Flying from Cambridge to Vienna for just one day might sound crazy, but when you are booked for an elite classical music concert at the legendary St. Peter’s Church – Peterskirche – it is worth it.

This exquisite church is the oldest in Europe from the Roman era, allegedly built by Charlemagne in 798 AD, but was flattened in the Martin Luther era of communal madness. From Romanesque architecture it acquired a Baroque shape. Sounds almost like our communal minded knocking down structures belonging to people with beliefs just slightly at a variance. It’s a good thing scholars in Lahore do not tear up the books of competitors. After an amazing concert with beautiful pieces of Mozart, Vivaldi, Schubert, Bach, and Dvorak, one walked to the nearby hotel in a daze. My wife commented: “Shukar Lahore did not come into the picture today”. She had not imagined what lay ahead. The next morning before our late return flight, we walked over to the absolutely stunning ‘Ausgrabungen Michaelerplatz’ or in simple English the Austrian archaeological museum. Outside in the huge square was a cordoned area with Roman era archaeological findings. The ancient walls and the related low brickwork stunned me. It reminded me of Harappa walls. As I watched in wonder a gentleman walked up to me and said: “You seemed interested in this”. “Yes” was my answer. “Where are you from?” he asked. I told him and he looked into the horizon in wonder. I immediately guessed he was some sort of scholar. He then said: “Lahore is a very ancient city which has a lot of archaeological sites beneath it, only they remain undug.” It was an amazing comment for in this column we have been advocating this very fact for years now. The gentleman was a professor of the Department of Classical Archaeology of the Universitat Wien, or Vienna University. He immediately got his iPhone, typed in my name, and yelled: “I must read your columns.” It seems this professor knew a lot about Lahore. “Had we discovered a 4,500-year-old set of pottery in the Lahore Fort, I would declare the entire walled city a protected site and start projects in different places”.

As he went into a dream world, I interjected that in Lahore our bureaucracy will find fault with such a scheme, and our politicians will refuse to allow any such expedition. The professor looked sad, but then he came up with the results of the film “Heeramandi”. “Last week we discussed the sociology of what happened to the classical musician families that lived there. I understand that it has become a food street”. Then I narrated that when this food street was inaugurated by a younger charlatan Sharif, next to me sat Ustad Hamid Ali Khan, who when he looked up at his old home had tears in his eyes. These great classical families were literary forced out.

I recall once visiting their house when Ustad Akhtar Hussain was alive and listening to his three sons, Amanat Ali, Fateh Ali, and Hamid Ali Khan. It was an amazing experience and one that I cannot forget. To imagine that this great Patiala family was literary forced out reflects our social structure if we have one left. The Austrian professor agreed and described the importance of honouring the great artisans of a country.

About the Roman monuments, he described how the Romans as they conquered Europe built structures everywhere like the Hadrian’s Wall between Scotland and England. “In every European city even today, there is a bit of Rome in everyone”, he said and went on to add: “You are lucky people for you have Aryans structures which one hopes every child learns about”. I did not respond. As we walked along, we came across a bronze statue of a horse rider. I recalled how a communal extremist attacked a similar statue of Maharajah Ranjit Singh inside the Lahore Fort. It reflected how our mindset does not go beyond the invaders from the West and the East. Statues are there to recall history, not to worship. But our true archaeological history lies below our very feet, under the mounds on which old Lahore rose. There are several such places we have pointed out in this column, but that is where the story ends. The question is ‘will we ever explore our ancient history. Luckily it remains in the hear and mind of the common person, not the new urban elite. This was a subject that last week I was discussing with my friend Mushtaq Soofi. He had picked up on how I had mentioned Charles Masson, the East India Company soldier who deserted and explored Punjab and Afghanistan, as well as ‘discovered’ where Alexanderia was, not to forget that he unlocked the Kharoshthi script. European historians claim that he was the first to have discovered Harappa near Lahore.

Soofi, the amazing Punjabi poet and scholar, sent me the verse of Shah Murad, who died in 1699: “ Sutta ain ta jaag, amal sambhal ke; Harappay mohran pa saraf vikhai ke” (Awake if asleep, and shun drowsiness; show the seals of ancient Harappa to any jeweler.) This verse clearly demonstrates that the seals of Harappa were known much before the British explorers ‘discovered’ it. If anything, it remains in the sub-conscious of the people.

We know a lot about the ancient and the old Lahore. As we discussed the possibility of an Austrian expedition, the Viennese professor was most interested. Once back from a short one-day trip in which I tried some amazing foods, especially pastries, it was back to discussing archaeological possibilities of Lahore in Cambridge University. There is already one going on in Pakistan led by Dr. Cameron Petrie of Cambridge. He is most interested and seeks official backing. Once that is there the funding can be searched for.

The walled city was once surrounded by a beautiful Mughal-era garden. That has been destroyed, but if an effort is made it can be reclaimed. The 13 gateways can be rebuilt, as can the walls that the traders have removed brick by brick. The WCLA has started rebuilding one gateway and conserving another two. The walls I have my doubts they have the power to challenge the trading classes, who are politically backed. But there are other possibilities. Just one example might delight our readers. We know that the Akbar-era queen Marian Zamani built a beautiful mosque outside Masjidi (Masti) Gate. But she also built the very first trading ships and warships of the Mughal era. It might be amazing if one wooden warship was built and placed next to where once the river flowed. So, the trip to Vienna brought forth the need to search and excavate our ancient heritage, especially in Lahore and its surroundings, that our children should know about their heritage in schools, that we should work to bring to the front our great classical music traditions. There is just so much to discover, but it seems our collective imagination no longer functions.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2024