e had a distinguished guest from India over, in December of 1986. I was assigned the task of showing him around.

The person, BC Sanyal, had been on the faculty of the (then) Mayo School of Arts till 1936. As he entered his long forgotten workplace, nobody seemed to know him. The only person who recognised him and also spoke about him despite the latter’s changing anatomical contours (due to age), was the Pehliwan who had posed for countless students and classes in all art institutions including the Arts Council — ie Alhamra. He testified that Sanyal was a teacher here during the days when Gupta was the college principal.

As I settled down in the principal’s office and tried to know more about Sanyal, I had to abandon all my plans to take him around town. Sensing some DNA similarities, perhaps because of my accent, he asked me as to where did I come from. When I told him that my father was from Ludhiana and that he was a cartoonist, it seemed to have tugged at his heartstrings. Obviously jubilated, he expressed a desire to meet my father, and the day had to be planned afresh.

Back home, when I told my father about Sanyal, he was beyond happy. He couldn’t sleep that night. The next day, we went to see Sanyal. The two — erstwhile student and teacher duo — stood up to greet each other after 40-odd years.

“Yes, you stood guard that day!” Sanyal said in his opening words. (His departure from Lahore on the eve of the Partition has been described in a previous dispatch.)

As a group from Lahore visited New Delhi, Sanyal met them and expressed a desire to visit the city “before my eyes are closed.” His longtime friend, Fayyaz Ali Khan’s son, architect Wasif Ali Khan, facilitated his visa sponsorship and even asked him to stay in his spacious bungalow.

In one of my columns, I wrote that you may be to Naples and die but coming to Lahore means a complete reincarnation. This is my belief to this day. I also believe that Sanyal lived a full life — to the ripe old age of 101 years — because he had been to Lahore.

Recently, his daughter, Amba, emailed to me that her father would have been 121 if he had lived to this day. I suggested that she look for him in any of the teenagers in the house; he may have been reincarnated in one of them!

*****

As the two old-timers went down memory lane over cups of tea, in the principal’s office, it was decided that the tour would be started with a visit to our house over lunch. Sanyal liked the meat dishes we served him. He even jokingly asked me how I had hooked up with my wife.

“Oh, it’s the same old story!” I replied, with a mock-sigh.

That very afternoon, they were scheduled to visit their long lost friends who had either opted to stay back or were from a different creed. The first of these was a lady who was related to Jawaharlal Nehru. She had lived on Mason Road, and owned a fine bunch of cats and dogs.

Not far from that was Anna Molka Ahmad who had been the head of Fine Arts Department at the University of the Punjab. Ahmad lived on 32-A, Queen’s Road.

As described earlier, Sanyal’s anatomical details had changed a bit over time. Besides, he now sported a beard. Yet, Ahmad was able to recognise him. In fact, she let out a loud scream when the two came face to face.

The following day, my father accompanied us to visit Majeed and his wife, Sita, who was a Sikh. Their son, Izzat Majeed, was away at that time. The good old friends’ reunion turned out to be a very happy one. They also posed for a photo.

Majeed had a vast collection of cacti, which formed an apt background not too different from a Sadequaine mural.

*****

The next morning, I took Sanyal to places he wished to revisit. It was more like the return of Silas Marner. The whole world seemed to have changed together with its living and breathing characters.

We visited a commercial building where many pre-1947 establishments existed. India Tea House and Coffee House had changed signboards. He showed interest in Eduljis where he used to enjoy iced beer. Besides, he wanted to locate his studio which he had named Lahore School of Fine Arts; it was located in the basement of the Diyal Singh mansion. This was the place that was often visited by the luminaries of the time.

Sanyal remembered how later he had shifted his studio and school to Regal cinema. After his return to Lahore in October 1947, it had become hard for him to retrieve his art pieces from Regal, because, being an evacuee property, the cinema had been sealed. It had taken him a lot of effort to get permission to access it. My father had helped him in this too.

A large mural for Forman Christian College’s Ewing Hall, on Neela Gumbad, had been promised to him by the college’s first Indian principal.

(This dispatch is dedicated to Pehliwan, Khushi Muhammad, who died on December 7, 1991)

The writer is a painter, a founding member of Lahore Conservation Society and Punjab Artists Association, and a former director of NCA Art Gallery. He can be reached at ajazart@brain.net.pk