Go
here and move the slider to compare satellite images, taken by GeoEye, from before and after the disaster.
Labels: Clicked This, Floods, Photography
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/31/2011 11:32:00 AM,
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If rain saves India and
semi final cant be played, then the rain rule “If following a tie, weather conditions prevent the one over eliminator from being completed, or if the match is a no result, then the team that finished in the higher position in the Group stage shall proceed to the final” will apply.
Labels: Cricket, Sports
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/30/2011 10:45:00 AM,
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Let me start this with a confession: I have a very healthy appetite and I love nicely cooked food. I have a little experience of cooking though. Nevertheless, memories of one of my cooking adventure will always remain with me.
It was during our exercise in School of Infantry and Tactics. We were a syndicate of four. As a part of survival training, we were issue dry ration (pulses, condiments, floor, and vegetable oil and more) before the start and we were required to cook for ourselves for three days. First day we lived on cooked items (fruit, cookies and chips) we were carrying in our rucksacks. On second day we had no choice and when everyone starting have hunger cramps, we decided to cook.
That is how it started; we collected the firewood, put the fry pan (part of our rucksack) on fire, and as a syndicate solution (by all four) put vegetable oil in it. Someone suggested adding everything else in the pan. We did that. It would have been Ok but Khalid – better cook among us - suggested that instead of making bread (rooti), let us add wheat floor as well. And we did exactly that. Result: the fry pan got filled and we could not even poke a fork in the mixture that we getting harder and harder with every passing moment. Thinking quickly, amidst different advices, we removed the fry pan from fire and has a closer look at what we had prepared.
It looked like a burnt cake. It had a taste of salt, chilies and of uncooked wheat floor. Bottom line is that we survived on our half backed cake for the rest of two days in difficult terrain of Baluchistan.Other than that, my best foodie experiences has been up to visiting
Food Street, that was capital of Pakistan food sometime back.
I was reminded of this cooking experience when I saw
a new blog by Yaseer Ali, the Director Institute of Hotel and Restaurant Management,
University of Gujrat, being born. This blog will display a lot for those who cherish culinary delights for professionals as well as for those who only keep asking what's cooking. What little I know of Yaseer and his background, he is a very innovative and has a lot of drive.
I wish Institute of Hotel and Restaurant Management, students and Yaseer Ali a great success. I am sure the Institute will go a long way in hotel and hospitality industry and, in the longer run, will boost local as well as tourism.
Labels: Food
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/29/2011 09:30:00 PM,
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Read about Photographer Lali Khalid and her art
here.
Related:
Slide showLabels: Lali Khalid, Photographers, Photography
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/26/2011 09:20:00 AM,
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"Life is crazy,” says Rohana Deva. “People are actors and their life is a stage…and love…is mad.” Deva is quoting the song that his puppet character has been singing on stage. The character, a king, is pensive and performs alone on stage. He is a doll about a hundred years old, with only a slight chip on his nose, but that cannot be seen from far off in the audience. He wears a royal costume of black with gold embroidery, and his eyes are painted and elongated in the same way as the eyes of all Sri Lankan kings are.
He and his friend Wijesiri Ganwary, are both in Lahore to perform in the Rafi Peer Folk Puppet Festival, where guests from India and Norway will also be coming, not counting the indigenous folk puppeteers of Pakistan.
Read more »Labels: Arts
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/26/2011 08:15:00 AM,
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Get ready for the best cricket in the world - Pakistan Vs India. Pakistan meets India in the Semi-Final on Wednesday, March 30, at Mohali in Chandigarh, India..
Labels: Cricket, Sports
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/24/2011 10:29:00 PM,
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The camera led to a whole new industry and forever changed the living style of almost every person on this planet. It captures what we all see, only in a different manner. Hence the success of media is owed to the visual imagery of cameras that have a lasting impact on people. Even children have a strong passion for it.
Lali Khalid was one of those kids who started playing with her father’s camera when she should have been playing with girls of her age. She was curious about the black thing with a round glass in front of it and slowly learned that it was a manual camera for taking pictures. She never thought that her curiosity would open the door of her inner creativity and future profession as well. Lali is now teaching printmaking and photography at the National College of Arts (NCA) after completing her masters in photography from Pratt Institute Brooklyn, US, on a Fulbright scholarship.
“My dream project is to capture images of our country’s youth that do not have a platform to express their talent. We have class discrimination that often snubs the creativity of our youth and as a result they waste their precious years doing all the wrong things,” Lali told Daily Times.
A lot of people have cameras and they photograph themselves and upload the pictures on social networking websites for others to see, which is okay, but in my opinion the person with a camera should focus on different things and subjects that could make a difference, she said.
Answering a question about photography, Lali said rather than projecting ideas about photography’s deconstruction onto viewers, the photographs seek empathetic projections from viewers into their proposed realities.
Lali takes her inspiration by looking at people and likes the work of photojournalists Steve Mccurry and James Nachtwey. For her, observing life and its meaningful scenarios are the original subjects of photography. Her photography exhibitions have been held in New York, New Jersey, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. She has also worked for the United Nations Development Program, Jessica Brown Productions and several other companies.
