Ahmadiyya Gazette Canada
Ahmadiyya Gazette Canada
Ahmadiyya Gazette Canada
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down the Bank Bazar where he held<br />
a Jalsa after his “chilla”. Now this<br />
area is occupied by some make-shift<br />
shops and a transport terminal for<br />
rickshaws.<br />
Then, in the company of Murabbi<br />
Nasrul Haq Sahib, I went to my<br />
ancestral village Baroti. This village<br />
belonged to our extended family of<br />
the Rajput clan and at the time of<br />
the partition of India we all left and<br />
only a few working class Hindus<br />
(now called adhartis) were left<br />
behind. This village, located 5 miles<br />
North-East of Hoshiarpur, is nestled<br />
in a very serene and picturesque<br />
setting of the foothills of Koh-e-<br />
Shiwalik (a part of the Himalayan<br />
range), with housing on the sloping<br />
hills and the farm land on the plains<br />
below. A history of the area is<br />
contained in a book entitled A<br />
Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of<br />
the Punjab and North-West Frontier<br />
Province complied by H.A Rose<br />
(1919, Low Priced Publications,<br />
New Dehli). The village history goes<br />
back to the Mughal Muslim period<br />
in India. During the ruler Mahmud<br />
Ghaznavi’s time, there were various<br />
fights that resulted in conquering<br />
and re-conquering of territories, as<br />
was the case at that time. In that<br />
period of history there was a person<br />
by the name of Rana Mal (a<br />
descendent of Nipal Chand, later<br />
called Naru Khan) who had five<br />
sons, who divided the territory<br />
under their control. One of his sons<br />
by the name of Bhojo got various<br />
villages and one of them was our<br />
village Baroti.<br />
My father, Chaudhry Dost<br />
Muhammad Khan (M.A. Gold<br />
Medalist – Aligarh University, B.T. –<br />
Punjab University) was the pioneer<br />
of <strong>Ahmadiyya</strong>t in our village, and in<br />
fact in the Hoshiarpur district of<br />
that time, by joining the Jama`at in<br />
1931. He made history soon after<br />
1931 by organizing a successful<br />
propagational conference (tablighi<br />
jalsa) in the village of Baroti, against<br />
heavy odds. My father has written<br />
in his personal diary that Maulvi<br />
Badruddin of Faizullah Chak (near<br />
Qadian) was the featured Ahmadi<br />
speaker who explained the message<br />
of <strong>Ahmadiyya</strong>t very effectively.<br />
On this visit to my village, I was<br />
able to see the site of the abovementioned<br />
jalsa and also the<br />
location of our home and those of<br />
our extended family, which we had<br />
evacuated back in 1947. I was an<br />
elementary school child at that time<br />
and have just a hazy memory of<br />
these ancestral sites. I was able to<br />
find an elderly person in the village<br />
who became my tour guide for two<br />
hours I was in the village. It was<br />
another emotional moment for me<br />
when I saw the wells and a pond<br />
from where we used to draw water.<br />
Now with the span of over half a<br />
century, the village had significantly<br />
progressed, with running tap-water,<br />
electricity, roads and telephone<br />
lines.<br />
After I concluded my visit to my<br />
village, I returned to Hoshiarpur<br />
city and visited the clock-tower and<br />
the nearby school which I had<br />
attended. Luckily, I found a teacher<br />
on the school premises who took me<br />
around the school building and<br />
reminded me of the class room<br />
where I used to have wood working<br />
class (it was called “manual<br />
training” in those days).<br />
Then I stayed in the room next to<br />
the room where the Promised<br />
Messiah (as) had done his chilla in<br />
1886. Saying obligatory prayers and<br />
nawafil in the Promised Messiah’s<br />
room was a spiritual experience of<br />
unfathomable proportions. The next<br />
day, I headed for Pakistan via Atari-<br />
Wagha border in the company of<br />
Murabbi Nasrul Haq Sahib. On the<br />
way, I made a brief stop in<br />
Jallandhar city where my father<br />
taught high school and my sister<br />
Akhtarun Nisa Begum obtained her<br />
Maulvi degree from the well-known<br />
Madrasa-tul-Binat. Seeing our old<br />
house where we resided in<br />
Mohallah Pakka Bagh (near Rainak<br />
Bazar Chowk) and the school I went<br />
to was another occasion for my<br />
personal recollection of old times.<br />
I am deeply grateful to Allah for<br />
providing me with the opportunity<br />
to undertake this journey to<br />
Hoshiarpur and its vicinity, where<br />
the Promised Messiah (as) had spent<br />
two months on a Divine mission.<br />
References:<br />
Life of Ahmad, Part 1 By A.R. Dard,<br />
M.A. (A Tabshir Publication 1948),<br />
p.108.<br />
Hayat-e-Tayyiba (Urdu) By Hadrat<br />
Sheikh Abdul Qadir Saudagarmal<br />
(Nazarat Nashro Isha`at, Qadian,<br />
2001), p.63-64<br />
My Nostalgic Visit to Hoshiarpur 26
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