The poets participating in these mushairas were obliged to recite nazm, usually written in the form of Masnavi, on a specified topic, contrary to the earlier tradition of mushaira where poets used to be free to recite their ghazal(s). It was the new kind of mushairas (poetry gatherings) held between 1874 and1875 under the auspices of Anjuman that laid the basis of new school of Urdu poetry. A number of literati belonging mostly to North India joined this Anjuman, including Muhammad Hussain Azad, Altaf Hussain Hali, Molvi Muqarrab Ali, Pandit Krishan Lal Talib et al. Dr G W Leitner, a committed orientalist, founder of Oriental College and first principal of Government College Lahore, established Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in Punjab, popularly known as Anjuman-e-Punjab in January 1865. Lahore emerged as a new metropolitan centre of Urdu poetry in the last quarter of 19th century. In Urdu poetry the image of Lahore as a city of enchantment began appearing a bit later. Narrating movingly his sentimental journey to Lahore, Pran Nevile quotes a line from another celebrated British poet, Thomas Moore’s Lala Rookh: an Oriental Romance (written in 1817) that describes Lahore as a place of enchantment: “brilliant displays of life and pageantry among the palaces and gilded minarets of Lahore made the city altogether like a place of enchantment”. He counts Lahore among those seven cities Adam saw from the hill of paradise.
Milton, 17th century great English poet, mentions Lahore in Paradise Last. They seem determined to entirely change- and spoil-the architectural landscape of Lahore. However, how Pakistani rulers have ruined this historic city in the name of development is yet to be recorded in history books. This brief introduction seems to account for the variegated historical heritage of Lahore. It was ruled by Hindu kings, Mughal emperors, Sikhs monarchs and British sovereigns”. In almost all books, historical account of Lahore begins in the following words: “The original foundation of Lahore or Loh-awar (from the Sanskrit word awar or fort) was attributed to Lav or Loh, one of the sons of legendry Rama. These two images might appear contrasting, but are not necessarily contradictory rather they can supplement each other in a bid to paint the full picture of a metropolis. Historian’s eyes capture barren yet factual features of a city, while poets’ and fiction writers’ imagination hunt for lively ethos of the life of a city. The second one is an ensemble of numerous accounts, descriptions and narrations made by poets, travellers and story writers. The first one is created out of big city’s old, grandiose buildings, citadels, forts, tombs, mosques, churches, gardens, roads, rivers etc which is usually preserved by historians. Every metropolis seems to have been enshrined into two images.
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