For whom the bell tolls

The 16th day of April in 1853 is special in the Indian history. The day was a public holiday. At 3:30 pm, as the 21 guns roared together, the first train carrying Lady Falkland, wife of Governor of Bombay, along with 400 special invitees, steamed off from Bombay to Thane.

Ever since the engine rolled off the tracks, there have been new dimensions to the distances, relations and emotions. Abaseen Express, Khyber Mail and Calcutta Mail were not just the names of the trains but the experiences of hearts and souls. Now that we live in the days of burnt and non functional trains, I still have a few pleasant memories associated with train travels. These memoirs are the dialogues I had with myself while sitting by the windows or standing at the door as the train moved on. In the era of Cloud and Wi-Fi communications, I hope you will like them.

The 90-year-old building cost Rs 4 lakh at the time of its construction and takes its name from Umar Hayat or his son Gulzar.

Turning by the wall of fort in Reekhti Mohallah, the monument appears in grace. A wonderland of wood, Umar Hayat Palace reminds one of the eastern legend of One Thousand and One Nights, where every inch is as mesmerising as the stories itself and as engaging as how they are told. Despite the five stories, the first sight is almost always transfixed at the main jharoka. Crafted over the entrance door, the jharoka with its windows and panels is in fact, poetry in wood. The panels shut to form an ivy and open to form a petal. This grand structure rests on beautifully carved wooden support.

Astride the main door, a plaque mentions the efforts of a Deputy Commissioner and few good men with the heart for heritage, who helped preserve the building. Another plaque on the opposite wall honors the artisans who made it possible. Ah, the human bid for recognition that outlives him, through plaques.

The main door opens to a dusty but artistic floor which speaks eloquently of the fine taste of past residents. At the centre of the main hall, a wooden witness box surrounds two graves that testify to the myth of mortality…

Verily, man is in loss.

It took eight years to compete the stark combination of splendor and desolation that is Gulzar Mehal. Unfortunately, Umar Hayat did not live to see it completed. To dispel the gloom, his widow arranged for the marriage of their only son, Gulzar. The preparations of the wedding started with phenomenal festivity and invitations were sent out to notables of the city, as well as surrounding villages. On the eve of the wedding, Gulzar Mehal was lavishly illuminated. According to locals, Ilahi Bux Pirjah, the architect of Gulzar Mehal, stood at a distance from the palace and watched it glow for long, occasionally wiping his eyes.

The next day changed the lives of the residents of the palace, forever. The groom was found dead in his bathroom. Though the exact reasons of the accident remain a mystery, the blame is said to lay with the geysers for choking him. This time, Umar Hayat’s widow did not let the mourners take the body away, instead, she buried her son in the hall. Within a year, the grieving mother also passed away and willed to be buried next to her son. The two witnesses in the wooden enclosure are Gulzar and his mother.

Before these graves occupied this place, a fountain added to the grace of the hall. It was designed so that the tip of its jet touched the expensive chandelier that hung from the ceiling. When misfortune marked the house, the chandelier was lost to darkness and the fountain turned in to a tomb.

After the death of the residents, the family of Umar Hayat refused to live in Gulzar Mehal. The house was passed to a philanthropist, who converted it to an orphanage. In the following years the unprivileged many, instead of the privileged few, lived in the palace. For the next few years, the house remained illegally occupied and few more saw it losing its grandeur to fast-paced, unplanned urban expansion.

A Deputy Commissioner, with the soul of an artist, was then posted to the city, who arranged for the preservation of the building. Gulzar Mehal was restored to its original condition, and converted into a public library. One of the rooms served as the library office and another was converted into a museum.

In this one-room museum, the cultural artifacts of the 1920s and some items from the Umar Hayat household are displayed. A wheel of his car, Gulzar’s wedding shirt, the original drawing of the building and wedding cards are preserved in this room. The next room is empty, except for a portrait of Gulzar Mehal on the fireplace, with all the stories intact. The upper stories of the palace could not survive the elements and the indifference of the locals, and eventually crumbled one after the other.

In another room, a basement was used to stock household items. A crumbling ladder can still be seen disappearing into darkness. As the old curator lifted the metallic cover of the basement, an incarcerated draft escaped it – the monsoon inside the basement was different from the monsoon out in the yard.

The stairs have been covered with wood to equalise the thumping sound. Built on the lines of Italian architecture, the first floor matches the ground floor in color and richness. From Shalamar of Lahore to the mountains of Kangra and the Taj Mahal of Agra to Jantar Mantar of Jaipur, almost the entire subcontinent has been painted on the ceiling.

From the second floor of the building, the tale of destruction takes on a different course. Though the uprooted planks and disassembled beams are different from the ground floor, they still have a linkage. The traces of grandeur can be found on the floor while the ruins of Tosh Dan, are lined up along the stairs.

From the rooftop, the city of Chiniot can be seen clearly. The shared roofs and apparently detached but interwoven lives that breath under it, the minarets of mosque and its speakers facing cardinal directions … and a mobile tower in the distance. Once on the top floor, the evening greets every new comer with these vivid details.

Mushtaq Saheb is the curator, archaeologist and at the same time, the awestruck lover of this palace. His grey beard adds to the effects of events, he narrates. His information about the palace and attachment with the palace qualifies him as the longest occupant of this wooden wonderland.

Every time he introduces a visitor, his signature sentence is:

The house that became the tomb of its residents.

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