HAFEEZ JULLUNDRI AND M.A. RAHMAN CHUGHTAI

POET AND ARTIST IN PERFECT HARMONY

A tale not told before anywhere

M.A. Rahman Chughtai was a born Lahori and lived in this atmosphere all the time. But there were others who came from other places. One such name was that of the poet and writer Hafeez who came from Jullundur to Lahore a long time back. A literary group was already here and known as the Niazmandan Lahore, and were reluctant to allow entry to someone from other places. It was M.A. Rahman Chughtai who welcomed this young man into this literary group. A beautiful letter tells us all this in the words of Hafeez Jullundri himself:

“Please believe me when I say that out of all persons alive, your existence is one of which is the greatest source of pride for me, right from the start of my creativity to this day. You were the first to eulogize me, when I came to Lahore, by not only looking at me with favourable perceptive eyes but also concrete help as well as boosting of my morale. A writer can perhaps forget everyone, but never the first source of his encouragement and as far as Abdur Rahman Chughtai is concerned, a pulsating personality of the world, whose influence is spread all over, what can one say more, except that I long to see you soon.

( Translated from letter dated 1959).

A beautiful friendship emerged between the poet and the artist. When Hafeez Jullundri took out a magazine from Lahore, it was encouraged by Chughtai and we find the title as well as contribution of a painting for publication in it. The relation went deeper. When Hafeez Jullundri started his epoch making Shahnama Islam, he completed the first volume in Lahore, and it was read by Mian Nuruddin (known as Nur), a famous voice of Lahore, in the house of M.A. Rahman Chughtai, and there were at least 100 people who attended this reading, including Hafeez Jullundri himself. The wife of M.A Rahman Chughtai recalled how difficult it was for her to cook to entertain so many people at the same time.

The relation between the two touched at many points, including the design of the Pakistani flag, when catering to the idea of a SITARA HILAL, the artist penned down designs for the Pakistani flag for the Quaid e Azam with a rising Crescent in it. A number of people had actually sabotaged the design by having it tailored as a descending Crescent. The tailor Master was a Christian by faith and had no concept of rising and descending crescent and cultural saboteurs were at work to get it done wrongly by him.

The Poet and artist were in touch all the time. He would call at our house all the time. I remember one day I came from school and he was there seated in our drawing room with my father, and I saw an English woman with him. It was one of his wife and that wife held him in great love and reverence.

The poet Hafeez Jullundri was there first on the death of the artist on 17th January, 1975, and went with the funeral to the graveyard and he is seen standing in the front row of the funeral prayers in most pictures of same. On 17th January, 1976, he was there at the first death anniversary of the artist, and recited the national anthem there, while he cursed those in power, who were trying to even undo the National Anthem of Pakistan. Amongst tears Hafeez Jullundri cried and made many in the audience cry too. There he read his last QASIDA on Chughtai artist, entitled ‘CHUGHTAI, ABDUR RAHMAN’. He would pat me on the cheeks all the time and was very proud of me. We maintained a relation till his very end, and he introduced me to his wife and daughter. The daughter was reading the News on Pakistan Television. The family is still in touch with us.

WHEN THE WHITE BURQA BECAME BLACK
THE STORY OF BURQA IN LAHORE

Changing times and changing fashions

I remember burqas in my own house, I remember burqas around us all the time. My elder mother born around 1899 AD wore a white burqa. My younger mother wore a black burqa. Then my father insisted on having her sown a yellow burqa, and she was so embarrassed with it, fearing to go out of the house. But eventually time, caught up, and both the ladies, removed their burqas on their own. Such are changing times.

