Attia Hosain, writer: born Lucknow, India 20 October 1913; married Ali Bahadur Habibullah (one son, one daughter); died London 23 January 1998.
The people who came to see Attia Hosain honoured at a book launch a few weeks ago could have been forgiven for expecting a subdued and fragile old lady. After all, Hosain was 84, had had a long and turbulent life and for years had been in poor health. The launch demanded nothing of her but that she sit on stage as a sort of icon and accept the homage of her admirers, while her daughter – the film producer Shama Habibullah – read from one of her mother’s early World Service pieces.
But Hosain was not one to sit back passively letting encomiums wash over her. Despite her physical difficulties, she immediately engaged with her audience, vividly sharing her emotions and memories. Her indomitability and eloquence swept problems aside, with a degree of hauteur and a magnificent sense of style.
Those qualities must have stood her in good stead. She was born in 1913 into an aristocratic family in Lucknow – a city that is a byword for Muslim scholarship and culture. From her father she inherited a keen interest in politics and nationalism. From her mother’s family of poets and scholars she drew a rich knowledge of Urdu, Persian and Arabic. Her knowledge of English came from an English governess, and subsequently as one of the few Indian girls at an English medium school. She was the first woman from her background to take a degree at Lucknow University.
From early on she was a communicator, first through feature articles for Indian papers, the Pioneer and the Statesman, and membership of the radical Progressive Writers’ Movement. The fiction came later, as a result – she recently speculated – of politics and dislocation.
In 1947, when India was partitioned into India and Pakistan, Hosain was in London with her husband, who had been posted the year before to the High Commission. The division of the two countries and the separation of two religious communities caused her great pain. Immensely proud of her heritage as both a Muslim and an Indian, she chose to remain in England and bring up her daughter and son – now the film director Waris Hussein – on her own. The change brought her a career as a regular broadcaster with her own women’s programme on the BBC World Service and a new perspective.
But the sense of damaged cultural roots never fully died away. “Here I am, I have chosen to live in this country which has given me so much; but I cannot get out of my blood the fact that I had the blood of my ancestors for 800 years in another country.” It was that, she said in her last piece – to be published in an anthology later this year – that drove her to write.
In 1953, Chatto and Windus brought out her book of short stories Phoenix Fled. Eight years later came Sunlight on a Broken Column, an evocative and carefully detailed novel which traces, via the story of young Laila, a society in transition. It was over 20 years, however, before the book was widely recognised. Brought out of oblivion by Virago in their splendid Modern Classics in 1988, it re-established Attia Hosain in the public eye and gave her a platform which she embraced with zest.
– Naseem Khan
source: http://www.independent.co.uk / Independent / Home> News> Obituaries / by Naseem Khan / February 05th, 1998
Muslim women who were at the forefront of the nationalist and feminist discourse in the country, during and after the independence movement, were eventually overlooked or excluded from the mainstream narrative.
MWF exhibition featured 21 Muslim women who contributed to nation-building during and after the independence struggle. Credit: Khushboo Kumar
New Delhi:
Most Indians today may not be aware that the national flag was designed by a Muslim woman, Surayya Tayabji, an active member of the Indian National Congress. Jawaharlal Nehru assigned this task to Tayabji, and it was her idea to replace the symbol of the charkha used and popularised by Mahatma Gandhi with that of Ashoka Chakra at the centre of the flag. Tayabji felt that the charkha, a symbol of the Congress party, might appear partisan.
Narratives like this – often forgotten or lost in public memory – were the central theme of a colloquium that was organised by the Muslim Women’s Forum (MWF), an organisation engaged in the advocacy of Muslim women’s rights. Titled ‘Pathbreakers: The Twentieth Century Muslim Women of India’, the colloquium held in partnership with UN Women showcased the achievements of 21 Muslim women in various spheres of public life during and after the independence struggle.
Other women who featured in the exhibition included Saeeda Khurshid, Hamida Habibullah, Aziza Fatima Imam, Qudsia Zaidi, Mofida Ahmed, Zehra Ali Yavar Jung, Razia Sajjad Zaheer, Tyaba Khedive Jung, Atiya Fyzee, Sharifa Hamid Ali, Fathema Ismail, Masuma Hosain Ali Khan, Anis Kidwai, Hajrah Begum, Qudsia Aizaz Rasul, Mumtaz Jahan Haider, Siddiqa Kidwai, Attia Hosain, Saliha Abid Hussain and Safia Jan Nisar Akhtar.