Lali is also into fashion photography, bridal shoots and landscapes. She would be working for the National Geographic Channel later on this year as it involves landscapes and wildlife. “The framing and composition used by their teams is remarkable and working with them is going to be a very extensive learning experience,” she said.
Labels: Lali Khalid, Photographer, Photography
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/24/2011 08:29:00 AM,
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Labels: Cricket
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/23/2011 06:59:00 PM,
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Pakistan playing West Indies on Mar 23 - the Pakistan Day - is another reason to win.
Labels: Cricket, Sports
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/23/2011 02:45:00 PM,
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March 23, 1940 is a day of special importance in the history of Pakistan as it was the day when a memorable gathering of the All India Muslim League, a political party representing all Muslims of British India took place at the Minto Park, Lahore and the resolution for an independent Muslim homeland for the Muslims of the British India was passed, known as the Lahore Resolution which later came to be known as the Pakistan Resolution. The place where the resolution was passed now stands a beautiful minaret known as the Minar-e-Pakistan, minaret of Pakistan, to remind the future generations of the importance of this historic place.
On this historic day, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and known as the Quaid-e-Azam, made this historic speech, “Muslims are a nation according to any definition of nation. We wish our people to develop to the fullest spiritual, cultural, economic, social and political life in a way that we think best and in consonance with our own ideals and according to the genius of our people”.
Due to the efforts of the leaders of the All India Muslim League under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, that the British conceded to the legitimate demands of the Muslims and allowed partition of the British India into two independent countries of Pakistan and India on 14th August 1947.
23rd March 1956 is also another day in the history of Pakistan and the entire Muslim world when on this day Pakistan became the first Muslim republic of the world. Thus the day combines two important events in the history of Pakistan and is celebrated with national pride and commitment. The day is observed as a public holiday and a military parade is held on the occasion in Islamabad. However due to the commitment of the Pakistan Army in the War on Terror, the parade has been suspended for the time being.
The day commences with a 21 gun salute as a salute and tribute to all those who worked for the independence of Pakistan and those who died and laid their lives to acquire this country and preserving its integrity. On this day, let every Pakistani make a resolve to work towards making Pakistan as one of the greatest nations of the world, as pledged by Jinnah and make an all out endeavour to make this country peaceful, progressive, tolerant and accommodative for all people of Pakistan, irrespective of their religion, caste and creed. We must also make a resolve today to rid this country of the menace of militancy and extremism, which has plagued this country for the last so many years.
Labels: Pakistan
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/23/2011 01:37:00 PM,
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From New York to Islamabad female cabbies are still news anywhere. And in Pakistan female cabbie is ground-breaking.
Remember how the New York Hack - blog by female New York cabbie Melissa Plaut – created waves before it died just after her fat book '
Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What to Do with My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab' deal. Then we saw a book by a Pakistani cabbie titled
For Hire. Cabbies always have interesting stuff to tell.
But Zahida Kazmi, a brave woman who have opted to drive taxi in Islamabad to support her family of six children - is by far only example in Pakistan as per my knowledge. She bought a yellow can on easy installments by a government scheme in 90's [when Pakistan was a little different and more tolerant] and started driving to pick the passengers.
Generally speaking, women in Pakistani society are perceived working as a teacher, nurse, salesperson or politicians but to deviate from the norm takes a lot of courage. To become a cabbie - a profession meant for the rough and tough and not the dainty - is hard but Zahida Kazmi took on the challenge. For a woman to enter the realm of men can pose a serious challenge to their monopoly. By becoming a cabdriver she is fighting the odds for nine years now. She has travelled all over the Pakistan and passengers feel much happy and comfortable to travel with her. “I am old now and I get tired. It's hard for me to drive all the time but what can I do, says Zahida Kazmi.
Labels: Life
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/22/2011 10:53:00 AM,
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With
Monika Kuppler in Thatta Ghulamka Dheroka busy with series of her pottery workshops and Dr.
Norbert Pintsch also in the village, Thatta Kedona spring activities are picking up.
Work is in progress at different projects in addition to
electricity by kites project. Thekedar Iqbal from
Harappa is busy in various the repair work, a group of students from Women College University is expected to come and spend a day in the village. Flowers and decorative trees will be handed over to residents under ‘one boy one tree’ program.
While this is happening in the village, dolls and toys from
Thatta Kedona are on display at Alhamra Art Gallery with the collaboration of Daachi-Foundation. Large number of friends of dolls came to visit Thatta Kedona stall at Alhamra Art Gallery.
Daachi Foundation mela has a message to create an atmosphere of harmony, tolerance, unity among the nation by establishing a peaceful society and promotion of traditional art and crafts. The mela not only entertained the masses but also provided an opportunity to know about the traditional arts and crafts and to bring them closed the real culture of this land. A large number of Lahorites along with their families visited the festival with full zeal.
Labels: Thatta Kedona
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/21/2011 08:49:00 AM,
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Read more »Labels: Images
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/19/2011 11:39:00 AM,
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Read about Photographer Lali Khalid and her art
here.
