ast week the urs of Mian Mir was held in Lahore. Once a sprawling affair, it has shrunk for the reason that people’s cultural life is moving away from the quasi rural environment of the traditional mela while the urban spread has swallowed open land all round it. Now known as Dharampura, the place was known as Mian Mir when the British shifted the cantonment in the Nineteenth Century.

Lahore’s boundaries have gone beyond the imagination of many who are old and have seen the Lahore of the previous decades. Even the biggest of the urban centres were not on the scale of the metropolis and on the outskirts the cultural events could be held allied with a makeshift market for people visiting to indulge in cultural activities and a bit of shopping. Now the city has devoured all the adjoining areas and the sites and shrines of the festivals and melas are right in the middle of the city. Shah Hussain, Data Hajveri and Mian Mir lie in the big and congested sprawl. There is hardly any space left for big congregations as was the case of yore.

Mian Mir was a sufi adept in the highest tradition of syncretism and diversity. He represented what Lahore stood for many a century – a habitation of tolerance and deep understanding of the differences between religions, ideologies and the politics. His mazar is quite impressive but it would have been monumental had the red stone commissioned for the mazar not been used for the Badshahi Masjid. Dara Shikoh, the prince who was to succeed Shah Jehan lost the power battle, throne and his head to his younger brother. All that was dear to him was an anathema to Aurangzeb.

Thus the tradition of tolerance and a wholesomeness that was best represented in the person of Mian Mir himself suffered. In the spirit of sulh-i-kul, the general policy of peaceful coexistence, the Mughal rule was to build bridges with all the various communities and hugely populous religious denominations across the landscape of the subcontinent. Akbar gave a piece of land in Amritsar that was desired by the Ramdas, the fourth Sikh guru. Guru Arjun Dev planned to build the mandir. He requested Mian Mir to lay the foundation stone and he did so. Thus the Darbar Sahib or Harmanadar in Amritsar became a symbol of tolerance and respect for one another’s views and ideology. Popularly known as the Golden Temple or Darbar Sahib it is at the centre of the Sikh religion.

The main strand of the various sufi order kept away from politics. There are many legends, tales and episodes associated with Mian Mir that point to this.

The cities’ cultural life is measured by the involvement of its people in the various festivals. This participation ensures a certain continuity. Of the two biggest festivals of Lahore, one is no longer held and the other is a shadow of its former glory. Basant, unique to Lahore, has been banned by the government. Mela Chiraghan, due to the shrinking space and urbanisation, is a much smaller affair now.

This tagging of the various seasonal festivals to various religions appears to be an act of retrospection - a seasonal festival observed and participated in by the people was given a slant and incorporated into the larger cultural scheme of things. The sufis did exactly the same with basant as the festival was celebrated at the shrines of several sufis during the spring season.

Some years ago, there was enough space for theatre companies to pitch their tents, the magic shows to set up their kiosks and food stalls selling rural staple for the people to enjoy. The temporary market had the essential commodities, utensils, trinkets and tinsel to buy and boast about. But now the digital age and the mobile phone have stolen the thunder from several melas even in areas that are not very close to big cities.

The general air of orthodoxy has tempered the more outrageous aspects of the mela. The revelry has scaled down and is probably frowned upon; the abandonment associated with it is not encouraged. A puritan reading of culture has sidestepped the more vibrant aspects of the performing arts like theatre, singing and dancing.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore.