Lakshmi Chowk Lahore
In the year of 2015, the Tehreek (Lahore Bachao) keep working in an effort to save Lahore’s memorial from a destructive effect on the Orange Line Metro. Although the movement had started and focused on the Chauburji, another important memorial that the activists were trying to protect from horrible effects, was an iconic Lakshmi building.
Located at McLeod Road, Abbot Road, and Nisbat Road, the Lakshmi building is a part of Lahore city for a long time. From the start of a country, the Lakshmi building can be a part of a cinema within a city. In fact, the very famous intersection has been named after a building, as opposed to the other way.
The memorial had started out as a mention of Sir Shadi Lal, who was the first judge in the Indian High Court in India. In the year of 1930, he sold a building to Lakshmi Insurance Corporation. After all, with the passage of time this building was converted into an office and a residential complex, can be known by its name for two reasons:
- It can be owned by a Lakshmi Corporation, and the building's main façade features a statue of Lakshmi, the goddess of purity and wealth (the statue can destroy after a partition).
- The building is one of two Lakshmi Buildings that can be owned by a similar Corporation. The second building is in a Karachi and was inaugurated in the year of 1938 by a Mrs. Sarojini Naidu
After a partition, the building in Lahore can be a house to a Muslim league's office for some time and can serve as a home for the most interesting personalities. The writer Sadat Hassan Manto could use to live in a building, along with his daughter whose name is Nighat Patel, and his nephew Hamid Jalal. The building also housed a Prime Minister of Pakistan and Najam Sethi.
The Royal park industry which is located near Lakshmi Chowk was a center of the film industry in India, and then it in Pakistan. It can know as one of the largest film markets, it can house several studios and production houses, including Mahboob Pictures, the production of house behind the film “Mother India”. Not only that, the area has been frequented by different types of celebrities such as Madam Nur Jehan. It was also a place that launched the career of Muhammad Rafi and Balraj Sahni.
In the year of 2019, the area made a headline again when the Chowk’s name was changed from Lakshmi Chowk to Maulana Zafar Ali Khan Chowk, named after an anti-colonialist poet and journalist. This can lead to social media, for many believed it was an attempt to erase the non-Muslim history of Chowk. This was then back to a Lakshmi Chowk, and so this will remain in the hearts and in the minds of Lahore’s. Lakshmi building and Lakshmi Chowk have seen all the changing faces of the city, but remain as a time capsule of history.
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