Tradition of Burqa 19th cenbtury

The Burqa was meant to cover the face and face only once upon a time. You cannot imagine, I have seen photographs of ladies wearing a burqa, with their breasts naked and they least perturbed about it. Such are times. But was burqa there at the time of the Prophet? The earliest image on a coin a few decades after the Prophet’s (PBUH) death, refers to no burqa at all. Ladies in various time of Islamic civilization are not referred to these references. Yes, protection of the mighty. Even in the city of Lahore, we come across accounts of Hindu mohallas having walking naked women. In miniatures of Hindu times, we come across nudity all the time. It was this freedom of not wearing clothes, which went to the other reaction. The need to cover bodies, to express the identity of the person. The Mughal miniatures show us the same thing. Ladies wearing tights with see through silk frocks and where their bosom can be clearly seen, was there, but the woman on the street, was just conservative in her dress. When the burqa caught up, we do not know. But it is a history in itself.

Burqas in Lahore

When the Muslims came here, they found out that the dress code of the Hindu community was entirely different. There was no sense of SHAME about the body and reluctance. In Buddhist friezes as well as Hindu, as well as written travelogues of people we come across Hindu women having a loose cloth worn around them, and most of the time, their breasts were not covered at all. William Daniell made pictures of them in his works. Other natural works are in existence. Covering uncovering is a measure of time itself.

HISTORY OF DESTROYING MUSEUMS IN PAKISTAN
INBORN HATRED OF NATIONAL AESTHETICS IN BUREAUCRACY

International tears are not enough to save culture

The partition times were destructive to all things and hardly anybody noticed what happened to museums. I think few would even know the immediate happenings. INDIA OFFICE LIBRARY IN LONDON could not be divided as it could not be decided as to which part the library would go and how it would be divided amongst the two countries. The exhibition curated by Basil Gray of Indo Pakistani treasures remained in limbo and many things left when they were in England. While India confiscated many things including the DANCING GIRL OF MOENJO DARO. But India venom was even greater. An immediate request was made to divide the Lahore Museum in two parts.

M.A. Rahman Chughtai strongly objected along with Malik Shamas the Curator of the Museum. Chughtai’s assertion was simple. If you want to divide Lahore Museum, divide Calcutta Museum too. If our heritage is to move to Delhi, then heritage should also move from Calcutta to Dacca. But nobody was even willing to listen. Museums do not matter. The Lahore Museum was divided in two parts and I am sure the administration there do not even know that at all.

Fyzee Rahameen and his wife were able to establish a Gallery in Burns Garden in Karachi. There was resentment in the official quarters. The effort of the Rahameens was brought to the ground and the gallery bulldozed to the ground. The works were transferred to Densha Hall Municipality of Karachi and there they remained in spoiled state for decades. A sad day in the history of Pakistan.

Ozzir Zuby (Inayatullah Kasuri) went on a study tour of Rome and locked his studio, literally a museum with paintings and sculpture, in the Open Air Theatre, Lahore. People will remember the place. He came back in 1952, to find the place ransacked, works gone and sculptures broken. The Government had taken control of the place. Heart broken he left for Karachi to start a School of Decor there with his wife. The school is still there even after his death, but the 13 sculptures he made of literature giants of Pakistan are gone into oblivion. Thanks to our Governments.

Alhamra Arts Council (founded by Chughtai Artist) was attacked a thousand times and it was a registered society. And then Naeem Taher (secretary) was sent home and the Council taken over by a special Act of the Parliament, to be used as a base to sell Bhuttoism to the masses. From that day it caters to vulgar dramas (no Anarkalli plays of Imtiaz Ali Taj) and even the administrative heads have been caught red handed selling space for bribes. This is national news not my own information service. The man who dedicated his life to Alhamra was forgotten. Even the name of the place was given by Chughtai artist, and it was inaugurated by Governor General Khawaja Nazim uddin with a Chughtai show).

The Punjab Council of Arts was housed in the Freemason Hall and then a Folk Museum was established there. We ourselves had an exhibition there, inaugurated by the Federal Minister of Culture, Arbab Muhammed.Those days are gone and the Punjab Council is in a hired house in Shadman from many years now, and the place serves as a mansion for the top man.

From last many years it is CHUGHTAI MUSEUM’S turn as the government is trying its level best to dismantle it by contesting its ownership. A land bought by the Artist himself in 1960 out of his meager earnings is being contested as having title problem going back to 1954. A dead Settlement Commission has been brought to life to assault and rape poor people owner of lucrative property. About 250 properties are in the limelight of the Board of Revenue and that includes Avari Hotel as well as the House of Begum Shahnawaz on Lawrence road, where Quaid e Azam used to stay with them. Nothing is sacred, and museums are of last interest in Pakistan.

