uru Dutt s immensely popular film Chand Chaudhvin Ka opens with

a Sahir Ludhianvi song sung

by Mohammad Rafi and
composed by Ravi. The song
Ye Lakhnau Ki Sarzameen
sums up Lucknow and the
essence of its famed cultural
heritage. Perhaps, no other
city in the sprawling Hindispeaking region evokes such
nostalgia, romance, devotion
and attachment as Banaras
and Lucknow do.
So far, for nearly a century,
we used to go back to Abdul
Halim Sharar s classic
Guzishta Lakhnau that
vividly describes the city s
cultural and social life,
customs, traditions and
history in great detail. This
was serialised in the form of
articles between 1913 and
1920 in Urdu literary journal
Dilgudaz that Sharar had
launched in