In pictures: Gujranwala

To most Pakistanis, Gujranwala is to Lahore what Newark is to New York, or Luton to London: an unseemly urban backwater on the way to somewhere else. This uncomplimentary view extends to stereotypes of the city�s residents, such as the oft-mimicked loud mannerisms of the city�s ethnic-Kashmiris, who are famed for their almost competitive gluttony, strongman sports and brawling. Another, less comical stereotype is that Punjabi thugs in villages on the periphery of the town engage in bloody axe battles, and that a centuries-old penchant for highway robbery lingers on.

Back when I was a student at a boarding school in nearby Lahore, my group of friends would incessantly poke fun at classmates from Gujranwala, whose size, egos and obsession with how hard they could hit a hockey ball (or opposing players) made them easy targets for jest.

�Frisk him! He must be packing!� somebody would invariably yell when Irfan Rafique or Wakil Saeed (both now successful businessmen) returned from weekend leave. Far from being offended, they would spread-eagle themselves against a wall and grin, as if it were a sign of their toughness.

Such stereotypes are, of course, often unfounded or overblown. Yet Gujranwala�s reputation for being a rough place is not without reason. More than 500 murders were recorded there last year, which local police have tried to put into historical context on their website.

�Partly owing to its history of tribal conflict in the 18th and 19th centuries, and issues arising from a churn of population that followed extensive development of the irrigation system in the 19th and 20th centuries, Gujranwala came to have a high incidence of violent crime,� it reads. And now for the punchline: �The situation persists today.�

Indeed, nocturnal passage by road from Islamabad would have been something of a calculated risk except that on the weekend prior to my recent trip the police had succeeded in killing � extrajudicially � a local mafia boss, Faizur Rasool, aka Nanho Goraya. I had watched in amazement as local news channels ran video footage of the police parading his corpse around the city, and then decided that the time had finally come to get up close and personal with this reputed madhouse, with the growing media controversy over the killing providing the ideal professional excuse.

Despite his gory end, Nanho�s legacy of fear lives on and the six-lane Gujranwala stretch of the Grand Trunk Road is eerily deserted when I arrive at midnight. �People were so intimidated that they gave up nightlife. Everything shuts up by eight,� explains Nadeem Ahmed Kaleyar, a wool trader in his thirties and one of those friends-of-a-friend without whom breaching the fa�ade of smaller Pakistani cities is nigh impossible.

The sense of the sinister grows as we drive through lifeless, winding bazaars that are flanked on either side by shabby concrete constructs. There is no light because of one of the blackouts that frequently hit Pakistan�s smaller towns.

But my anxiety eases as we turn off into the area around Nadeem�s home � Mohalla Guru Nanakpura, a 19th-century inner-city neighbourhood founded by the Sikh community who inhabited the area until Britain�s partition of India in 1947. Its narrow lanes, not quite wide enough to allow a car to make a three-point turn, are home to three-storey terraces that seem to cascade into infinity. Few of the original structures survive, the odd gem distinguished by ornate carvings on sandstone fa�ades, but the original master plan�s cramped design has ensured that newer structures share a sort of tightly-packed architectural continuity.

The close quarters are testament to the social collectivism of the day, when participation and maintaining a positive profile within the community�s de facto welfare state was key to survival and even upwards mobility. Those conditions had suited the Sikhs and now shape the lives of the Kashmiri refugees who moved into the vacated neighbourhoods after partition.

�The lane was the heart of the neighbourhood when I was young. In the morning, mothers and aunts would sit on their thadha (elevated doorstep), chopping vegetables, gossiping and, sometimes, shouting abuse at each other. In the evening, it would be fathers and uncles,� recalls Nadeem, after we settle down in his top-floor bachelor dormitory.

The Kalyear home is a living example of yesteryear, with family elders ensconced on the ground floor, which is linked by a narrow, winding staircase to separate quarters for a married daughter on the first floor and with bachelor brothers exiled to the roof. Rooms line two whitewashed sides of the building, which opens to a modest atrium that feeds in light an ventilation. The courtyard is secured by steel grates, opened only to facilitate the passage of furniture and other household goods that wouldn�t be able to squeeze up the staircase.