The speakers participating in the discussion talked about the need to reclaim the lost narratives of Muslim women and take control of their representation.
Speaking on the occasion, Seema Mustafa, an Indian print and television journalist, pointed out that these women would not fit even the current stereotypical representation of hijab-clad, oppressed and orthodox Muslim women, who need a messiah to rescue them. Mustafa, in her keynote address, said that these women had broken barriers and challenged patriarchal order in their time; they followed Islam in its liberal spirit, refusing to be shackled by societal norms. Most of them abandoned the purdah system, she said.
Speakers panel for the session ‘Recognising and Nurturing Pathbreakers’ at Muslim Women’s Forum colloquium. Credit: Khushboo Kumari
Stereotypes in modern India
The speakers insisted that the reality was and still is that Muslim women, just like women belonging to any other socio-cultural group in India, do not constitute a monolithic, homogenous entity. They come from diverse backgrounds and subscribe to varying ideologies. Muslim women have been and still are writers, teachers, artists, scientists, lawyers, educators, political workers, legislators in parliament and in assemblies. The speakers said clubbing them under the generic rubric of backwardness was a misrepresentation.
As the regular use of terms like triple talaq, halala and purdah has come to demonstrate subjugation of Muslim women, Islam has acquired the status of the most oppressive religion for women, the speakers said. Muslim women have become an object of pity.
Commenting on Islam and feminism, Farida Khan, former dean of education at Jamia Millia Islamia and former member of the National Commission for Minorities, pointed out that gender oppression is common to all religions. “Why should Islam have the burden of taking on feminism?” asked Khan. She further explained that Islam should be perceived and understood in the social and historical context of the day. Every religion has to and does evolve with time.
Referring to the exhibition, Khan said, “It makes me sad to think that you need to have an exhibition and you need to project these women in a country where they should be well known, where they should be part of the mainstream, where everybody should know their names and know the work they have done.”
Gargi Chakravartty, former associate professor of history in Maitreyi College and author, said, “Muslim women’s political and social contributions in the pre-independence period during the major Gandhian movements or in the field of spreading education, or in the sphere of literary activities, cannot be erased from history.” She shared many anecdotes that came up in her own research about largely unknown Muslim women who have extensively worked among the poor throughout the 20th century and still continue to do so.
An eminent speaker at the colloquium, Rakshanda Jalil, recently wrote a book A Rebel and Her Cause on the life of Rashid Jahan. Jalil spoke of the inspiring life of Jahan, who was a doctor, writer, political activist and member of the Communist Party of India.
Farah Naqvi, member of the Post-Sachar Evaluation Committee (Kundu Committee) 2013-2014, summed up the purpose of the colloquium and the exhibition. “This colloquium is a response. There is a nostalgia about it. But it is not just about the nostalgic nawabi Muslim. It has a political purpose, the colloquium, which is that you cannot allow any one strand of history to be obliterated from this country. Any strand. It could be Muslim women today. It could be someone else tomorrow,” Naqvi said.
Questioning if Muslim women needed to be forced into a separate constituency, Naqvi said it was indeed a tragedy that these women’s contributions were not a part of mainstream knowledge – and that reflected failure on the part of Indian historiography.
Naqvi also pointed out that the undercurrent of the entire exhibition was nation-building because they were “also responding to a moment when Muslims are repeatedly being told that they are ‘anti-national’”. She further explained that against such a background, the Muslim community in general should not take the bait of proving that they are ‘good’ nationalists. Instead they should take pride in the achievements they have made in their respective spheres of work – especially for those who stayed on in India after the Partition.
Wajahat Habibullah, India’s first chief information commissioner and the son of Hamida Habibullah, one of the 21 women featured in the exhibition, talked about Partition and how it divided his family. He said, “It is necessary to remember and nurture the memories of all those Muslim women who then very consciously, despite family pressure and contradictions within the family, opted clearly to be a part of India”.
Contribution to literature, politics and education
The exhibition showed how extensively Muslim women have contributed in the spheres of politics, literature, education and social work.
Many like Saeeda Khurshid, founder of the Muslim Women’s Forum, actively campaigned for the Congress party. Hamida Habibullah was the the president of the Mahila Congress. Few like Aziza Fatima Imam, Fathom Ismail, Anis Kidwai, Siddiqa Kidwai and Qudsia Aizaz Rasul were members of the parliament and legislative assemblies for years.