Labels: Lali Khalid, Photographer
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/18/2011 11:16:00 PM,
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Every blogger (ok, ok almost every blogger) dreams of making money through fine art of blogging. Some who are still shy may be earning some ‘passive income’ and others make all out effort to
make money from their blogging.
Those who are shy are still debating about whether making money from a blog is ok for them while others are contemplating new ways to make more money and profit from their blogs.
Fact is that monetization strategies across blogspshere are changing fast; therefore bloggers interested in making some blogging money need to act faster. What was good during 2004-6 may not bring as much revenue now as it used to bring then. Sponsored conversations to create a buzz across online world that used to come with a price tag of $50 upwards are on offer for as low as $.50. Ok, it is bloggers own choice to take them or leave them but this shows a trend. Similarly, rates for permanent for back links are also falling.
On the other hand direct sale (many advertisers are approaching directly to bloggers for their unique requirements like adding their required links under previously written posts, integrated sponsorship (fee-based sponsors for your site are becoming true patrons, not just passive advertisers) and network marketing (network marketing has grown up from early days and has become a legitimate marketing model even in local market), to name just a few have come up.
It is about time that bloggers should change their blog monetizing strategies. Have you?
Labels: Fine Art of Blogging, Making Money Online
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/18/2011 11:30:00 AM,
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I have the fortune to be familiar with Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch’s work in Technical Transfer and Training Center (TTTC) for Men in remote Pakistani Village Thatta Ghulamka Dheroka,
Mud Housing Project at Lahore and also what he has been doing to promote
African energy through the use of solar energy with the meaningful and active coopration with Senior Expect Service (SES) Bonn-Germany and Society for the Advancement of Culture (DGFK) Berlin Germany as solutions to Climate Change and adaptation.
Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch has experience with no less than 133 projects since 1976 and each one of them has made a visible difference in more than one ways.
To recognize the work of Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch, the Senate of the
Bamenda University of Science and Technology (BUST) on the Nomination of Board of Governors of Industrial and Educational Development Company (INDECO) Ltd have conferred upon Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch the Honorary Title of Doctor of Science with all the Rights and Previleges Thereto Pertaining in Recognation of his tangible Services to the Cause of Appropriate Technology on Feb 19, 2011.
Big congratulations Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch.
Read more »Labels: Appropriate Technology, Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/17/2011 07:34:00 PM,
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The University of Gujrat Second Convocation 2011
The University of Gujrat Second Convocation 2010Labels: Convocation, UOG
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/17/2011 12:46:00 PM,
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Join Shirazi on Facebook
Facebook is one of the busiest destinations online. With over 500 million active users and millions of them updating their status millions of times per day has made it the most ubiquitous way to interact and reconnect online. One wonders what users do at Facebook?
Facebook has grown fast over time. I started using then not very popular social site when it was young, meant only for students who had .edu email address. Later it was opened to general Internet users and now one finds everyone (ok, almost everyone on facebook) including old people, businessmen, celebrities, writers, artists, political activist, governments, organizations, NGOs and a whole lot more promoting and pursuing their concerns.
Please read and share what what you do on facebook
here.
Follow
Light Within on Facebook and follow
sAJs on Twitter for much more.
Labels: Facebook, Facebook Friends
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/17/2011 11:46:00 AM,
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Previous:
Annual Get Together 55 PMA Long Course - 2010Labels: 55 PMA, Get Together, Men At Their Best, Sweet Tweets
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/16/2011 10:40:00 PM,
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Labels: Photographers, Photography, Photos, Salman Rashid, The Apricot Road to Yarkand
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/14/2011 03:45:00 PM,
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Although I had travelled the "Lonely Line" between Quetta and Zahedan (Iran) seven years ago when I was doing what I called "The Little Railway Bazaar" after Paul Theroux, this journey had a special meaning for me. I was on my way to Dalbandin to see the house where my father had lived when he was posted there as Assistant Engineer (AEN) on the North Western Railways from April 1943 to December the following year. For me it was like a pilgrimage. But that was not all, I had also wanted to see if this train continued to be the festival on wheels that it once was.
In my six berth "First Class Sleeper" Agha sahib sat serenely and allowed the big, crinkly haired man and his friend to fawn over him. He wore the round black turban and the matching robe of the Ayatollahs of Iran. His chinky eyes, very Mongol face and sparse beard screamed that he was either a Hazara or a Chengezi, like his attendants, and claimed descent from Chengez Khan. He was a quiet man who did not speak much and when he did it was difficult to catch his soft whisper. Mostly he just sat there looking regal with his pout, occasionally flicking some unseen particle of dust from his robe with ring laden fingers.
The crinkly haired man said Agha sahib was returning to Qum in Iran where he was a teacher, after visiting with relatives in his native village not very far north of Quetta. The master spoke only Persian and I, despite my illiteracy in the language, was asked to see that he was not inconvenienced in any way during the journey because he suffered from a sick heart, high blood pressure and diabetes. I hadn't the faintest idea how I was to accomplish what was expected of me but the nod and the smile from the man of God assured me all was well. Then suddenly, as we sat their exchanging nods and smiles, all hell broke lose.