Lahore Museum as well as the Lahore Fort Museum has been robbed many times. By robbers , no! By official police forces, working on behest of political leaders. The State destroying its on resources but that is another story! The highlight of which a Prime Minister of Pakistan was selling a MOON ROCK in London to a dealer, gifted by President Nixon to the State of Pakistan.

Who will weep for museums? No one. Really when bureaucracy polishes the shoes of the British Masters by destroying everything of Sultanate period as well as Mughal works and restoring British buildings everywhere. Slaves are indebted to Masters. Masters are impotent now. So all such people are receiving false orgasms!

LEONARDO DA VINCI AND M.A. RAHMAN CHUGHTAI
MONA LISA AND CHARM OF THE EAST

It is more about hype

A long time back I entered the National Art Gallery in Washington DC and there was a Mona Lisa version discovered and added to the gallery. Good. I saw the original Mona Lisa in Paris and read about the Isleworth version. I even looked at the skull of the woman supposed to be from Mona Lisa’s grave and felt perturbed by looking at the skeletal remains of the famous lady. Yes, Leonardo da Vinci was great artist, great man, great engineer. Everything, yes, we believe it. We love him too. But at some time or the other you see whether it is the Art that matters or the hype created by the West of its own artists. Yes Mona Lisa is great painting, but there are thousands of other great paintings in the world. So at times so much talk looks like charade of the people in control.

Now take M.A. Rahman Chughtai. The female figures of the artist are phenomenal. They are a Style all their own. Dubbed as the CHUGHTAI STYLE or CHUGHTAI ART, they are different from whatever created before, or afterwards. In 1924 the famous painting Charm of the East (first version) was bought by the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay, after returning from England at the great Wembley’s exhibition. We will present its image too soon. But later versions of the same CHARM OF THE EAST were undertaken. It too has many attributes. It has its own value. It can be compared to anything.

The West wants to live on a cloud but when it rains, they come to the ground too. Islam has offered to the world aesthetics which will take the West millennium to know or to copy. That is a fact. So enjoy CHARM OF THE EAST by M.A. Rahman Chughtai, It is Art of the East. It is Art of M.A. Rahman Chughtai. It is the Mona Lisa of the East and there are no skulls to discover here. It is all from imagination, just Art for Art Sake.

JAGANATH TEMPLE ORISSA AND ITS ENVIRONS
AN AMAZING DIFFERENT VERSION OF RAMAYANA

The abduction of Sita as the Orissa Helen

When the British took over India, they found the area of Orissa, the most inhospitable land in India. Filled with mountains and jungles, nobody really wanted to be there. But it did host the world famous pilgrimage point for Hindus, that is the Jaganath Temple, where people from all over India and elsewhere, called with the firm conviction,that all their sins, however bad, would be washed away after bathing in the Temple. And legends galore about the episodes in the history of Orissa.

Around the temple are various caves, housing various relics of olden times. Recorded history just places the temples around 2600 years old. In it are effaced friezes as well as recognizable ones. The Mother Monastery houses the frieze of the Abduction of Sita, and that is one version of it. Another cave known as the GANESHA CAVE carries another version of the same. Surprisingly, although the Hindu ascetics at the cave all talked of it being related to the legend of Ram and Sita, the Sita or the Orissa Helen seems to be completely of different nature. Living with her husband, she is abducted by a LOVER, and instead of the usual return of Sita from the clutches of Ravan in Ceylon, here the version ends with the abductor winning and living happily ever after with her. This is not something we have made, this is something 2500 years old or so, made by ancient Hindus, and is vouched by the Hindu ascetics there as the story of Sita, and yet, Sita seems to be happy with the abductor and the abductor is not an ugly 100 face demon, but a handsome Prince in himself.