Seemingly a world away from my more cosmopolitan Lahore upbringing, I drift off to sleep feeling mildly traumatised by culture shock.

I awaken when my nose is roused by the aroma of another Gujranwala stereotype � the residents� reputation for rich food � in this case the arrival of paiye, or stewed sheep hoofs, from Ghani�s, a nationally-known establishment, have also served as confirmation of the belief that people from Gujranwala are large-hearted. The sight of flabby feet stacked in a pot of gravy appears to me to be a test of my constitution. But nan bread-first, my friend and I dive in and are rewarded with a state of cholesterol-induced intoxication, known locally as khuggoo (a word that has no English translation). The garish, heavy razaee (quilt) that I just left looks inviting again, but I�m keen to explore Gujranwala�s faded past whose remnants can still be seen on city streets today.

The lifeless bazaar of the previous night is a hive of activity during the day. The buildings may be ugly and the roads potholed and caked with mud (a perennial Gujranwala problem, I�m told), but Nomania Road has national significance.

�This is the wholesale market for pretty much every washing machine ever built in Pakistan, and every part needed to repair them since,� boasts Salman Dar, my Gujranwala-born brother-in-law.

�Pity they couldn�t invent a washing machine to clean the bazaar,� I reply, as our car waits for two mule carts, laden with machine parts and plastic chairs to cross the road.

�You�re as bad as my cousins from Ilford � neither Pakistani nor British,� teases Salman.

With a forthcoming assignment on Indian pilgrims� visits to shrines in modern day Pakistan in mind, ten minutes later, we are on the other side of town at Mohalla Sabzi Mandi, a vegetable market and the birthplace of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, a Sikh emperor who conquered Punjab, Kashmir and much of Afghanistan in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Everybody we ask, including a couple of local journalists, is convinced that this is now home to the local police station. It doesn�t look likely, though, and we are dumbfounded to discover that the cop shop resides in what was once a Jain temple. Despite its dilapidation, this historical building known as Mandir Bhaddhanwala must be an awe-striking introduction to tough justice for the first-time crook. Its arched, fort-like entrance leads into a huge courtyard, paved with black-and-white tiles from the colonial era, some of which bear the names of the building�s philanthropist financiers. A flight of wide marble steps rises from the centre of the courtyard to the temple�s inner sanctum, which retains a crumbling magnificence.

But I see little evidence that there is much � or any at all � regard for the structure�s religious or historical significance. A room that had once housed religious artefacts now provides filing space for the station�s clerical records. And it is impossible not to notice a burnt-out car in a corner of the courtyard, used by the police as a makeshift rubbish bin.

The station�s desk sergeant is studying a simply-drawn anatomical chart that correlates to another recent murder victim when we walk in and distract him with our sightseeing query.

He repeats our question to the half dozen constables in the room: �Isn�t the Ranjit Singh place somewhere in the mohalla (neighbourhood)?� They look back blankly. Someone summons a wizened veteran of the force.

�Yes, it is there somewhere but it�s been years since I saw it,� he offers. �Though there�s no point in looking today. It rained all last week and the mohalla is a sea of mud.�

We are referred instead to Mohammed Hussein, the proprietor of a tea kiosk outside the police station whose employees and visitors are his main source of business. His family was one of 35 that took refuge in the Jain mandir after migrating at partition from Patiala in modern-day India. The families were eventually resettled into abandoned homes, and the temple was leased by a women�s welfare association and turned into a girl�s school. Some 20 years ago the police started encroaching. �The screams from detainees being tortured on the shared premises posed a real problem to the school administration, and they soon gave up and moved out,� he laughs.

Our next destination is Sheranwala Bagh, or Lion�s Garden � another abused relic of Gujranwala�s pre-partition past � in search of a pile of mud. Akaarda were once rings used by Gujranwala�s pehalwaan (wrestlers), whose larger-than-life � figuratively and literally � iconic status has much to do with the city�s love affair with calorific cuisine. Local champions of kushti, the form of wrestling favoured in Pakistan and Northern India, have not relinquished their grip on the national title, Rustam-e-Pakistan, since partition in 1947. But today there are many less contenders to that crown than back then.

