Pul Moran

Pul Moran, better known as Pul Kanjri, lies on the old Amritsar-Lahore road about 35 km from Amritsar, beside the India-Pakistan border. Maharaja Ranjit Singh used it as a halt on his journeys between Lahore and Amritsar, and a market grew up around it, drawing shoppers from both cities. Before 1947 it was a busy town of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus. Today it is a small village. The place takes its name from a bridge, and the story behind it is folk tradition. Moran was a Muslim dancer from nearby Makhanpur who performed for the Maharaja and later became his wife, known as Moran Sarkar. In the usual telling, she lost a slipper while crossing the Hansali canal here and refused to dance until he built a bridge. He did, and it was called Pul Moran. Locals later called it Pul Kanjri, after a word for dancing women that is now thought insulting, and some people want the original name restored. One version gives the story to another wife, Gul Bahar Begum. The Hansali canal once carried water from the Ravi to the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore. The bridge itself is reported to have disappeared, and the tank is now dry. What remains is a baradari, the pavilion with twelve doors where the Maharaja is said to have stayed, and a bathing tank with separate areas for men, women and animals. There is also a Shiva temple of small Nanakshahi bricks. Inside it, frescoes show Shiva, Vishnu, Ram, Krishna and goddesses. The faded paintings on the west wall reportedly include Guru Nanak with his companions Bala and Mardana, and the lovers Sohni and Mahiwal. . Settlement was destroyed by the Partition in 1947 yet many Sikh era buildings can be seen in the fields. The border has made the village a battlefield. In the 1971 war Pakistani forces occupied it, and in December 1971 the 2nd Sikh Battalion recaptured it. Lance Naik Shangara Singh was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra after his death, and a memorial to the action stands within 100m of the old monuments. Bullet marks from the wars are still visible on the temple walls. Since about 2010, Spring Dale Senior School in Amritsar has looked after the site under an agreement with the Punjab Heritage and Tourism Promotion Board, with a caretaker and new planting. The frescoes still need expert restoration, and visitors have scratched their names on some of them. The site has also become a popular spot for wedding photo shoots. The mosque and the remnant of the original pul are near the pul moran but are under BSF's chowki and hence can't be visited by their permission which they don't grant to anyone on regular basis and you need to be lucky to see them from near. I have taken photos of those 2 structures but because of them being in a sensitive area I won't be sharing those