Life in a Small Town in Bygone Days
By Dr Khurshid Alam Khan Karachi, Pakistan
When one is blessed with longevity
and reaches more than seventy
years of age, the accumulated
memories of the days gone by are both
voluminous and indelible. Looking back,
it appears that the technological breakthroughs
have irreversibly and unimaginably
changed the quality of our lives.
My memories take me back to mid-
1947 when I started school in a small town,
my birth place, named Shamsabad, situated
in-between the city of Farrukhabad and the
famous Pathan settlement, Kaimgunj, India.
The local school consisted of mud walls and a
thatched roof and provided education only up
to 8th class. For further education one had to
move to other cities.
Shamsabad comprised more than a dozen
communities, was separated by orchards
of mangoes, guava and oranges. There was
an abundance of giant tamarind trees that
provided shade in hot summer months. After
blistering heat, the long awaited monsoon
rains brought happiness to the faces of the
people and suddenly the whole landscape
would change. The sight of rain-washed trees
and a carpet of fresh green grass laid as far as
the eye could see are still vivid in my memory.
The Pathans, the ethnic community to
which my family belonged, migrated from
nearby Kaimgunj. Especially notable was
the community of Syeds, who arrived from
Iran in the eighteenth century. They lived in
a brick-walled community, called Godam. Its
huge gate had a brass gong and a gate keeper
who struck it on the hour -- twenty-four
hours a day -- using a hammer. In the stillness
of night, the sound reverberated and was audible
in all localities.
In Shamsabad, there was a sizeable
Hindu population, which lived in complete
harmony with Muslims, each community
showing regard for the other. Long ago, the
Ganges flowed on the northern periphery of
the town, but it shifted course and now flows
about 5 km away. The fertile soil left behind
by the river is responsible for the famous water
melons and cantaloupes of Shamsabad,
much liked for their taste and texture.
Historically, Shamsabad, an ancient
settlement once named Khor, was ruled by a Hindu Raja. Later, Sultan Shamsuddin Altamash conquered it and renamed it Shamsabad. Altamash, the third ruler of the Mamluk dynasty of Turkish origin, was originally a slave of Sultan Qutb-ud-din Aibak, but had become very close to the king. In the year 1211, he deposed the successor of Sultan Aibak, Aram Shah, and became Sultan himself. He was very courageous and conquered many smaller states and annexed them to his empire. How Shamsabad was conquered is an interesting story, which is not referred to in any history books. It was passed on from elders of the family to their children. In order to conquer Khor, the army of Sultan Altamash needed to cross the Ganges, but the fierce resistance put up by the Raja’s army repulsed his attacks. According to a legend, one evening a storm struck the area and most of the tents of the army were blown away. The Sultan took a round of the area to assess the condition of his army and found most of the tents destroyed, except one in which one of his soldiers was offering prayers. He asked him, “Why, despite having such pious soldiers as you, we are unable to defeat the enemy?” The soldier answered that a saint, Azizullah Makki, lived on the other side of the river, and if the Sultan crossed the river in the stillness of night and met him, he might be of help. Altamash followed the soldier’s advice and met the pious man. The saint advised him to collect a herd of cows, tie cloth round their horns, sprinkle oil on the cloth and ignite it -- and let the cows cross the river followed by his army. Since Hindus have great respect for cows, they would not fire arrows on them. The Sultan came back and followed the instructions. The soldiers of the Raja, seeing the cows with flames on their horns, thought that they were angry with them and ran away and so the battle was won. Altamash built a mosque for the saint in Shamsabad.. Every year, people used to gather around his grave, food was distributed to the poor and devotional songs, qwwalis, were recited throughout the night. A nostalgic glimpse into the pace of life led in small towns like ours in the mid-1940’s may be both amusing and perhaps educational for the younger generation. Facilities like electricity, telephone, newspapers were nonexistent and the news was often brought back by people travelling to nearby cities for different purposes. The kerosene oil lamps to light the streets were lighted regularly by staff of the municipal corporation, irrespective of weather conditions. During the British rule, a railway network was laid in India but, due to some strange reason, the railway station of Shamsabad was located some 6 miles away from the town. So, the usual mode of travel to and from the railway station was horsedriven carts. A popular method of transport in my days was what was locally called chopaiyah, meaning four-wheeler. It resembled a large animal cage with two small wheels in the front and two disproportionally large wheels at the back, pulled by a camel. The passengers would embark on the vehicle after Isha prayers, attired according to the weather conditions, with their sheesha for smoking and equipped with books like Rubayat Omar Khyam, Qissa gul bakaoli Musnavi Maulana Rome for reading. The distance of 12 miles to the nearest city took nearly the whole night to cover. The rattling noise of the cart combined with the sound of bells tied to the neck of the camel would announce unmistakably the arrival and departure of this vehicle. Sometime later, a bus, locally called motor or lorry, was introduced to travel to the city. In the absence of a self-starting mechanism, the bus was started by introducing an iron handle into an orifice in the front of the engine. A man with strong muscle power would swing it in a semicircular motion. His strength and the prayers of the passengers would usually start the engine. The Second World War had ended and the British had decides to grant freedom to India. Much was happening on the political scene. Therefore news was eagerly sought by everyone. In the absence of modern telecommunication systems, radios, possessed by very few, were the only source of news. It was an amusing sight to see people getting ready to go to the house where a radio set might be available to listen to news. The drawback with these radios was that short-wave reception was poor and the sound used to fade in and out during the broadcast. Life in those days was simple and people often formed close bonds with one another, ready to share troubles as well as happy moments. Mental tension was minimal, so were psychological and stress-related diseases. Yes, people did not have many material goods, but they enjoyed a greater sense of contentment. (The writer is a former director of the publications division of Pakistan Council of Scien-
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