�There�s no incentive. It costs a thousand rupees a day to feed them and sponsors in the business community have lost interest,� explains Baber Butt, a part-time journalist and internet technician at the telephone exchange, who went to school with Salman.

A thousand rupees is just 47 dirhams but that�s double the average daily wage in Pakistan. Perhaps it is a testament to the fact that this is a princely sum in today�s economy that we fail in our repeated attempts to find pehalwaan at Sheranwala Bagh or intact akaarda at the municipal stadium.

However, fate finally smiles on us and when we stumble upon the final event of the district high schools� tournament for kabaddi, a hybrid of wrestling and tag which is popular on both sides of the Pakistan-India border. Scoringin this sport depends on team members� success in touch-and-run incursions into the opposing team�s side of the pitch.

The kabaddi players are lean and muscular, not unlike rugby backs, and go at each with a ferocious combination of open-handed slaps and shoves to the torso or even leaping scissor-holds with their legs that they gracefully execute while running at near full speed. Raiding wrestlers are equally adept, however, at struggling out of holds when they are brought to the ground, and they use their determination, high thresholds for pain and speed, to escape to their own territory. It�s an adrenalin-rush to watch from the ringside, and not without danger of collateral damage, as Matt Tabaccos, a Greek photojournalist who is with us discovers at close quarters, even with the use of the referee as a human shield. �Do it for the honour of Alexander the Great!� yells Salman, encouraging Matt to sacrifice his personal well-being for the glory of the journalistic profession.

The afternoon�s inspiration whet our appetites for another confrontation with Gujranwala�s stereotyped obsession with food, this time its legendary barbecue platter. We walk through the Sialkot gate of the old town into Thanewala Bazaar, a lengthy lane lined with the carcasses of sheep and chiddha, a migratory species of Siberian sparrow which restaurant owners string up and put on display to entice connoisseurs.

We head to the bazaar�s end where resides the biggest meat-lovers� haven of the lot. The menu at Shahbaz�s is concise but formidable: lamb tikka, seekh kebab, champ (chump chops), nalli (shin chops) and the redoubtable chiddha. The service is as sprightly as the fatty lamb is tender.

�This is the first time in a year that I can actually taste the meat,� says Matt, a dozen chops later, echoing a common complaint about over-spiced Pakistani cooking.

Up to this moment he had gobbled up the rest of his food but steered away from the chiddha � a dozen skinless miniature birds resting on their haunches might make anyone squeamish. The chiddha, however, proves anti-climatic, with a taste not dissimilar to overcooked lamb�s liver. Novelty is beside the point, anyway, winks Salman, who devours four birds, bones and all.

The next morning, we depart from the city to see the emerging suburban face of Gujranwala. The wide-open spaces and fresh air of this former farming area suggest affluence � though, not as much as the 10-kilo trout displayed at a vendor�s stall on the turn off for Wapda Town, a spanking new upmarket gated community.

But the earthy sight of a street vendor contrasts sharply with the pristine, sterile environment within those gates; a celebration of modern master planning, its immaculate dual carriageways ornamented with carefully manicured central reservations. Impressive Spanish and Florida-style villas line the neat lanes. This area seems designed with new money in mind. It also appears to serve as a statement of intent for those business scions of Gujranwala who fought their way here from a previous existence along Nomania Road and other bazaars. There�s no mud or mule carts in sight, the traffic is sparse and stays on the right side of the road, and the rent-a-cops who patrol have Rottweiler tendencies. Anybody who disturbs the peace or violates the hygienic sanctity of the place is slapped with a chunky fine from the residents� association. Failure to pay results in power, water and gas supplies being cut off.

�Here, us private citizens have created a new kind of Gujranwala where everybody has to follow the rules, so we can all live comfortably and securely,� explains Altaf Dar, a retired tax officer and the uncle of Salman, over jasmine tea and walnuts. But there is no disguising his sense of isolation � the price he and others are paying for their flight to the suburbs. His jovial demeanour soon gives way to nostalgia for the innumerable evenings spent swapping gossip on the thadha, a recognition of what has been lost to the commercialisation of the mohalla. �I know it�s a faceless existence,� he says. �But the street culture we grew up in is practically dead.