S one explores the endless details of the history of Lahore it`s people, place, things and faces as Carl Sagan of the series `Cosmos` aptly described one realises that we know so little about ourselves.

Just for fun I asked three of my colleagues in Cambridge University whether any of these professors knew the names of their great grandfathers. All of them failed the test. But when it comes to the history of our people and our city, just how many remember being told what happened in Lahore in 1857. The idea sprung to life while reading an excellent book `The Skull of Alum Bheg` by Kim Wagner.

The 1858 skull of Alum Bheg probably was Alam Baig as we spell it now was a Sialkot freedom fighter. But reading about him made me look up the record and manuscripts of the East India Company regarding Lahore in 1857.

Henry Lawrence was the EIC Resident, and he had a group of officers in Lahore whom he called `Lawrence`s Young Men`, namely James Abbott, F.Mackeson, George Lawrence, John Lawrence, Herbert Edwards, William Hodson and Joe Lumsden. They came to be known as the butchers of Lahore. The EIC Record on their butchery now lies in the British Library and the National Archives, both of which are now accessible `online.

But before we dwell on the 1857 butchery in Lahore, let us talk about Alam Baig. His fate depended on John Nicholson`s pursuit of eliminating all opposition in Sialkot after the 55th Bengal Native Infantry, known as Westmoreland of Foot, `rebelled`. They were surrounded at Trimmu Ghat on the River Ravi and mercilessly butchered and their body pieces thrown in the river. The leaders were brought to Sialkot to be hanged publicly.

The massacre of Trimmu Ghats resulted in hundreds of `sepoys` escaping in different directions. They escaped as far as Kashmir and Chamba and to Dharamsala. But the chase continued and finally the escaping soldiers disguised as `fakeers` and other common workers were caught and brought back to Sialkot.

There a trial took place and on the 8th of July 1858 (Ref.Diary of Capt. Armstrong, 7DG-1 entry for 8-10 July) Alam Baig was tied to a loaded cannon. The description goes on: `There was a roar, a bank of white smoke and a jet of black fragments leaped in the air. A gasp of fearful sound from the spectators. Then a silence reigned.

`All over the ground body parts lay, and as the head remained intact from the neck upwards, they could be recognised. The whole of Sialkot remained silent for a few days; such was the horror that cannon executions unleashed on the local population. An Irish officer, Captain Costello, wanted to keep the head of Alam Baig, and he was allowed.

Alongside Costello, another Irishman, John Nicholson, famous in Lahore because of Nicholson Road, chased one soldier and cut him to pieces.

His head he brought to his office in the Civil Secretariat in Lahore and put it on a window ledge, to show local Maliks the fate of those who opposed the British.

The head of Alam Baig was taken to Ireland, where it remained in a shed of a pub.

Over the years it remained and decayed. Ultimately only thebones were left. It changed hands a few times and ultimately the British family that has possession have requested that it be returned to Sialkot to be properly buried. That process, sadly and tragically, still continues.

At the stage where the 1857 Uprising was taking place, according to EIC Records (Cooper, `The Crisis in Punjab, p 168) John Lawrence prior to the executions in Peshawar in June 1857, had instructed that after a few execution, the remaining soldiers should be sent to Lahore.

So it was that prisoners from Ajnala, Sialkot, Amritsar and other Punjab cities were sent to Lahore and there outside every one of the 12 gateways, cannons were placed. One report (Kaye, History of the Sepoy War, III, p 638) claims that outside Lahore and in a few places near the riverbanks, a total of 1,400 soldiers and inner-city citizens who criticised the EIC, were blown up over a whole week. It was unprecedented cruelty and one which we today know nothing about.

A few years ago, as I walked through the narrow lanes of the `once-walled` city, I managed to talk to a few old mensitting on the `tharras` of the bazaars. I questioned them whether anyone had any story to tell about the massacres of 1857. They had no idea. Just one person recalled a `grandfather` being sent against the Germans in 1942. `He never returned` so he was told.

Earlier, there is mention of `Lawrence`s Young Men` of Lahore. Each one of them committed horrid things on the local population. Just one example might put things in perspective. As you drive towards the DHA from the Lahore Cantonment to the left is a long wall known as Hodson`s Wall. This is where the cavalry regiment named Hodson`s Horse was formed.

Today that very regiment is part of the Indian armoured corps and is known as the 4th Horse. Pakistani President Ayub Khan`s father Mir Dad Khan, a Tareen, was in the 9th Hodson`s Horse. But a few words about the Cambridgeeducated Hodson. He is the man who arrested the last Mughal emperor Bahadar Shah Zafar and his sons and grandson at the tomb of Humayun.

The very next day Hodson personally executed the emperor`s sons Mirza Mughaland Mirza Khizr Sultan, and grandson Mirza Abu Bakht near Delhi Gate after a mob attacked them. Since that day this gateway is called `Khooni Gate`. Ironically, Hodson himself was killed in battle in Lucknow in March 1858. He wasburiedattheLaMartiniere College in Lucknow.

So, back to the story of the skull of Alam Baig and how it has remained in an Irish pub for over 167 years. There is disagreement on where he will be buried. This remains one terrible aspect of how Pakistan and India treat their past. On a personallevel there is no one to own the skull, let alone any family member recall their ancestor.

Besides one skull, how many of us know about other similar skulls placed all over the Brish Isles. One such skull lay in the Punjab Civil Secretariat, for it was till 1947 in the chief secretary`s office. Then it was shifted to the Archives, and then probably thrown away.

Also, how many families in Lahore are aware of the fate of their ancestors blown up by cannons outside our 12 gateways? No doubt a tall order, but such are humans ... full of forgetful fallacies.