Anyone who was born and bred in walled city of Lahore can never outgrow its charms even after years of moving out from there. This is so true for my parents who had spent their childhood and early youth there. They moved from walled city in early 80’s but to this date nearly all the shopping is done from walled city. Clothes and fabric from Azam market, lentils and other food items from Akbari mandi and last but not the least all the household products from Shah Alam market or as local call it Shalmi As a kid I used to accompany my mother and my aunts when they visited Shah Alam market on monthly basis and use to be fascinated on number of products that were available there.
As I belong to a very close knitted family, I use to accompany my cousin on her wedding shopping trips. These trips were made to nearly every market of Lahore from Rang Mahal to Liberty, from Azam Cloth Market to Ichra market. However the most memorable trip was my entire day trip to Shah Alam market.
Me and my cousin accompanied by my brother started our trip fairly early in the morning, nearly 10 o’clock. The night before we had made the list of things we had to buy and the route we would be taking as this market is a maze of hundreds of shops and dozens of plazas.
In the morning we took the route from Lower Mall to Data Darbar and then Shah Alam Market. We were lucky that it was winter morning and sunshine was warming us. However we were not that lucky in terms of traffic.
