The Old Weblog

After checking in, we went to our host’s office, which is located on the Mall road itself. While driving to the office, we could notice no. of buildings with Hindu names like Sir Ganga Ram Building, 1921 or Shobha Singh Building or Sardar Mundi Singh Building. This was incidentally the only sign of Hindu presence in the city.

We changed money at our friends’ office, the going rate is Rs. 57/- for one USD versus Rs. 45/- for the Indian rupee. Therefore, Pakistani currency is about 25% devalued versus the Indian currency.

Leaving our host behind, we left for a little site seeing along with a junior officer from his office. We passed by some old and famous buildings like the Lahore High Court, the famous Government College Lahore (where Dev Anand studied), Lawrence Garden, and Anarkali Bazar etc.

We reached the Lahore fort late in the evening and we just managed to enter the fort before its closing time which is 6.00 pm. All important buildings like the Shish Mahal etc. were closed. However our guide was an enterprising fellow who said that there is no problem “Security Walo Ko Thodi Izzat Dai Dejeyay”. Of course with little Izzat, all doors were opened for us and we were able to see the complete fort (Same culture as in India).

The fort itself is quite poorly maintained visibly worse than the Red Fort in Delhi. Within the fort, there is a small monument where Sikh Guru Arjun Dev was put in a burning cauldron and yet he survived.