Read more »Labels: Salman Rashid, Travel
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/14/2011 12:55:00 PM,
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If Japan escapes unscathed from its nuclear close call, it will have dodged a bullet that many other countries have not. From
Chernobyl to Three Mile Island, read about 10 terrifying nuke accidents. Plus, full coverage of
Japan's quake.
Josh Dzieza talks to Ron Ballinger, a nuclear expert at MIT about how the plants work, and how bad it could get
here.
Labels: Japan quake-tsunami disaster
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/14/2011 12:03:00 PM,
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Flood 2010Labels: Japan quake-tsunami disaster, Sweet Tweets
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/12/2011 10:55:00 AM,
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Eleven years have passed but yet the legend of the great Pathanay Khan still remains, whose lilting sweet yet pain filled Saraiki songs are absorbed by lovers of folk music. Pathanay Khan or Ghulam Mohammad, was born in 1926 in the village Basti Tambu Wali, situated in the heart of the Thal Desert, several miles from Kot Addu, Punjab. When he was only a few years old, his father, Khameesa Khan, brought home a third wife after which his own mother decided to leave her husband. She took Ghulam Muhammad along and went to Kot Addu to stay with her father. When the boy fell seriously ill, his mother took him to the house of a spiritual doctor who advised her to change his name because it seemed ‘too heavy for him’ as the doctor is known to have said. Meanwhile, folk stories say that the doctor’s daughter commented that he looked like a Pathana. In the region of South Punjab, the name Pathana symbolises love and valour, so from that day onwards he was known as Pathanay.
Pathanay was close to his mother but much as she tried to send him to school, his nature kicked in and soon he started to stray away from school and began to start wandering, contemplating and singing. It is quoted by people who knew him then that this was his own father’s characteristic too. By the time he was in his seventh class, he began to sing kafis by Khwaja Ghulam Farid, who was a Bhawalpuri saint.
His first teacher was Baba Mir Khan, who taught him everything he knew. Singing alone did not earn him enough, so the young Pathanay Khan started collecting firewood for his mother, who used to make bread for the villagers. This enabled the family to earn a very modest living. It is said that at an older age, when Pathanay Khan talked about his childhood, remembering those days brought tears in his eyes and he believed that it was his love for God, music, and Khwaja Farid that gave him the strength to bear this burden.
Pathanay adopted singing as a profession in earnest after his mother's death. With his voice heavy with expressions, his singing had the capacity to attract and entrance his listeners, and he himself could in turn sing for hours. Khan’s reverence for Khawaja Ghulam Farid was absolute. Khawaja Farid was everything for him and he derived all his spiritual strength from him. One rarely sees a singer who can understand and render poetry as good as Pathanay Khan rendered Khawaja’s poetry for the audience. His reading style was so clear and popularly punctuated that even a non-Saraiki speaker could follow the text and meanings of most words. It remains the best-kept secret that Pathanay khan sung much better when he was unaccompanied by tabla, because it was in raw form.
Depending on his mood, Pathanay would sing the same kafi in different ragas. However, unlike other famous singers, he would never brag or mention that he was changing the raga for a particular kafi. It naturally flew from his heart and he remained oblivious to the technicalities. Pathanay Khan learned music from Amir Khan, a local musician who was a descendant of Ustad Ashiq Ali Khan. He was not trained as a classical musician and learned musical techniques during his singing at mela gatherings. His singing absorbed the essence of masses, their aspirations and miseries. Nonetheless, Pathanay had a great desire to sing a classical raga and tried to convince Ustad Chote Ghalam Ali Khan to teach him. Pathanay Khan gave his own deeper meaning to Khawaja Sahib’s poetry in his typical style and sprit of singing.
Pathanay Khan is known to have elevated the form of Kafi to a much higher level than his predecessors. Khan’s famous musical pieces include meda ishq vi tun, ghoom charakhda ghoom, mai vi jana jhok, mera ranjhan hun and kia haal sunawan. Pathanay was given the pride of performance award by the president of Pakistan. He embodied his own unique style in singing. He died in March 2000, after protracted illness. But among those desert flowers of Thal, and everywhere else in Pakistan, the scent of his presence prevails gently, never diffusing from the minds of people.
Labels: Pathanay Khan, Profile
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/11/2011 08:34:00 AM,
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Jalal Hameed Bhatti
Taking advantage of Naveed Akbar's presence in the town,a small group of the Karachites gathered over Sunday brunch on Mar 6, 2011 at a local hotel. Beside the man from Toronto, three stalwarts of the 55 PMA namely Zahir Khan with his son, Wasif and Imran Khwaja spent good part of the day together discussing the nostalgic stories. We appreciate Naveed's offer of an organized visit to Canada for the course mates. Despite being so far away, he has always been in touch with with the friends and finds some good reasons to visit them off and on.
