Lahore’s musical instrument bazaar
While eating at Fort Road Food Street (Lahore) one can walk to the dreamy narrow streets of the nearby areas inside Taxali Gate. Crossing Peer Nogaza Shrine, keep going straight and you will come across the Lahnga Mandi. The place is also a food hub. The lassi, paan, naan and food stalls will thrill you with enticing aroma. The place is also rich for the types of juices available. That’s something traditional only found in Taxali or different parts of Walled City of Lahore.
Crossing the food stalls, you will start observing the shops of musical instruments. These shops will provide you a variety of instruments you might have not seen earlier. This is Lahnga Mandi near the renowned Red Light Area of Lahore. The market of more than hundred shops is considered to be the largest in Lahore and Pakistan. Before partition most of the shops here were owned by Hindus. This area supplied the locals with the music instruments and many musicians practised their symphonies here in these shops.
With the moving out of dancing culture, the shops and businesses of these people also suffered. Like many other things the modern musical instruments replaced the traditional ones adding to the downfall of this market. Shops of sitar, tabla, dholak, dhol, daf, harmonium, ek tara, toomba, flute, saxophone and many others were seen here. Gradually the local musicians and composers moved out and these items got replaced by piano and guitars. These shops display huge variety of music instruments as well as souvenirs. The shops are colourful and decorated with different music instruments but who knows about this area.
Till almost ten years back, the shops of traditional music instruments were seen but now only a few of tablas and dholaks are there. This is sad but now almost all shops are selling guitars and other modern music instruments. The only sitar maker from here also shifted out as his work had lost value and new generation did not care about this instrument in the presence of electronic sound effects. Master Altaf, a tabla maker, was sad over the disappointing situation of the markets. He said that these markets were once that full of life and colour. He said that undue bans and restrictions on musicians and industry have caused economic crisis as well as death of the vibrant bazaar.
Another music composer was of the view that musicians have moved out because they did not get much recognition and projection. Moreover, the access and location was so terrible that people avoided visiting the place. This is a sad story. There is no traffic management in the areas of Walled City; at least I have not seen any and I have been there many times I have been there. There are no guiding maps or signboards for the people or the tourists. I wonder who is to be held responsible for all this.
I have observed that in Pakistan we are least concerned about the development of markets and sustainability of cultural hubs. I had not known of this place before I went there for photography in one of the photo walks organised by friends. This is a miserable condition of all our heritage sites. I wonder why the government does not develop these bazaars as a heritage site like in all other countries of the world. If we talk about India, Iran, Japan, Turkey, Germany, France and other countries, they market their bazaars and turn them into a tourist attraction.
We have so much with us but we hide it under the cover and not even the local people get to know about it. There should be guided tours to the bazaars and special shopping festivals should be organised by the local community and the government. With very little effort of redoing the shop fascia like on the Mall Road, cleaning up the area and provision of directional signs with little history of the shops and musicians who lived there, the area can be turned back to life. Our culture is vanishing away and if steps are not taken to preserve it, the remaining will also fade away in near future.
