After the younger Sahibzade and Mata Gujri Ji were killed at Sirhind, the bodies were left and nobody would take them.
Diwan Todar Mal, a Hindu trader of Sirhind, obtained permission to cremate them and was required to pay for the ground by covering it with gold coins. The tradition holds that the coins had to be laid on edge rather than flat, and that the price was the highest ever paid for land.
Gurdwara Jyoti Sarup at Fatehgarh Sahib stands on that ground.
Todar Mal's own haveli at Sirhind, a large brick structure, has been in ruins for a long time and its conservation has been a recurring local demand.
A Hindu trader spent a fortune to cremate the sons of a Sikh Guru killed by a Muslim governor, and a Muslim nawab had protested against the order in open court. That is what happened at Sirhind in December 1704 and any account of it that reduces to two communities is not describing it.
The figure is worked out in the retellings and comes to a very large sum, and whether the coins lay flat or on edge is the detail the tradition insists on because it multiplies the price. What is checkable is that a cremation happened, on ground that was bought, by a man under no obligation to do either.
The Shaheedi Jor Mela at Fatehgarh Sahib runs over three days in late December and draws lakhs of people. It is a mela and a political occasion at the same time. Every party in Punjab holds a conference at it, and that has been true since before independence.
The haveli stands at the edge of the town, a large brick building of several storeys with its floors gone and the sky visible through it. It has been on the list of things to be conserved for years.