Rasul was also the only Muslim woman member of the constituent assembly.
Sharifa Hamid Ali founded the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC), with the likes of Sarojini Naidu, Rani Rajwade and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, and was involved in its work alongside others like Masuma Hosain Ali Khan and Hajrah Begum – who also founded the National Federation of Indian Women.
These women actively worked with the poor and marginalised sections of society, trying to improve their access to health and education.
Zehra Ali Yavar Jung, who was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1973, worked to improve the condition of women detainees in Hyderabad’s prisons and presided over a women’s workshop that trained and provided employment to destitute women. Fathom Ismail helped in opening rehabilitation clinics for children suffering from polio. Anis Kidwai worked tirelessly in refugee camps after Partition.
Surayya Tayabji and the Indian national flag displayed at the MWF exhibition. Credit: Khushboo Kumari/The Wire
Mumtaz Jahan Haider, who was appointed the principal of the Aligarh Women’s College in 1937, worked for women’s education her entire life.
Sharifa propagated legal reforms for Muslim women, including raising the age of marriage and drafting a model marriage contract ‘nikahnama‘.
In the field of literature and arts, these women won multiple awards. Razia Sajjad Zaheer, the recipient of the Nehru Award and Uttar Pradesh State Sahitya Academy Award, wrote novels like Sar-e-Sham, Kante and Suman. Anis Kidwai recieved the Sahitya Kala Parishad Award.
Attia Hossain used to write for Pioneer, Statesman and Atlantic monthly and wrote several novels, most notably Sunlight on a Broken Column and a short story collection Phoenix Fled. Aliya Fyzee wrote Indian Music (1914), The Music of India (1925) and Sangeet of India (1942) with her husband.
Qudsia Zaidi wrote and translated books for children, with Chacha Chakkan ke Draamae among the most loved ones. She also founded Hindustani Theatre in 1954, the first urban professional theatre company in independent India.
Khushboo Kumari has a BTech in information technology and is pursuing an MBA in marketing from MICA, Ahmedabad. She is an intern at The Wire.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> History> Religion> Women / by Khushboo Kumari / May 30th, 2018
Students of Toc H Institute of Science and Technology, Arakunnam, with the Electromyography-controlled prosthetic arm that they developed.
It will meet the basic daily requirements of an amputee
Five engineering students of Toc H Institute of Science and Technologyat Arakunnam near here have come up with an Electromyography (EMG) controlled prosthetic arm.
The students – Mereena Baby, Aysha Zenab Kenza, Nikitha Sajan, Lakshmi Mohan, and Sharon Alex – are in the final year of their B.Tech Computer Science programme.
A release issued by the college claimed that the robotic arm would meet the basic daily requirements of an amputee, even though it lacked advanced features.
The prosthetic arm is priced at ₹2 lakh while those with advanced features cost anywhere between ₹15 lakh to ₹25 lakh, which is out of the reach of the common man, it said.
The students said that the Myo-armband interprets the electric signals produced as a result of the muscle movements and converts them into accurate hand gestures. They are then read by a micro-controller through a Bluetooth dongle.
Server motors
Based on those signals read, an appropriate number of server motors are rotated to move the prosthetic limb, they said.
The release said that the product could be made faster and easier by using advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence.
The students expressed the hope that they would get support from investors to take the product to users.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Special Correspondent / June 03rd, 2018
Many participated actively in the agitation for Statehood
At a time when the Telangana sentiment was at its peak, several Muslims and Muslim organisations jumped into the movement. Be it the 1969 agitation or, for that matter, more recently, in 2008 and 2009. And with the anniversary of the formation of the State on Saturday, some of those involved in the movement share their experiences.
Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Telangana and Odisha president Hamid Mohammed Khan says that it was in 2008 that the socio-religious organisation jumped in to the fray.
The Jamaat, he says, was aware of the region’s backwardness and its causes which is why the decision was taken to join the movement.
“We formed an advisory committee to study these injustices. We analysed a lot of government released data, Planning Commission reports and the distribution of resources to Telangana region. We analysed government employment patterns too. In 2008 we decided to wholeheartedly support the movement,” Mr. Khan says.
Organised garjanas
The Jamaat, he says, was a part of the Telangana Joint Action Committee, and its organs supported the cause. “We organised Telangana garjanas in all districts and used our established units to further the cause of Telangana,” he says.
