The heavily populated area of Field Ganj in Ludhiana, which many say got its name from the city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, was the only home that young Anwar Ali knew of in pre-Partition India. It was in this vicinity that his father worked as a postal clerk.
Field Ganj, pronounced Feel Ganj in Punjabi, is the canvas on which Anwar (1922-2004), who went on to become Pakistan’s legendary cartoonist, painted his memoirs starting with the violence that coloured his boyhood as communal tensions broke out. A contemporary of poet Sahir Ludhianvi and painter Harkrishan Lal in the famous Government College, Ludhiana, Anwar penned his memoirs in Punjabi many years after migrating to Lahore.