Labels: 55 PMA, Get Together, Men At Their Best
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/08/2011 09:12:00 PM,
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Labels: Lahore School
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/07/2011 04:50:00 PM,
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Story by
ROBERT ANDERSON [who had had Ray Davis's job, in Laos 30 years ago]
The story of Raymond Allen Davis is one familiar to me and I wish our government would quit doing these things - they cost us credibility.
Davis is the American being held as a spy working under diplomatic cover out of our embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. You can understand why foreign countries no longer trust us and people are rising up across the Middle East against the Great Satan.
In the Vietnam War the country of Laos held a geo-strategic position, as does Pakistan does to Afghanistan today. As in Pakistan, in Laos our country conducted covert military operations against a sovereign people, using the CIA.
I was a demolitions technician with the Air Force who was reassigned to work with the CIA’s Air America operation in Laos. We turned in our military IDs cards and uniforms and were issued a State Department ID card and dressed in blue jeans. We were told if captured we were to ask for diplomatic immunity, if alive. We carried out military missions on a daily basis all across the countries of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.
We also knew that if killed or captured that we would probably not be searched for and our families back home in the U.S. would be told we had been killed in an auto accident of some kind back in Thailand and our bodies not recovered.
Our team knew when the UN inspectors and international media were scheduled to arrive - we controlled the airfields. We would disappear to our safe houses so we could not be asked questions. It was all a very well planned operation, 60 years ago, involving the military and diplomats out of the US Embassy. It had been going on a long time when I was there during the 1968 Tet Offensive. This continued for a long time, until we were routed and had to abandon the whole war as a failure.
In Laos the program I was attached to carried out a systematic assassination of people who were identified as not loyal to U.S. goals. It was called the Phoenix program and eliminated an estimated 60,000 people across Indochina. We did an amazing amount of damage to the civilian infrastructure of the country, and still lost the war. I saw one team of mercenaries I was training show us a bag of ears of dead civilians they had killed. This was how they verified their kills for us. The Green Berets that day were telling them to just take photos of the dead, leave the ears.
Mel Gibson made a movie about all this, called Air America. It included in the background the illegal drug operation the CIA ran to pay for their operations. Congress had not authorized funds for what we were doing. I saw the drug operation first hand too. This was all detailed in The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia by Alfred McCoy. I did not connect all this until the Iran-Contra hearings when Oliver North was testifying about it. Oliver North was a leader of the Laos operation I was assigned to work with.
Our country has a long history of these type programs going back to World War Two. We copied this from of warfare from the Nazis in WWII it seems. We justified it as necessary for the Cold War. One of the first operations was T.P. Ajax run by Kermit Roosevelt to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953to take over their oil fields.
In that coup the CIA and the State Department under the Dulles Brothers first perfected these covert, illegal and immoral actions. Historians have suggested that Operation T.P. Ajax was the single event that set in motion the political force of Islamic fundamentalism we are still dealing with today.
Chalmers Johnson also a former CIA employee wrote a series of books too on these blowbacks that happen when the truth is held from the American public.
If we had taken a different approach to our problems in those days an approach that did not rely on lying to our own and the people of other countries and killing them indiscriminately our country would not be in the disaster it is abroad today..
I was young and foolish in those days of the Vietnam War, coveting my Top Secret security clearance, a big thing for an uneducated hillbilly from Appalachia. We saw ourselves much like James Bond characters, but now I am much wiser. These kinds of actions have immense and long reaching consequences and should be shut down.
But I see from the Ray Davis fiasco in Pakistan that our government is still up to its old way of denying to the people of the world what everyone knows is true.
When will this official hypocrisy end, when will our political class speak out about this and quit going along with the lies and tricks? How many more of our people and others will die in these foolish programs?
Davis is in a bad situation now because most of the people of the world, as we see across the Middle East, are now aware of the lies and not going to turn their head anymore.
I say “most” everyone knows, because our own public, the ones suppose to be in control of the military and CIA, is constantly lied to. It is so sad to see President Obama repeating the big lie.
Robert Anderson lives in Albuquerque, N.M. He can be reached at citizen@comcast.net
Labels: Apolitical, Clicked This
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/06/2011 09:03:00 PM,
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Perched in between legendary Suleman Range on one side and mighty River Indus on the other, ruins of original Harand Fort are situated in the area commonly known as Pachaddh. The Fort has seen a lot in the past and looks as if hiding thousands of secrets besides its historical and archaeological importance.
The Fort was originally built opposite historic Chachar Pass in Suleman Range to guard against the invaders. The fading signs of the edifice are still there in the forms of derbies and bricks scattered around the old site. Sikh Governor Sawan Mall used the material of the old fort rebuilt the Fort on a new location in 1831. Present structure of the Fort - a valuable part of our heritage - is situated about 25 kilometres west of sleepy and rustic town Dajal in district Rajan Pur. The Fort is spread over an area of 50 acres. The outer wall of whatever is left of it is one kilometre long and was made of thin red bricks. There are 16 pillars. Main entrance is in the west and another one is in the east. What ever is left of the fort is a clear evidence of its past, solidity of masonry and quality of construction.
