PATHANKOT HERITAGE SITE
Pathankot is a Heritage Place
Pathankot is an Interesting Place
This web site is a part of the heritage project taken up
by Prabal Pramanik’s Academy of Arts
Bhamlada, Bhatwan, Punjab-145 022, India
e-mail : prabalpramanik@yahoo.co.uk

• HISTORY

PRABAL PRAMANIK’S ACADEMY OF ARTS has launched the first web site exclusively on Pathankot, an important town in northern India.
In this age of information technology this was a long standing necessity. This web site, besides giving many necessary information about Pathankot, has illuminating and analytic articles on Pathankot and its values and life style.
This web site records many important heritage features of this town, as well as providing a short history of this place.
The web site is well illustrated and arranged in an interesting way to present the facts in a pictorial manner.
Though it is difficult to imagine today, Pathankot is situated at the site of ancient settlement that existed more than two thousand years ago.
This long journey in history is shrouded in hoary past for most of the time in ancient era while the medieval and comparatively recent history is clearer and better recorded.
It is necessary to have a comprehensive web site on Pathankot to make people conscious about the heritage of Pathankot and to record the face of the present city with its changing values and rapidly changing scenario.
This web site is a part of the heritage project taken up by Prabal Pramanik’s Academy of Arts.

My first few nights in Pathankot I spent at a hotel near post office chowk. The clip clop of horses hooves resounded in the road outside. Tangas (horse drawn transport for passengers) and carts passed with their rhythmic sound.
That was more than twenty five years ago and Pathankot at that time still retained a lot of its old time atmosphere.
At that time auto-rickshaws were unheard of here and there were no traffic jams. Passengers were carried on cycle rickshaw and “tangas” or horse drawn vehicles. Goods were transported in the town mostly on mule and horse drawn carts from nearby places. The number of cars was much less, though Pathankot, even twenty five years ago was an important name in heavy transportation business.
There was no shopping mall in the town then and most shops were in the old style with awnings supported with bamboo sticks as they had been perhaps for centuries in the post.
Life went on at an easy pace in those days. The town was much smaller and the population was less.
It was an important trading center even then, but the old time business men did their business here in a much more easy going way based on trust. The town was much less polluted and the people were not obsessed by fast career oriented life. Lifestyle in Pathankot was much less complicated and the people in general were more open hearted.
In twenty five years one generation has passed away with their values and life style.
The streets in the evening in Pathankot no longer resound with the sound of the homing horses’ hooves. That ambience too has passed away with time.
© Prabal Pramanik