The historian has no judgment to pass. The historian has just to observe and relate and keep the facts straight. But this is recorded the Asiatic Society of Bengal as well as the English archaeologist of the 19th century. Narrated by the writer, W.W. Hunter in 1872, as he says about the friezes in the Ganesha cave:

“In the first scene, a lady watches over her husband, who is sleeping under the sacred Buddhist tree. In the second, a suitor makes advances to the lady, who turns her head away. He has seized one hand, and she seems to be in the act of running from him, with her other arm thrown up as if crying for help. The third is the battle. The husband and the lover (or perhaps it is the lady and her suitor) fight with oblong shields and swords. In the fourth, the warrior carries off the vanquished princess in his arms. In the fifth, the successful paramour is flying on an elephant, pursued by soldiers in heavy kilts. The prince draws his bow in the English perpendicular fashion, as in the previous series, and a soldier has cut off the head of one of the pursuers. The sixth is the homecoming. The elephant kneels under a tree, the riders have dismounted, and the lady hang her head, as in shame and sorrow. The seventh represents their home life.

Yes, everyone seems to be happy in end, arms in arms, in full romance This version ridicules the eternal love of Ram and Sita, but the people doing this narration are Hindus, no one else. One fails to understand the intricacies of history and the research points are debated to no end.

WHEN THE SKY REIGNED TEARS OF BLOOD
SUGHRA RABBABI STABBED TO DEATH IN HER STUDIO

One tear that became Zeba Vanek

Rich men do not usually beget very sensitive children. Satiated with their worldly needs, few traverse the path of art itself. Sughra Rabbabi was really an exception. Her heart beat for the cause of the tyrannized people, whether it was in Palestine or elsewhere. She always tried to raise funds for such needy people and her generosity of UNICEF was recognized by the Mayor of San Francisco, who declared 19th January, 1999 as the Sughra Rabbabi day in San Francisco, USA. But we have moved ahead of time, it is actually time to trace the roots.

Ghulam Ali Mandiwala was a very rich businessman of Lahore, and he was in touch with the artist Abdur Rahman Chughtai. We do not know how they got in touch or where they got in touch, but a relation existed between them. Perhaps they met at Governors House in 1934 when the Governor General of Punjab decorated M.A. Rahman Chughtai with the title of Khan Bahadur, and where all esteemed citizen used to be there. In any case there was mutual respect with the two, and the artist enjoyed a very good reputation in Lahore as a person who always listened and gave good advice. The profession of Sughra Rabbabi was consulted with the artist, and the artist was happy with the workmanship of Sughra Rabbabi.

Ozzir Zuby used to have his studio in the Open Air Theatre in Lawrence Gardens, and the story of Ozzir Zuby and Sughra Rabbabi was well known to Hameed Al-Makki, who is now dead. That directly or indirectly, both Ozzir Zuby and Sughra Rabbabi was inspired by the work of the artist Chughtai, is self evident in their work, but obviously they developed their own individuality from that. Even the themes are same at many places. The husband and wife team were both very patriotic and that is well understood. But rugged individualism creates its own problems and the man and wife did drift apart, although we do not know the inner story well.

It is indeed paradoxical that Lahore became the focal point of Sughra Rabbabi and Amrita Sher-Gil, and in their art they met in quest for a modern medium, although personality wise they were very different. Amrita Sher-Gil was a heart breaker, but Sughra broke her own heart. That is seen in her life as well as in her art. Ozzir Zuby found happiness in another woman, Zebun Zuby, who managed his school. By now the area was Karachi and not Lahore anymore. Sughra vented herself in her art. And then one day she fell into the intrigue of material wealth, and was stabbed to death in her studio. How sad! Not enough. A sensitive woman met a most insensitive death. It was more than cruel. The sky burst into tears. And one tear became Dr Zeba Vanek, who has resolved to dedicate her life to her mother, in quest of promoting her. We wish her well!