Over 200 rodkohis (seasonal hill torrents) come out of this mineral rich Suleman Range, and if properly managed, could irrigate more than two hundred thousand acres of agricultural land, most of the Pachaddh area, but the scheme for flood distribution, canalization and construction of spill ways is yet to be approved. The water of these torrents causes colossal damage to life, crops and property in every monsoon season and flows unutilized.
Lined up with Pillu trees, Dajil-Harand Road is broken-down and boulder like stones are spread around. It takes painfully long to cover the distance of just 25 kilometres. Ex-President Farooq Ahmed Khan Laghari who has his roots in the area, during his tenure managed electricity and telephone in the area but could not get the roads built that are necessary for the development of this historic belt.
History has it that Harand Fort was originally built by Hindu Raja Harnakish in the name of his son Hari Nand. The fort had seen three different periods: Hindu, Macedonian and Muslim.
As per the local lore, when young Alexander the Great, on his way home after conquering most of the known world, came in the area, Harand was under the rule of Hindu king who had beautiful daughter. Her name is quoted as Nowshaba. She was talented, brave and daring princess. The princess was fond of hunting besides being strong and efficient administrator of her father’s state. Alexander heard about the princess and wanted to see the beauty queen personally. Alexander himself approached the fort in the guise of a ‘messenger of Alexander.’ He was taken to the court of Hindu Raja where Princess Nowshaba saw the ‘messenger of Alexander’. She ordered that the messenger be immediately taken to royal guesthouse. In the guesthouse when Alexander introduced himself as a messenger, the princess smiled and pointed towards the wall where images of all contemporary kings including Alexander were hanging. Iranian poet Nizami has written this incidence in Sikandar Nama adding that both got married. The veracity of the marriage or this incident is yet to be proved by historical evidence though. (Another tale says that Alexander also married the wife of defeated General in his war near Saga.)
The third period of this historical monument starts with the arrival of Muslims in the area in early eighth century. The palm trees found in the region are indicated as an evidence of the arrival of Arabs’ Army. Subsequently, all the adventurers who came this way - from Changez Khan to Muhammad Chori - visited the fort and used it for their convenience, contemplating their next moves.
During Sikh rule, the fort was rebuilt on the present location for strategic reasons. This fort garrisoned the Sikh army to control the Baloch tribes. Later, the famous battle between British troops and Marri-Bugti tribes was fought here in 1867. After annexation of South Asia, the British used the fort as a cantonment. The British carried out limited excavation and historic artefacts recovered from the site were sent to British Museum in London. Presently, there is a small Lewis post in the fort.
All said and done, off the beaten track, ruins of Harand Fort still continue to mystify those who take their chance to go there. First of all it gives an emotional look, as a symbol of our evolution and continuity. No matter what your pursuits and interests, you will fancy finding out so many things about the important monument of the past. And, every time you leave Harand and look back to watch the fort receding in the distance, your mind is flooded with thoughts of its architects and inmates over a long period of time as it stands there lonely and mysteriously on the Suleman mountain, its importance lost in the hazy vistas of time.
As I drove back on a pebbled road, plied mainly by animal transports and occasional automobiles, I could not help thinking: Can the plight of the priceless site be brought to the echelons of power? Can some national or international agency be moved to act and save the place for coming generations before disappears totally? The remains of the monument have to be preserved and saved from total ruination, a danger they are facing at present.
Light Within Five Years Ago:
Altit Baltit Labels: Travel
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/05/2011 10:14:00 AM,
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Salman Rashid
I had first attempted this pilgrimage in 1989 and failed. Had it not been for my friends Ejaz Munir and Azhar Rauf working for the government of Balochistan, I would very likely have failed yet again. But thanks to them this time around I went up in style -- on horseback. Lying on the border of Balochistan and the Northwest Frontier Province and cresting at 3300 metres Takht e Suleman (Throne of Solomon) is puny as mountains go in this part of the world. But the magic of the peak is its shrine attributed to Solomon, the prophet of God.
Late on the evening of the last day in September I along with Adam Khan, the levies risaldar, and Said Amin, his assistant, was deposited outside the small village of Sadda Mohammed Kot 65 km northeast of Zhob. In the pale light of a thin sliver of moon hanging in the west, the stone houses hulked darkly and a ghostly white dog barked menacingly as it wafted among the shadows. After much blowing of horns and calling of names a sleepy old man came shuffling out of the darkness to lead us away. Within no time charpais were laid out and we were in the sack.
On the morrow we got a short ride by pick up to the edge of a dry stream, beyond and in the distance rose the stark brown ridge of the Suleman mountain. Past the deserted houses of Karim Kach we saw a group of young boys leading three camels into the mountain. Adam Khan shouted for them, and my backpack got the short lift to Sher Ghalai. At 1800 metres above the sea Sher Ghalai was a narrow gorge running in a north south direction with a few wild pistachio and olive, a couple of chilghoza (Pinus gerardiana) trees and a clear spring of water.
