Light Within

Lahore’s urban expanse has expanded into adjoining suburbs and has consumed many villages and agricultural land. The expansion, unplanned at that, has converted Lahore into a city where all civic amenities are over burdened left with no more carrying capacity. And a plethora of city development agencies, LDA, WASA, TEPA, WAPDA, PTCL, the Lahore Horticultural Authority, the Cantonment Board, the Model Town Society, the Defence Society, MCL, and District Administration (and more) with overlapping and ill defined roles and no body to oversee and coordinate their work, seem helpless to do any thing for the worsening plight of its residents. The officials of different departments blame every thing on lack of funds and lack of co-operation from other departments or accept the problems as hazards of urbanization,” say a political activist.

Pakpattan - the name is enough to start the travelers, cautiously curious and devoted faithful dreaming. Already the magic words like sultans and saints are stirring in the head. Let your gaze slip over the dhaki - original citadel of Pakpattan - and the town will suddenly appear. The antiquity is its own message: the town is heritage, and heritage permeates the town.

Enter the once walled inner-city through one of the existing gates and you will find yourself in archetypal form of an ancient town - crooked and narrow streets, dense housing, intricate woodwork on Jharokas, bay windows and doors. So many historic cities have developed losing much of their original character in the process during modern times, but Pakpattan has survived remarkably in tact. It is the entire urban fabric of the place that is historic. Though, the major portion of the fortification wall has disappeared. At places, the wall has even been utilized as a part of the residences. Four gates (Shahedi, Rehimun, Abu and Mori) have survived out of six but they are all crumbling. Now extensive suburbs stretch from the foot of the wall all around. Thin red bricks from centuries old wall are seen used in the new houses all over the town. The portion of the settlement that sits on the mound can be compared with walled part of Multan City.

Eid e Ghadir Mubarak

Everything will be okay, don't stress about it. Most of the time, it's our own worries and overthinking that cause more harm than the situation itself. Remember, life goes on, and the world continues to function regardless of our individual struggles. No one is indispensable, and the world won't come to a standstill because of us. The person who's losing out is the one who's letting stress consume them. Try to let go and focus on what you can control - ZS.

Having grown up in mud house myself (before I moved to urban center), mud buildings have a special place rooted deep in to my cultural consciousness and this personal bond encourages a more intimate relationship between me and the mud as the material transformed from formlessness to form. Hence my interest in mud architecture and how I see its future in Pakistan.

اللَّهُمَّ صل عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ

Pakistan blogsphere (blogs about Pakistan by local bloggers and those bloggers who are living abroad) has created its own identity that is mostly political and or personal. Where personal blog create social harmony, well knit community and peace, political blogs add to the positive image we need so much, more so in online world. Given the strength of powerful international media and in the face negative content, there has always been a lack of local content. Thanks to able Pakistani bloggers that they are adding meaningful local content in their blogs and that contextual content not only answers some of what mostly ill informed foreign media says but also add to the positive image.

I live here with the peacocks?

Every body has a book in his mind, as they say. But, everybody trying to write one is a different thing, and self-publishing one is yet another. There are lots of considerations that induce people into writing about various things: people, events, ideas, issues, passions, observation, noble causes, problems and more. Some of these are pricked by their strong sense of right and wrong to raise their voice for or against a cause of their own or of their community's interest, while some others do it to cover up some disrepute and or misdemeanors. There are those who do it for amusement. And the ones for whom writing is a career. Of the many other classifications, there is a class of writers and it is a very well populated fraternity that takes its writings as a means to achieve an end. The end, of course, varies from person to person, but the mercenary passion with which the community members market (yes, market) themselves remains constant.

As a sub category of this specie there are among them the innocent writers who keep visiting publishing houses simply in a hope that some day someone will be convinced about the great idea presented by them and will be willing to invest on the publication of their work. The writer whom I am going to profile here is a commoner. That seems to be his first problem. When the first time he took the draft of his book to a well-reputed publishing house, the owner of a publishing house enlightened him to go do something else instead of writing. My writer friend was surprised with how the owner had given his opinion even without setting an eye on the draft of his life long labour of love.