FORGOTTEN SERAI OF NAWAB WAZEER KHAN LAHORI;
DEMOLISHED EVENTUALLY BY THE BRITISH IN POWER.

Nawab Wazeer Khan constructed  a lot of buildings in the region. Besides the obvious, we have his buildings in Shahjahanabad, Multan, like the Wazeer Khan Mosque there, and a complete city of Wazirabad. It is interesting that this complete city was gifted by his descendant Mirza Izzad Baksh to a Hindu friend, so that it would not be inherited by his own absconder son-in-law, Mira Chajju Baig. Mirza Chajju Baig went to Lahore High Court to undo the gift, but the Court ruled in defense of the Hindu, by asserting that a GIFT ONCE GIVEN CANNOT BE TAKEN BACK. All that is on record in the court files. And we have copies of it.

One important missing construction is the Serai of Nawab Wazeer Khan in Lahore. The location of the Serai is not certain, and the Serai of Mian Sultan has taken its place, or adjacent to it in some ways. Research not done so far. But stories abound. Rudyard Kipling enfolds another role of the Serai of Mian Sultan. In his novel Kim, he points to the Serai as being meeting place of Spies. A certain Afghan spy met here in those times. And killings used to take place here. His father John Kipling has made a sketch of the Serai of Nawab Wazeer Khan. The interesting part is that the Serai was once the Marketplace of Prince Dara Shikoh and later as well  the Serai of Nawab Wazeer Khan. Famous for being demolished by Maclagen after 1904 (but existed even in 1910 partially) in Lahore. We have prints as well as photographs of same. The Wazeer Khan Serai existed and is on photographic record in 1908. We have published photographs of it. Check our book on Wazeer Khan Mosque. In fact Lord Maclagen in his writings describe the Serai as having ANGELS on its doorway in the same spirit as the Lahore Fort as well as the Wazeer Khan hammam. In the Kipling Sketch, the photographs of 1908 and the photograph of 1910 all show the Gateway in different light. Fallen and reconstruction seems the key. We now feel that the drawing printed in France in the 19th century, is maybe the Gateway to the Serai of Wazeer Khan. It has real similarities with the gateway of the Wazeer Khan Mosque. But it does not match any gateway in Lahore. The heading calls it the Gateway to the Palace. Check our analysis!

We are also told that Wazeer Khan constructed a Step well there. In both photographs the Step-well is clearly visible to us. But the most amazing thing is that a house reputed to be in the center of the Serai is tipped as the house of Nawab Wazeer Khan himself. It has changed its construction too, and the last legal descendant of Wazeer Khan was Mirza Izzad Baksh. Who knows who occupied it after that? And surely demolished with the Serai itself. The architecture looks old, but it exhibits changes of the 19th century too. The doorway and the ventilators look 1800s or much. But the plinth looks really old of Wazeer Khan time, as well as the arch above the door. But lower plinth means the level got sunken with time. Anyway it is gone, and the photographs are our only memory of the Serai of Nawab Wazeer Khan Lahori.However Wazeer Khan did leave his initial Diwan and we have a copy, probably the original in his own handwriting. Subject to further research.