lahore Museum. Among other things, he pointed out the halo-like disc behind the head of a presumably holy figure and likened it to the ones we see on stone depictions of Buddha. The report in The News the following morning detailed the discussion and ended it by telling its readers that the people of Harappa were Buddhists!
Read more »Labels: Buddhism, Heritage, History, Taxila
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:58,
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Set in stone
29 May 2017
Over three decades ago, I saw for the first time a stele on the bank of Bhodesar pond outside Nagarparkar town in Sindh’s Thar region. It was a time of drought. The pond was dry and an upright sandstone slab was standing there.
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| Courtesy Memorial Stones Thararkar |
The slab carried a beautiful carving of a horse rider, his raised left hand holding what appeared to be a staff. At his waist was a quiver bristling with arrows. In a panel immediately below the artistic rendering were a few lines of writing that I thought was in Hindi. Nearby was another slab bearing what was clearly the depiction of a woman. Her dress was notable for being quite similar to the ghagra still worn in Thar.
Labels: Herald, Heritage, Sindh, Thar
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Tomb of Kamaro
10 May 2017
Back in 1987, in my freewheeling days in Sindh, I one day found myself in village Kamaro nearly midway between Mirpur Khas and Tando Allahyar. Otherwise unremarkable, the village was known for a shrine and its adjacent mosque. But not being a believer in miracles attributed to shrines, I was there only because I had heard of the beauty of both buildings.
I was not disappointed. Compared to those humongous buildings that we generally see, these two were tiny. But the splendour of the predominantly blue tile work was exquisite. So exquisite was it, that it will not be wrong to rank the two buildings of Kamaro among the most beautiful of Sindh, so far as tile work was concerned.
Both buildings measured about seven or eight metres square and, not taking the minarets of the mosque into account, were of equal height. So far as I remember, the mausoleum did not have a dome. If it did, the flow of the patterns in blue was so smooth that one simply did not notice the dome. One was only lost in the melody of the ornamentation.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Kot Diji
11 March 2017
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Sarai Chhimba
09 March 2017
If one travels southbound along National Highway 5, one passes by villages their names prefixed by the word ‘sarai’. If these villages do not sit exactly by the highway, they are some ways off. Dr Saifur Rahman Dar, the famous archaeologist, once told me that all these villages are set at the distance one could travel in the course of a day. That is, thirty kilometres give or take a few.
A couple of years ago, I went looking for Sarai Chhimba and found an impressive building from the time of Akbar the Great. But the walled caravanserai had been taken over by local people who are now living in it. The sad part was that every one of these residents was tearing up the place as they saw fit. The worst victim of this historical insensitivity was the destruction of the lovely, bulbous structures on the roof.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The pleasure house
15 February 2017
The baradari — literally, twelve-door building — stands on a raised brick plinth in the middle of a saline waste. Locals know it as Dera Chaubara. The subcontinent has a long tradition of such buildings that served as getaways where the rich whiled away the pleasant hours of day. They did not serve as residences, however.
The country where the baradari stands was once very picturesque with the Beas River flowing by through a thickly wooded tract near the present town of Chunian. That was when Raja Todar Mal built his pleasure house sometime in the early 17th century. A native of Lahore, the Raja’s family owned large properties around Chunian. It was this man’s admirable acumen as finance manager and administrator that won him place among the Nine Jewels of Akbar the Great.
Read more »Labels: Heritage, History, Punjab
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The Fort of Rannikot
08 February 2017
Tanvir Ahmad Khan, with whom I share this page, emailed to say that at a dinner with the French ambassador and his wife, the subject of a fort called Rani Khet came up. The fort, it was reported, lay somewhere near Dadu. Other than that no one knew anything about it.
The fort of Rannikot (pronounced Runny Coat and not, repeat not, Ranikot or Rani Khet) lies thirty-two kilometres southwest of Sann (the ancestral village of the venerated late G M Syed), eighty kilometres north of Hyderabad in the Lakhi hills of the great Khirthar Range. Between Sann and the fort there stretches a sandy desert that I have seen transformed into farmland over the past thirty years. In the late 1970s, there being no road, one had to either walk (as a friend and I did) or ride a jeep. Today a blacktop road connects Rannikot with the Indus Highway outside Sann.
The walls of the fort become visible from a distance of about four kilometres, snaking over the golden-brown ridges and the first views strike one as being starkly similar to the Great Wall of China. Entry into the fort, if one is on a jeep, is through the dry bed of the Ranni River (whence the name of the fort) or through Sann Gate if on foot. The gateway, on the right bank of the stream, is a classic example of defensive architecture with two staggered turrets that form a dogleg in order to break the gallop of an attacking horseman.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Retracing ancient heritage
02 February 2017
My young friend Ahmad Umair has some business along the Ravi south of Lahore where he frequently travels on roads that are not on the itinerary of most travellers. One day he mentioned a place called Sarai Mughal outside which he had seen a domed building.
A couple of years earlier, I had been to Sarai Chhimba, near Jambar about thirty kilometres southwest of Thokar Niaz Beg and just off N-5. Talking at that time to my guru, the preeminent archaeologist Dr Saifur Rahman Dar, I was reminded that there were once upon a time inns at convenient intervals along all major intercity roads. In those days of travel either on foot or by horse or even bullock cart, a convenient distance for a day’s journey was ten kos or between thirty to forty-five kilometres.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Celestial Stone
26 September 2016
In August sparse grass provided a veneer of green to the rocky hillside. Otherwise it was barren with nary a tree for shade. But there was silence. Silence, overwhelming and complete that remained undisturbed by the distant sound of traffic. Such is the hill of – that lies outside the village of Bilot some forty kilometres north of Dera Ismail Khan on the highroad to Chashma. Barren and rocky, it would be an unremarkable place but for the group of seven extraordinarily ornate buildings, all Hindu temples, that crown its top.
Here is a flat-topped edifice whose tapering shikhara, or steeple, gave way long ago. It is likely that more than the malevolent hand of man, it was the passage to time that wrought its overthrow. A little way off behind it are two more on a high plinth. One has an angular shikhara whose unique feature are the gaping oblong windows. Barely ten metres across on the same plinth and directly facing this building is another. A couple of hundred metres to the north, across a stretch of ground thickly sprinkled with the detritus of houses whose foundations are all that remain and broken pottery, is a group of four buildings. These too sit atop a raised plinth.
Read more »Labels: Heritage
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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