While the Jamaat formally took part movement in 2008, the All India Majlis-e-Tameer-e-Millat (AIMTM), another socio-religious organisation was active during the 1960s.
According to its vice-president Ziauddin Nayyar, it was in 1969 that the then general secretary Laiq Ali Khan was actively associated with the Telangana Praja Samithi, co-founded by the then chief minister of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh M. Chenna Reddy.
“Several of the Tameer-e-Millat’s leaders were even jailed for being a part of the agitation. Our ties were so close with the movement. Another member, Tahir Osmani, was well known for his renditions of poetry and slogans for Telangana statehood,” Mr. Nayyar recalled.
Observers said that with the passage of time and weakening of the organisation, the AIMTM could not be an active part of the later years of the Telangana movement.
“Apart from these two organisations, several individuals too took part in the movement. They were well aware of the injustice meted out to the people of the state,” an observer said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Syed Mohammed / Hyderabad – June 04th, 2018
Once again, a young sportsman of the town, Naazim Javed Khan has made the entire town proud after qualifying to represent India in ‘ITTF Para Table Tennis Spanish Open’, which will be held at Barcelona in Spain from 7th to 11th June 2018. Around 9 players from various states including Naazim Javed Khan and two others from Karnataka have been selected for this championship game in Spain.
Speaking to SahilOnline Kumta correspondent, Naazim said that he obtained two years of coaching in Maharashtra Mandal table tennis club at Hubli. As a player, he always participated in various levels of table tennis games held across the country. Recently, a team of 9 players from across India was selected by Indian Table Tennis Federation to represent India in Spain, which included him too. VRL will be the official sponsor for Naazim.
It may be noted that, Naazim had represented India in the ‘Para Asian Regional Table Tennis Championship’ in August 2017 in China and had also participated at ‘Para Table Tennis Games’ held in Thailand in 2013. Other than this, Naazim is a student of Karnataka Institute of Medical Science (KIMS) in Hubli, studying MBBS.
As the news of his selection made rounds on social media platforms, the smiles and happiness spread among the people of Kumta and many expressed their best wishes for his upcoming games in Barcelona, Spain.
On this occasion, various organizations of Kumta including the management of Kumta Jamatul Muslimeen, North Kanara Muslim United Forum, Kumta Muslim Association, and Al-Ittihad Youth Committee Kumta have congratulated him and wished him all the success in the upcoming games.
Team SahilOnline also wishes all the best for his upcoming games.
source: http://www.sahilonline.net / Sahil Online / Home / source: S.O. News Service / Coastal News – National News / by Sajjad Qazi / June 02nd, 2018
In a career spanning 70 years, A.L. Syed became one of the important figures of 20th-century Indian photography. Working in black and white, his apparently neutral stance conceals a deeply compassionate vision of human existence, says HAVOVI ANKLESARIA.
THIS collection of 93 masterly duotone photographs by Abid Mian Lal Mian Syed is a tribute to the man and a selection of his work. In a career that spanned 70 years, he was perhaps one of the most important figures in the world of 20th-century Indian photography. Born in 1904, Syed spent his childhood in Palanpur where he and his brother became the official photographers of Palanpur State and much of their professional work was done for the royal families of various North Indian States.
In 1923 Syed won first prize in The Illustrated Weekly of India Photo Contest for his photograph of the sunrise at Chowpatty, unfortunately not included in this selection. He began publishing his work in 1925 and towards the end of his life claimed to have been published in every Indian magazine. In 1935, he won the Popular Photography award for his photograph “Traveller of the East, Palanpur” and, with it, instant international recognition.
For generations of viewers overwhelmed by colour, the black and white image is the medium of the master-craftsman and Syed does not disappoint. His eye is impeccable. These are wonderfully evocative photographs sans colour but with varying intensities of light and shadow. O.P. Sharma’s Foreword is slightly overburdened with accolades, but he does a good job of introducing his subject. Syed’s range was vast — from portraits of the rich and powerful to day-to-day village scenes. Much of the attraction of the photographs is the strong emphasis on line and form, particularly the section on his historical buildings and religious monuments. Like many of his generation, he was a keen hunter, but in this collection there are no trophies, only living birds and animals.
