LAHORE:Dr Nadhra Shahbaz Khan, an art historian and Associate Professor at LUMS, has been awarded the Ordre des Palmes Académiques, one of France’s highest academic honours and their oldest non-military decoration.
According to a press release, her work in generating deep interest in French culture and arts among her students through her courses on French art and Lahore’s heritage, has been instrumental for reviving Lahore’s forgotten French heritage, particularly through a funerary monument known as the Kuri Bagh.
Hidden between Lahore’s bustling streets and modern high-rises, the remnants of Kuri Bagh in Old Anarkali quietly tell a poignant story of love, loss, and heritage. Lahore was once home to General Jean-François Allard, a French officer in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s army. General Allard’s daughter Marie Charlotte died in early infancy during his time of service in Punjab, and her tomb in the ‘Kuri Bagh’ stands as a symbol of a father’s love Urban expansion, however, has brought it to the brink of disappearance.