Within ten minutes the promised horses arrived. Ghulam Jan rode tall in the front and the dark, bearded Lal Gul brought up the rear. The backpack was secured behind the saddle and off we went north into the narrow canyon. The gorge walls rose in a stack of giant plates and the valley floor was worn smooth by the passage of thousand upon thousand of feet, both human and pack animal. Two hours later we climbed through a heavily wooded gully to a wide vista to the east. The ground in front fell away to show eroded brown hills receding into the mist and to our right and left rose high ridges. While the one on the left was bare, the other was thickly covered with chilghoza pines that imitated velvet in the thin mist of mid morning.
Autumn being the season for the harvest of chilghoza nuts, a family had come up to the temporary settlement on the knoll that rose above the trail. A great quantity of pine cones was laid out in the sun and a bunch of children spiritedly whacked away at them with willow twigs. Drinking water was brought out in a filthy lota, but we declined the tea and carried on up the trail. Along the contours, sometimes in blinding sunshine, sometimes in dappled shade, we climbed higher and higher until we had crossed the first of the two parallel ridges that make up the massif proper of Takht e Suleman.
We were now in the wide trough between the two ridges. All around was a sparse growth of chilghoza pines and to our right a great chasm gaped. Beyond this rose the high ridge with its series of denticulations, in one of which the Throne awaited us. Thirty minutes later we were at the spot where I had turned back in 1989 for there was no drinking water to be had. Even before I had set out of the village at the foot of the mountain I had been warned of its lack of springs and that I would have to drink out a stagnant water hole. I had mocked these warnings and barely made it back on the verge of dehydration. This time around therefore we prudently carried a goatskin. In the event however this proved useless for the water in it was fouled.
Lal Gul, our horseman, who was supposed to know the route to the shrine because he had once come up with a Deputy Commissioner many years ago, faltered. He could not remember where we were to cross the wide chasm that still ran alongside to our right. Beyond it he pointed out the great shiny crag stark against the deep blue sky under which, he said, lay the Throne of Solomon. Adam Khan shouted to some voices in the forest and a bunch of grubby young men appeared smelling heavily of pine resin.
We were to continue, they said, to the north until we came to the woodcutters' settlement of Mummeh Landai. Indeed. Lal Gul clicked his fingers as he remembered and off we went. Just after midday, five hours and a half since we had left the village of Sadda Mohammed Kot and four since we had met our horsemen, we were in the woodcutters' settlement. The wild, unwashed men (and it was purely a man's world) could well have come out of some time warp, but the tea they served up was very real and refreshing -- just the thing before the final trek to the shrine.
From Mummeh Landai a trail led east through the forest to a windy plateau where we left the horses with Said Amin to guard them. Five or six hundred metres away, across a shallow gorge, rose the wall of limestone that was the ridge of the shrine. Lal Gul and Ghulam Jan hollered for the malang (ascetic) who they said lived near the shrine. But no amount of screaming brought any response from the ridge for the brisk wind blowing from the north would have carried their calls away to the south.
So sheer did the ridge look that it seemed there couldn't possibly be a trail leading up to its summit, and I imagined ourselves to be soon involved in those hair raising heroics that rock climbers habitually engage in. But no. Takht e Suleman was truly to be the most deceptive mountain I have ever seen. With Lal Gul leading and Ghulam Jan behind him singing at the top of his lungs making me marvel at his wind, we followed a faint trail. We passed a rock with a bright green legend in Urdu announcing to the world that on the 26th of July 1995 the "Seraiki Mohemju Group" (Seraiki Adventurers Group) had preceded us. They were good men for their climb surely must have been much harder than ours on account of the greater heat and humidity in that month.
The sun burnt down on us as we scrabbled over the rocks and my water bottle was soon empty. The thought nagged that there was no clean water to drink and that I had forgotten to bring my purifying tablets. The harder, therefore, I worked the more the chances of dehydration. Twice I called for the others to turn back. "But we have come so far and now the shrine is within reach. How can we forego it now?" Dully I followed them until at one point I decided the shrine did not really matter to me.
"How can you give up without visiting the grave of Qais Abdur Rashid?" Lal Gul wanted to know. Qais Abdur Rashid, the imaginary progenitor of all Pathan tribes. And I had not even known he is supposed to be buried on this mountain. It is from here that the Pathans believe they spread forth and for the tribes living around this mountain the name is Kaisaghar; Takht e Suleman is simply the shrine sacred to the memory of King Solomon. In Pushto "ghar" means mountain or rock and I had always wondered what the name Kaisaghar signified. Suddenly it came to me like a revelation: the mountain was named after Qais Abdur Rashid.
With renewed vigour I followed the others up the steep trail. We had left the chilghoza trees behind, the pines that now grew around us were Pinus wallichiana. Soon we were at the "grave" of Qais Rashid. Next to it was another group of graves. One of the latter, Lal Gul said, was of the talib (seeker). But even this Seeker of Truth had died "hundreds of years ago" and his name was lost. The grave of Qais Rashid itself was a ruined pedestal of dressed stones measuring some seven or eight metres square. To my query Lal Gul said that our man was a giant as indeed were all men in those days. Surely, I thought aloud, the name Kaisaghar would have come into fashion sometime in the later years of the 9th century AD, or even later, when Islam had spread to this area and the need had arisen to invent a man called Qais Abdur Rashid.
