At Murree hill station in Pakistan, after dinner, strolling through the by-lanes, I came across the ‘Butt Snooker Club’. Curiously, I stepped inside to experience the British legacy of Snooker game in modern Pakistan. In a large, dimly lit hall, some boys were playing a game of snooker. Excited to see a Sikh enter the hall, they left the game and started talking to me. Whilst conversing, my eyes fell on a large wooden structure in one corner. It looked like a palanquin for placement of the Sikh scripture!
Was I in the premises of a gurdwara which had been converted to a snooker club?
Mr. Butt, the owner of the club confirmed that we were indeed inside a gurdwara. After partition, this gurdwara remained closed for years. A few years back, Mr. Butt moved an application to rent the building to open a snooker club.
I reflected on the words of Guru Tegh Bahadur from the Guru Granth Sahib,
Jan Nanak Eih Khel Kathan Hai Kinhun Gurmukh Jaanaa.
Says servant Nanak, this is a difficult game; only a few spiritualists can comprehend.
Once spiritualists would congregate here to play the ‘game of life’ by submitting their heart as a ball to be poked by the pole of spiritual verses. But why did the tables turn from a ‘game of life’ to a ‘game of snooker’ at the Butt Snooker Club?
Photographed in Oct 2014, during the research for the book “LOST HERITAGE The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan”