The present set up in Pakistan is allergic to Art as it is composed of literal nincompoops. But it is worthy to save some artists for our future record (we will give a list one day and the so called pseudo Masters’s names are not in them), and Sughra Rabbabi is one of them. Right now the existence of the National art Gallery is even under threat, and it may become a gallery of IMAGINATIVE ACHIEVEMENTS OF RUTHLESS REGIMES. Allah have mercy on us!

OUR HYDERABADI BRETHREN IN DECCAN INDIA
M.A. RAHMAN CHUGHTAI AND HYDERABAD DECCAN

Civilized, cultured, educated, loving- Hyderabadi essence

A long time back Lahore was the cultural capital or the Mughals. Then some preferred Delhi for same. But Emperor Aurangzeb beat them all by shifting his attention to the city he founded, that is Aurangabad. Out of a different city, he carved a Mughal city and was obsessed with that area. All his life, from that of a Prince to a King was devoted to Deccan. He even died and was buried in Khuldabad. Even today people remember him as perhaps the greatest Emperor of Hindustan. Where other areas could muddle the history of Emperor Aurangzeb, the Hyderabadi Deccan people always knew better. Even today Aurangzeb is loved there.

The interesting part is that many people from Lahore migrated to Hyderabad Deccan in that period and there are records and mohallas attesting to the Lahori origin of some of those people. Ustad Jameel Baig, architect of the Panch Chakri had Lahori origins too. In fact Ustad Ahmad Mimar Lahori , Architect of the Taj Mahal, is also buried in Khuldabad graveyard. M.S. Vatts, and his Archaeolgical team has recorded his grave there and the epitaph composed by Lutufullah Muhandis on his father’s grave.

M.A. Rahman Chughtai was so much attached to Hyderabad Deccan, that Beverly Nichols in his VERDICT ON INDIA records him as a Hyderabadi artist. In 1927 Dr Allama Iqbal had written to the Nizam of Hyderabad for financial assistance for the publication of Murraqqa e Chughtai edition on Mirza Ghalib. The letter is still there in Hyderabadi archives. A sum of Rs 5000 was alloted for the publication but in exchange many of the paintings were physically taken for the Nizam’s Palace in Delhi, where they were for a number of years. The book was dedicated to the Nizam himself, but unfortunately the book could not be presented at the Court of the Nizam, and was handed by a disgruntled brother, Dr Abdullah Chaghatai, at the Jamia Masjid in Hyderabad. As a result no grant or gift was given to the book.

Hyderbad could not forget Chughtai the artist. An exhibition on Dr Allama Iqbal was held in Hyderabad in 1948 and inaugurated by Deputy Prime Minister, and attended by the Prince Asif Jah, son of the Nizam of Hyderabad. A number of painting were purchased. The Salar Jang Museum had many Chughtai paintings. The National Museum had literally hundred of them. How many are left we do not know? But choice works of the artist were in Hyderabadi museums as well as homes.
Disaster struck Hyderabad when the Indian Government took Hyderabad on verge of accession to Pakistan, and the Army disbanded. Then Hyderabad broken down in different divisions, for it to never to show up her head again. From deep in our heart, we pray that one day Hyderabad be Hyderabad Deccan again and all its son of souls scattered all over the West come back to the land of their ancestrors, where they lived and reigned for centuries. Amen!

We meet a lot of Hyderabadis here even today, as they still come to visit us at the museum and we are delighted to receive them. Many did migrate to Pakistan and many are settled in Karachi. But many did move out to the USA and other places. You can recognize a Hyderabadi by simply his essence, which is unique in all ways.

P.S. With special regards to Ali Hassan from Hyderabad Deccan.

ANARKALLI, PURANI ANARKALLI, ANARKALLI BAZAAR
THE BLASPHEMY OF WILLIAM FINCH BASTARD

The tale spinning of sick minds

This narration is not about the Mausoleum of Sahib Jamal, beloved wife of Emperor Jahangeer. The said lady was a beloved of the young Prince and died in Lahore in 1008 AH. As he was only a Prince then, he was not in a position to do wonders with her last resting place. In 1023 AH, when he was Emperor of Hindustan, he ordered construction of a perfect mausoleum on her grave. That was done and everybody knew about it. A garden already existed at the place and was known as Bagh of Anaran or Bagh of Anarkalli. Various historians, including Dara Shikoh has mentioned it as Anarkalli Bagh. Jahangeer enlarged the garden to suit the memory of his beloved wife.

