Down memory lane with Lko’s Sanatkada fest

‘Raja Bazar ki Sair’ began from Nadan Mahal, continued to Yahiyaganj Gurudwara and into the narrow lanes of Raja Bazar

The incidents and anecdotes in the silent and narrow bylanes of Raja Bazar in the Old City from eons ago, returned to life during a walk organised as part of five-day Sanatkada Lucknow Festival , on Saturday.

A walk was organised as part of the Sanatkada festival in Lucknow on Saturday (HT Photo)

‘Raja Bazar ki Sair’ began from Nadan Mahal, a structure made in Mughal style, having Maqbaras of Sheikhzadas who ruled Awadh before the Nawabs, continued from Yahiyaganj Gurudwara – where Guru Tegh Bahadur lived for 2 months and 13 days and in the narrow lanes of Raja Bazar.

The walk was led by members of the organising team Ansaf and Anshubhi who said that decoration in houses of Lucknow began in the 1950s. “The locality was home to merchants, and it was based on the amount of money one could put in for beautification of the exteriors. It is also believed that the chikankari designs are inspired by the Awadhi architecture,” said Ansaf.

He said that one can also find Tesu or Palash flowers in the architecture and chabootra in the houses. “The chabootras depicted community bonding. It is said that prospective buyers when they used to come house-hunting, used to look for houses with a chabootra having at least space for a dead body so that it could be used for bringing the community together at the time of any mishap and also at the time of a celebration,” said Ansaf.

Later, during the walk the prominent houses of the area including Sharife Wala Ghar, Aeroplane Wala Ghar and Rocket Wala Ghar were also shown to the participants.

Sessions ‘The Emergence of Platforms and the Creative Dignity Experiment’ by Meera Goradia, Aanchal Sodhani and Nitin Pamnani, ‘Of Time and the City’ by Rohan Shiv Kumar, ‘Mango we don’t know’ by Sopan Joshi, Himanshu Bajpai and Jamal Kidwai and ‘Architectural Spaces as socio cultural connectors’ by Vandana Sehgal, Ritu Gulati and Chander Prakash were also organised. Besides, Baitbazi, Qawwali and Mehfil-e-Tarannum were also held.

Many enjoyed shopping, posing for photographs with illustrations related to streets of the city at Safed Baradari and thematic decorations having intricate features of the bylanes.