Having lived for centuries under the strict Vedic system of class distinction, it was only natural for the new Muslims to remain wedded to that order. Earlier the superior caste was the Brahmin, now it was, quite naturally, that which could claim Semitic origin for wasn't that land the fountain head of all revealed and therefore true religions? While most other Indian converts to Islam invented ancestors who had arrived in the sub continent about the time of its conquest by the Arabs, or shortly thereafter, the Pathans went one better by conjuring up Qais whose ancestor Afghana had lived in this land centuries ago. The imaginary Afghana had of course come from the land of Arabia with an ancestry linking him to the prophet Daud. Qais whose home was in these mountains, it is said, travelled to Arabia after the advent of Islam to meet with the prophet of the new religion. There his Hebrew name was given the Arabic suffix of Abdur Rashid by the prophet himself. Subsequently he returned home to become the progenitor of all Pathan tribes.
But the inventors of this fabulous story had never heard of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the Father of History. Writing around the middle of the 5th century BC he had mentioned a people called the Paktiaka which clearly is another form of the word Pukhtun, the Pathan's name for himself. What then would the hill have been called before the coming of Islam, I wondered aloud. Could it be that the hill was always Kaisaghar and when the need arose to assert a Semitic origin, they invented a man with a similar sounding name? An abstracted look was the only response from Lal Gul.
From the first faint stirring of religious thought in primitive human minds, gods and spirits were always housed on high peaks that were difficult of access. And so, long before Qais Rashid was invented, this was the holy temple of some pagan god. Surely in some forgotten moment of history, the temple would have also worn the mantle of Vedic belief and then again of Buddhist. I knew then that Takht e Suleman, like the peaks of Musa ka Musalla in Kaghan and Ilam in Swat, has at different times been revered by different religions. Through the long and creative passage of time thousands of men and women, each in accordance with their own belief, would have prayed at this spot. In the same tradition my three companions raised their hands to Allah in silent prayer.
Then, as if out of some unreality, the malang appeared. His clothes, of a nameless colour, were as if made from cerement. The kameez was open at the collar and the shalwar was hitched up above his ankles. He was was barefoot and filthy, and through his open collar I saw lice crawling on his dirt encrusted chest. He shook his grimy hand with us and said that it had been many days since pilgrims had come to the Takht. Then he led us to his hut at the edge where the cliff fell off into oblivion. If I had a stereotype for ascetics our malang wasn't to fit in. He was vague about what he was doing all alone in this wilderness and there was nothing remotely religious or spiritual about his persona. I even suspected he was a junkie. After several abstract answers he said, rather irately, that he was there to "serve the shrine", whatever in heavens name that meant.
To one side a couple of tattered flags fluttered furiously in the keen wind. A small enclosure marked a mosque and when they were done with the afternoon prayer Lal Gul hailed me to see the shrine proper. Then I remembered the account of Henry McMahon who had climbed this peak with Major McIvor in June 1891: "The shrine is some 20 feet below the edge of the precipice, and consists of a small ledge of rock about 4½ feet long by 3 feet wide, with a slight artificial parapet of rocks on the outer sides, about a foot high."
This was the most difficult part of the pilgrimage. By that token this was surely the one that wins the maximum merit with whatever deity one believes in, for to reach the Takht one has to clamber down some bulging rocks. Immediately below us, blocking our view to the east, was a swirling sea of clouds. They say it’s a great view with a sheer fall of some 1500 metres below and far away the silver line of the Indus. Now all we could see was this seemingly limitless sea of gray on which our shadows bobbed eerily with haloes around the heads. The climb down surely was the kusht part of Hindu worship, something similar to swimming underwater to reach a submerged chamber in the shrine of Sri Mata Hinglaj on the Mekran sea coast, some 650 km in the south. Pilgrims had the option of taking it or leaving it; I took the second option. In a quick one-two the malang was down angrily haranguing us for being shameless cowards, but only Adam Khan took his dare.
Lal Gul said that this was the exact spot where King Solomon's flying throne had alighted when he sojourned here. The prophet, it is known, had power over the djinns and this god forsaken mountain he used as a jail for recalcitrant djinns, said Lal Khan. With a laugh he added that the Shiranis, the major tribe that straddles the mountain, are the descendents of those evil ones.
We paid our offerings to the malang and turned back for the huts at Mummeh Landai. For me this was the least savoury part for fear of the fleas that would invade my sleeping bag during the night. Needless to say that this did happen. But it was worth it and I was happy my companions had not allowed me to give up our goal when I nearly flagged. The pilgrimage to Takht e Suleman was done. As I cursed the fleas and scratched the night away, the only thing I really looked forward to was the spring at Sher Ghalai and the meal that I would be fed by Azhar Rauf.
Salman Rashid is author of eight travel books including jhelum: City of the Vitasta and The Apricot Road to Yarkand
Labels: Salman Rashid, Travel
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/02/2011 09:40:00 AM,
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Labels: Petrol
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/01/2011 10:11:00 AM,
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