Its history is complex. At times it was given as a baithak to Kharrack Singh, son of Ranjit Singh. At times it was with Sobha Singh, and it suffered bombardment too. It was a residence of General Ventura too. It became a Church for many years, and later it became a Record Office. It is still a Record Office although care has been given to it as a Mausoleum. One day that may come too. In any case the vicissitudes of time does not matter as it survived the most difficult times in history, when nearly 2000 Muslim monuments of Lahore were obliterated by the meanness of the Sikh rulers, envious of past civilizations.

When the Anarkalli Church was created, so were created many other Anarkallis. First was the Anarkalli Cantonment. Then there was the Anarkalli Gardens, a new garden laid by the British, and originally called the Bandstand Garden. A Police Station at Anarkalli lines along with a Purani Anarkalli, a bazaar of a sort, and the first house of the Prostitutes of Lahore under the British rule. To get rid of these prostitutes from Anarkalli, the British outlawed prostitution from all areas except specified Red Light Area and that was declared to be the Ghala Market of Sardar Hira Singh. In 1850 most of the prostitutes of Lahore were resident of Anarkalli Bazaar in Lahore.

The story deliberately concocted by William Finch haramzada found place as a romantic tale with story writers and dramatists and that kept the thing alive for centuries. But the Anarkalli Bazaar itself, both the old one (Purani Anarkalli) and the new Anarkalli (Nawan Anarkalli) was place for people to shop, intermingle, buy oddities, exchange gossips, and eat their heart out of various delicacies. The Bano Bazaar became the hot shopping centre of its age. The best products were all here. Sheikh Inayatullah salesman of Kashmeeri Bazaar, made his own famous store here. Traditional clock shops, photography stores, ready made clothes, book shops, news-stands, beauty stores, and the most famous TOY SHOPS of Lahore.

Who was William Finch? A British con artist working his way through various cities of Hindustan, trying to do business here and there. I think it was Indigo for which he came to Lahore. Denied access to Mughal Courts and Kings and Queens, he could sit in the bazaar looking for gossips to hear and write about. There the bastard made the story of Anarkalli, as a consort of Emperor Akbar and Saleem was secretly having an affair with his step mother. As this story did not seem very romantic in depth, later writers turned it into a full scale romance. Muddled for decades and centuries of truth with blasphemy of highest order. This is the same moron who saw the Lahore Fort full of images of Jesus Christ and Mary and Jahangeer on the verge of Christianity. In fact he affirms that Jahangeer not only had three of his nephews converted to Christianity, he also affirms that (Nous-billah) Jahangeer used to attack the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) as well as the Al-Quran in his court. Curse on this haramzada to indulge in such blasphemy even at that time. A person who may have never entered the Lahore Fort, saw it full of images of the Cross, Jesus Christ and Mary. The interesting part is that he saw it in a pavilion which was made after his death in August, 1913 in Babylon. All his indigo got stolen and he lost his life. So take his invented stories with a grain of salt. Sick minds have sick thoughts.

It was said then that if you have not seen Lahore, you have not seen anything. But if you have not seen Anarkalli, you have not seen Lahore. That is matter of past as Anarkalli is neglected place now. Once a canal ran in its centre, supplying water everywhere. Even that is a thing of past now. Lahore is a romantic place and attaches itself to love stories with passion unimaginable. But truth matters!

IS ISRAELI BOMBARDMENT OF GAZA RETALIATION
FOR PAK ARMY BOMBARDMENT OF WAZEERISTAN

TERRORISTS ARE ISRAELI ASSETS BUT PERHAPS ZIONISTS TOO

The full circle is illusive, one never knows if it is round, elliptical, or even a zig zagging balloon. In the world of games and conspiracies one never knows the end actors. One can only presume, imagine, or become an end game of jokes.

