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Old Lahore -- anarkali bazaar

I love "Chicken Tikka Lahori" at "Shalimar" restaurant in my town..

Lahore is famous for its cuisine, and its inhabitants famous for their love of food (the general stereotype). By the way I recently learnt from my dad that the mohalla (neighbourhood) behind our neighbourhood is called "mohalla chabuk sawaran" (fast riders neighbourhood). Apparently during the Sultunate and Mughal periods, the fast riders of the city used to reside in this neighbourhood. Lahore is full of such history, being the capital of numerous empires including the Mughals, Ghaznavids (the latter ones) etc.
 
Lahore is famous for its cuisine, and its inhabitants famous for their love of food (the general stereotype). By the way I recently learnt from my dad that the mohalla (neighbourhood) behind our neighbourhood is called "mohalla chabuk sawaran" (fast riders neighbourhood). Apparently during the Sultunate and Mughal periods, the fast riders of the city used to reside in this neighbourhood. Lahore is full of such history, being the capital of numerous empires including the Mughals, Ghaznavids (the latter ones) etc.
In Turkish "Chabuk" means fast, and "Suvari" means cavalry. So, some Turk folks might have ended up there...
 
In Turkish "Chabuk" means fast, and "Suvari" means cavalry. So, some Turk folks might have ended up there...

Indeed. One of Pakistan's best artist Abdur Rahman Chugtai was from this neighbourhood

"Chughtai was born on 21 Sep 1894 in Lahore, now in Pakistan.[1][3] He was born in Lahore in the area known as 'Mohalla Chabuk Sawaran', the second son of Karim Bukhsh, in a family descended from generations of craftsmen, architects, and decorators. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdur_Rahman_Chughtai

As I am sure you have figured out from the name, Chugtai's have Turkic heritage (from the line of Chagtai).
 
Lahore%20-%20Old%20Heritage%20Images%20-%202011%20-%2026.jpg



A LITTLE KNOWN CENSUS OF LAHORE 1850 AD – AMAZING FIGURES OF THAT TIME

The British took over Lahore formally in 1849 AD. In 1850 AD Ayodia Prashad was the Tehseeldar of Lahore and was asked to conduct a detailed census of the city. It is not for us to state every fact and figure of the census but some facts are very interesting. For instance:

Old Lahore
Total population of Lahore around 82,000 only.
Total Income of Lahore One Lakh, thirty one thousand, nine hundred and sixty-six Rupees only.
Total Muslims 46,695 only.
Total Hindus 32,109 only.
Total Sikhs 2501 (And some people think of it as a Sikh city).

Hardly no Christians, Parsees, Buddhists, or even any Bengallis. Few Europeans only.
Total shops in city 28,694 only.
Total elephants 54.
Total camels 318 only.
Total horses 1595 only.
Many Professions represented, including Painters and Architects.
Total Madarassa (schools) 143 teaching mostly Arabic and Persian, and that does not include hundreds of basic educational wings attached to mosques. Even Hindus and Sikhs were learning Persian and Arabic in these schools.
Prostitution spread all over city, but mainly Anarkali area. No Hira Mandi in operation.The number of Muslims prove the fact that Lahore in its span of more than a thousand years was a Muslim city and Muslim Culture predominated here.

The Sikh population seems seriously understated, and I think I know why. It is a common fact that Hindus used to regularly count Sikhs as Hindus to inflate their own numbers (and even for decades after independence, Sikhs in India had to get married under the "Hindu Marriage Act"). Thus i think Prasad has engaged in fudging up numbers in order to inflate the number of Hindus in Lahore.

"census pressures also convinced Sikh thinkers of the need to redefine Sikh identity - especially since a census of some areas of Punjab in 1855 had classified Sikhs as a sect of Hindus."
The Sikhs
By Patwant Singh

Together Sikhs and Hindus formed around 35-40% of the population of Lahore, so in that sense the combined figure of the two does not seem far off.
 

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