Prayers at Lahore’s Aitchison College gurdwara after 78 years

Bathinda: Prayers were held at the Aitchison College gurdwara in Lahore on Friday for the first time in nearly 80 years, marking the start of the institution's three-day 140th-anniversary celebrations."These were emotional moments," said Tarunjit Singh Butalia, honorary envoy at Aitchison College. "We waited for such an occasion for a long time. When the doors finally opened for the sangat (congregation) and the cleanliness drive began, we were overwhelmed to enter this holy place after so many decades," he added. The gurdwara had remained functionally closed since Aug 1947 due to a lack of Sikh students. While the doors had been opened for maintenance or visitors in the past, no formal religious ceremonies had been conducted since the Partition. The foundation stone of Aitchison College was laid on Nov 3, 1886, to educate the royals and families of undivided Punjab. The campus is unique for housing three distinct places of worship — a mosque built in 1900 by the Nawab of Bahawalpur; a temple whose foundation was laid in 1910 by the maharaja of Darbhanga and the gurdwara designed by the renowned architect Ram Singh (Mayo School of Arts). The gurdwara's foundation stone was laid in 1910 by maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, an alumnus of the college. Completed within two years, the building served as a daily spiritual hub for Sikh students until 1947. A total of 15 Sikh alumni living in India in previous interviews fondly recalled the gurdwara's striking black-and-white marble floors and castle-like architecture, said Butalia, whose father, paternal grandfather, and paternal great-grandfather studied at Aitchison between 1906 and 1947.