The Jews are all over the world. The theory that they would end up all in Israel never worked. Many of them preferred to maintain in their own country, mixing with other groups, and tightening their love with others. It is reputed that many Jews are leaving Israel in the analysis that they will never see peace there and are against the barbaric attitude of their own government. The Jews are beautiful people, full of culture and civilization. Tender, artistic, musical, as when we see the face of the Zionists, we shudder with shame at the face of so called humanity. Ruthless, barbarians, they are indeed the children of the group who started worshiping the COW while Prophet Moses conversed with God to get the tablet of the Ten Commandments.

There are Jews in disguise all over the world. Pakistan has many Jews in population. But those Jews are welcome who are open in their religion and their beliefs are very much like Muslims themselves. But the clandestine Jews are there too. Many of these ruthless operators are Jews themselves working on the Zionist agenda. When Pakistan Army decided to start the OPERATION ZARB ASAB, it was a set back to the Zionists as their assets were destroyed in a sweep. They did not like that. To extract revenge for their lost brethren, they started the bombing of Gaza itself. I think the equation is not complex, it is really very simple. The Zionist does not believe in an eye for eye, they believe in ten eyes to one. That is what is happening.

But they have done the impossible. Leave the impotent leaderships aside of the Muslim world. Events like these make the Muslims all over the world in the desired concept of UMMAH itself. Thank you Israel for making us realize UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL!

GUL SAFA LAHORI BELOVED
MASHOOQ OF PRINCE DARA SHIKOH

A love affair of Lahore

No one ordinarily could get in the Mughal harem. The lady had to be exceptionally pretty, as well as talented in many of the arts of the world. The story of Nur Jahan’s conquest of Prince Saleem is just one example. But to get the attention of the Emperor or the Princes or the heir apparent was not a joke. Nothing ordinary could touch the senses or minds of the Royal Princes. Gul Safa Lahori managed not only to get in the Mughal harem (perhaps on the recommendation of Princess Jahan Ara a firm judge of character), but to get the attention of the heir apparent, and is called in a Royal miniature as being the MASHOOQ OF DARA SHIKOH. Not every body could get into Royal record as being the beloved of the greatest Prince of that age.

Gul Safa’s position can be ascertained from the fact that she was in control of the Ainah Khana of Prince Dara Shikoh in Lahore, and Lutufullah Ahmad Muhandis, the architect of the same Ainah Khanah, has a Qasida in his diwan, honouring the well known Mashooq of Lahore. Gul Safa indeed!

Little is known about her and her position after the death of Dara Shikoh, but it seems that she was still in control of the Ainah Khana in the times of Emperor Aurangzeb himself. She lived there with her daughter, an off spring of Dara Shikoh himself. A painting of Gul Safa with her daughter exists to this day. Can we identify the daughter in any way? Besides the famous Jani Begum, that is Jahanzeb daughterof Dara Shikoh, who became the daughter in law of Emperor Aurangzeb, we know of at least three daughters of Dara Shikoh. One is Pak Nihad Begum, a princess born on 5th September, 1641. We know of another Bano Princess, who was born on 29th June, 1634, but she died as a baby child. We are told of another later daughter whose name was AMAL UN NISA BANO, and in our view she was the daughter of Gul Safa, and in this miniature, we see mother and daughter sitting in the Bagh of Dara Shikoh in Lahore, with the Ainah Khana in the background. This is the area of the Railway Station Lahore of these days.

The famous wife of Dara Shikoh is of course Nadira Begum, who died in his camp, somewhere in Sind, because of food poisoning on the run. She was bought back to Lahore by the eunuch Khawaja Maqbool (builder of Dai Anga Mosque) and buried in the compound of Hazrat Mian Mir in Lahore. Her son who died in young age, namely Mumtaz Shikoh, is buried in the Bagh of Prince Pervaiz, father of Nadira Begum. But where Gul Safa went? No one knows. That is history. It buries flesh and blood in mere dust with time. A couple of Hindu artists saved her image and life for posterity by drawing her pictures. We thank them for their contribution!