LAHORE: Perin Boga, a former professor of the Kinnaird College, speaking about Lahore as written about by Bapsi Sidhwa, said she remembered Alhamra as an old colonial building surrounded by a huge compound that was known as Bhoot Nagar.

`There was Nedou`s Hotel with its beautiful terrace, a little further was Charing Cross, the Chota Bagh, and then close by was the Queen`s Statue which figures so much in the Ice Candy Man surrounded by a green patch of grass,` she said while speaking at a session, Remembering Lahore`s Bapsi at Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest here on Saturday.

Ms Boga went on to say that near the Charing Cross there was the Civil and Military Gazette office where Rudyard Kipling worked.

`On the opposite side of the road was the motor company where Noshir Sidhwa, Bapsi`s second husband, worked. Moving on, there was the Standard Restaurant and the Cathedral and high court` beautiful building that you can`t see now due to the high walls.

There was the YMCA and then you come to the Commercial Building.

Along with it, there were some Parsi families who lived upstairs who figure in The Crow Eaters and then you get to the corner of the Commercial Building, there was DP Adamjee Company owned by Bapsi`s father while her grandmother lived upstairs. Bapsi must have lived there as a small child.

Ms Boga said Bapsi`s father was Peshotan Bhandara who owned this workshop in the Commercial Building. She said Noshir went to St Anthony`s with her father, marking the start of the family friendship which continued to this day. She said Peshotan was a daily visitor to their home when they shifted to the Waris Road.

`Peshotan would come wheeling, not cycling, his bicycle, pick up my father and they would walk to Commercial Building. My father would sit in the Pak Tea House which was then called the Coffee House while Peshotan would dohis work at his shop. By midday, they would come to our house where my mother used to make salad. Peshotan would drink his bottle of beer and go home for lunch. In the meantime, Bapsi was growing up but unfortunately, she was struck by polio and it was her mother who really persisted with massage advised by a Parsi doctor.

That`s when she read voraciously.

According to Perin Boga, Bapsi got over her polio but not completely as she was in constant discomfort though she managed to even her walk despite a slight limp.She remembered Bapsi as an attractive woman with a warm beautiful smile. `She was very outgoing and made a host of friends, went to Kinnaird and had a host of friends over there too, some of them kept in touch with her. It was Lahore which was very much fun place with parties. Bapsi loved parties and meeting people. I remember very gay danceparties,whichwaswhereher courtship began with her second husband, Noshir Sidhwa. She continued to live a very joyful life, Boga remembered.

Prof Shaista Sirajuddin pointed out standout humour in Sidhwa`s works. She termed reading Bapsi, particularly the Ice Candy Man, a requiem as it had a litany of names of places but the younger generation might not have the same resonance or interest with that.Ms Sirajuddin referred to names like Waris Road, Birdwood Road, Queen`s Road, Jail Road and Lucie Harrison School, Malka Ka But that feature in Bapsi`s novels. `Simply reading these place names evoked a Lahore which is no more. And a Lahore which also was also colorful which disappeared soon after the Partition when the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs had finished slaughtering each other.

Ms Sirajuddin spoke of the colours in Bapsi`s novels at different levels, not just visual but psycho-logicaland cultural.

She said Bapsi wrote about Lahore with humour that`s quite unique, asking how many writers could write that way. `At the crack of dawn, Lahore, the city known as the garden of Mughals turns into a toilet,` she gives this quote as areference.

Ms Sirajuddin talked about Lenny in the Ice Candy Man going with a Muslim servant to a village characterised by defecating bottoms but nothing repellant or mocking. She pointed out the sense of darkening as the novel progressed with Shahalami and Bhati burning.

`How long did Lahore burn is one of the questions asked by Bapsi and how long did Mozang burn, days or weeks?` says Shaista Sirajuddin.Asma Niaz also spoke in the session moderated by Mina Malik.

LAJPAT RAI: A book, Being Hindu, Being India: Lala Lajpat Rai`s Ideas of Nationhood, was launched in a session, featuring its author Vanya Bhargava of the National Law School of India University.

When Lala Lajpat Rai came to Lahore to study at the Govt College, Vanya said, he got close to Arya Samaj and it had a long term impact on how he thought of Hindu religion. His `off and on` interest with Congress also started here as well Hindu Mahasabha Movement. She said he was thinking how India would be run after the British would go back. She said he was rediscovered in India in the 1990s in another avatarsomebody who laid the ground for the Hindu nationalism, an ideological forefather.

Vanya said Lajpat Rai could not be put in the box as there was no concept of nation state in his time, however there was a question of different religious identities.

Later, according to her, he thought of all religions living together with equal status, which was changed from his earlier thought of seeing the Muslims as invaders.

Vanya said Lajpat Rai went to England and got stuck there in World War-I and then he moved to the US where he stayed for five years. `There he observed many communities living together and thought why it could not happen in India with federalism like the US`.

She said Lajpat Rai had supported Khilafat Movement of the Muslims but there was a riot in Kohat which pushed him towards Hindu militancy to oppose the new Muslim demands regarding percentage of representation. He got into Hindu politics to contain these demands though he was willing to concede to certain demands. Though he had a secular approach towards governance, he thought that no Muslim demand should encroach upon Hindu majority, she added. 1RFAN ASLAM