The book begins with a series of portraits of the royal families of Northern India in their resplendent gear. Most of the portraits are taken in isolation. The fixed frontal alignment, the expression of supreme assurance from individuals who know their social and political identity, symbolise a way of life and attitudes that are somewhat diminished in contemporary India. The portraits are nonetheless important as a part of the national archive. The first photograph is a long shot of a very young Gayatri Devi of Jaipur seated in a dark room. Her freshness and youth contrasts sharply with the antique grandeur of her surroundings and accentuates the loneliness of her surroundings.
Syed was obsessed with the desert, which penetrated his consciousness almost totally. The desert as star recalls the haunting scenes in the film “Lawrence of Arabia”, though Syed’s photographs predate the film by several decades. Most of his outdoor photographs have a feel of desolation. Even relatively busy scenes evoke a sense of vastness. One of the great classics of this collection and possibly in the history of photography is “Different Climb, Jaisalmer” in which a camel is being drawn up a sand dune. The camel and the man are not in prominent focus. What is emphasised is the sharp angle of the dune’s gradient, evoking the terror and seductiveness of this featureless terrain.
In “Desert Child”, child and lamb pose in front of the camera unselfconsciously. Innocence declares itself without surrendering to the “cutesy bunny” manipulations traditionally associated with photographs of children and animals. Their vulnerability is brought into focus in the context of a remorseless desert existence.
Perhaps one of the most extraordinary photographs in this collection is “Risky Balance” showing a man perched on a rope on one leg with a donkey strapped to his back. The upward tilt of the camera captures the perfect equipoise of the acrobat featured against a dull grey sky. But it is not simply the showmanship that amazes. The image resonates with a sense of perilous uncertainty of living on the edge with no guarantees and of having to depend on skills whose rewards are irregular. Indeed the title is ironic in a way that Syed may not have intended.
In 1971 Syed developed Parkinson’s disease, but continued to work. He died in 1991. Towards the end of his life, he was critical of contemporary Indian photographers and photo-journalists for parading the spectacle of poverty and human misery to satisfy the international market. Syed’s camera was not an instrument of authorship. There is nothing of the vicarious or the gratuitous in these pictures. The frame is a medium of documentation whose artistry is concerned with the simple, direct act of viewing. His apparently neutral stance conceals a deeply compassionate vision of human existence as one of isolation, loneliness and incompatibility.
Visions from the Inner Eye: Photographic Art of A.L. Syed, Introduction by O.P. Sharma, Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., p.111, Rs. 1000.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu, Online Edition / Home> Literary Review / January 06th, 2002
Abidmian Lalmian Syed (1904-1991), more popularly known as A.L. Syed, is the Doyen of Indian photography. He is regarded as one of the key figures whose works have captured the glory and aura of the Princely States of pre-Independence India.
Born on February 2, 1904, in Vernawada, a village 16 kms from Palanpur, he spent his early childhood in the town where his father was hakim of the Royal family. It was a school tour of Mumbai in 1923 that played an important role in shaping his life. On that trip, a photograph he clicked of sunset at Chowpatty won him the First Prize in Illustrated Weekly of India’s snap shot competition. For the next five decades, his photographs were regularly featured on the pages of the Weekly.
Morning Time In Dyara – 1938 – A. L. Syed
In 1925, his images first began appearing in Kumar, a Gujarati magazine, edited by well- known artist Ravi Shankar Raval, and he was a regular contributor, with photos and feature articles till the publication ceased in 1940.
At that time he was already working with his elder brother, K.L. Syed, a well known freelance and also official court photographer in Palanpur. But unlike his brother, A.L. went beyond portraits, and his famous photograph ‘Traveller of the East’ taken in 1934, won international recognition and was published as one of the world’s best photographs in Odhan Press Home Library series. Since then it has been a part of over 40 international exhibitions and winner of the annual Popular Photography award in 1935, and later became part of the famous Hutchinson Collection in the USA.
Street Sweeper – 1938 – A. L. Syed
One of his many one-man shows was inaugurated by the then President of India, V.V. Giri, on the occasion of the 6th Convention of the Federation of Indian Photography hosted by the Camera Society, Delhi.
Another of his photographs, ‘Difficult Ascent’ was chosen for an award from among the 2,500 received from 15 Asia Pacific countries in the Asia Pacific Cultural Center for the UNESCO (ACCU) Photo Contest in Tokyo in 1977, and in 1980 he was given the honour of inaugurating a photographic exhibition organized by Illustrated Weekly of India to commemorate its centenary. Later in 1983, he was one of the 10 eminent photographers of the world to receive the India International Photographic Council’s highest honour, the Honorary Fellowship for outstanding contribution and service to various branches of photography.
Mr. Syed was more than a photographer; he was a master artist, highly respected in Indiaand abroad, both professionally and personally. His skill in bringing alive remarkable images of day to day life around the country and crafting exquisite portraits have made his work live long after he passed away on August 30, 1991.
The collaboration with the Healing Little Hearts charity was initiated by AMU Vice Chancellor Tariq Mansoor, Tabassum Shahab (Pro Vice-Chancellor) and Shamshul Zoha, an AMU alumnus.
File photo of Aligarh Muslim University campus.
Aligarh:
Free heart surgeries will be available for children with congenital defects at the Aligarh Muslim University’s (AMU) Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College (JNMC) after the varsity signed a deal with a British charity.
The collaboration with the Healing Little Hearts (HLH) charity was initiated by AMU Vice Chancellor Tariq Mansoor, Tabassum Shahab (Pro Vice-Chancellor) and Shamshul Zoha, an AMU alumnus.
Javaid Akhter (Registrar), Mohammad Hanif Beg (Chairperson, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery) and Azam Haseem signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with HLH’s Sanjiv Nichani (Consultant Paediatric Interventionist) and Zoha.
“Since independent researches show yearly births of over 100,000 babies with congenital heart defects in India, it is high time to take necessary steps for helping these children with heart ailments,” said professor Beg.
Many children requiring corrective heart surgeries do not get treated due to financial constraints and even the affordable treatment available is sub-standard with poor expertise.
JNMC provides affordable treatment with state-of-art facilities to patients from underprivileged sections, he added.
source: http://www.news18.com / News18 / Home> India / by IANS / May 24th, 2018
India swimmer Masudur Rahman Baidya, the only man with amputated legs to cross the English Channel in 1997, died on Sunday morning after a heart attack, according to family sources
Masudur Rahman Baidya
Kolkata:
India swimmer Masudur Rahman Baidya, the only man with amputated legs to cross the English Channel in 1997, died on Sunday morning after a heart attack, according to family sources.
The 46-year-old was not keeping well for a couple of days. His family in Topsia rushed him to a nearby hospital.
“He had a major heart attack and doctors put him in ventilator. Doctors tried their best but he passed away within one hour,” said his sister Monira Rahman.
Masudur is survived by his mother, wife, and two daughters.
source: http://www.mid-day.com / mid-day.com / Home> Sports News> Other Sports News / pTI / April 27th, 2015
His was the hand behind the Arabic inscriptions on the Taj Mahal, which have captivated tourists from across the world.
But today, the mausoleum and the dwelling of Amanat Khan, the calligrapher of the Taj Mahal, lies in decay, neglect and encroachment.
Sarai Amanat Khan, about 29 kilometres south-east of Amritsar on Tarn Taran Attari road, was built by Khan in 1640, where he lived a reclusive life following the death of his elder brother Afzal Khan, the prime minister of Shah Jahan.
But here too, Khan, who came to India from Iran in 1609 and whose real name was Abdul Haq before being conferred the title of “Amanat Khan” by Shah Jahan for his impressive calligraphy, has left the imprint of his craft — the sarai has beautiful Islamic calligraphy inscribed on its fading blue and yellow tiles.
Sarai Amanat Khan was also a guest house, where travellers on the Lahore-Agra route on the Grand Trunk Road would stop for rest in the middle of a long strenuous journey. They would live in the small rooms inside the sarai, and pray in the adjacent mosque and large courtyard.
Today, Sarai Amanat Khan is dilapidated — the Nanakshahi bricks are falling off, and the eastern gate is in disarray; some 800 feet below it is Khan’s ruined tomb.
The sarai is in the middle of a densely populated village, also named after Amanat Khan.
With several shops in its immediate vicinity, the Archaeological Survey of India-protected monument is a site of rampant encroachment. Several families live inside the rooms of the sarai illegally, and claim to have been doing so since Partition. “I was born here,” says 50-year-old Ranjit Singh. “People have been living here since 1947. There had been talks about giving us alternative land and compensation, but those have not materialised,” he adds.
source: http://www.archive.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Archive / by Navjeevan Gopal, New Delhi / July 29th, 2012
