Deals in dinning
Monday, 22 September 2025
Gowalmandi Food and Heritage Street has become an enriching experience in Lahore. It is a wonder what a few million rupees spent on the renovation of built heritage with balconies and angular projections lining the street some years ago have done to the ambience of the street. Lahorites have already (and justifiably) stated comparing it with lanes in Rome, Paris and Athens. More so during Jashn-e-Baharan.
Sizzling spicy foods on display in Gowalmandi reminds of what Vasco de Gama shouted after setting his foot on South Asian soils on the dawn of May 21, 1498, "For Christ and spices!" No data for consumption of spices in Gowalmandi Food Street are available but a proprietor of one of the biggest shops in the street told, "On the average I sell about 120 Kilograms mutton and over 40 kilograms of chicken every day. People prefer to eat mutton karahi and chicken barbecued. A milk shop proprietor said, "My daily milk consumption - in the form of chilled milk, yogurt, Kheer, khoya, lassi -- is over 2000 kilograms."
Read more »Labels: Food Street, Heritage, Lahore
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Monday, September 22, 2025,
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Shifting Lahore
Wednesday, 18 June 2025
Once the best address in Lahore was “the Lahore Fort,” now it is “the Defence. Only in past few decades, Lahore has grown rapidly (doubling in size in last ten years) to become an impressive cosmopolitan metropolitan. From a walled city — the posh locality of the time when Mughal Kings, Princes and Princesses used to roam about there, Lahore has grown into new localities like Defence Hosing Society and beyond. Though promenading along the canal, between the Mall Road and the Jail Road, shining in pristine glory at night through the heart of city,Main Boulevard or the Mall gives an idea of architectural style, prosperity and aesthetic sense of its citizens but it does not give all.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.
Read more »Labels: Lahore
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Wednesday, June 18, 2025,
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Fog in Lahore
Monday, 6 January 2025
Winter in sprawling Lahore spells horror for thousands of residents. Not because of cold but due to the phenomenon of smog. Let your gaze roam over the cityscape while standing on top of the Yadgar-e-Pakistan and one finds how the skyline of the minarets and domes looks dark and sad against the clouds of thick smog.
The fog is triggered by temperature inversion -- the formation of a static layer of cooler air close to the ground as the nighttime temperature drops. Normally, air closer to the ground is warmer than the air above it, and therefore rises. Inversions are frequent on winter nights after the ground has cooled down so much that it begins to chill the air closest to it often causing mist to form as water vapor precipitates on dust particles. Normally the morning sun swiftly breaks through the mist and heats the ground, which warms the air above it, breaking the inversion.
Read more »The fog is triggered by temperature inversion -- the formation of a static layer of cooler air close to the ground as the nighttime temperature drops. Normally, air closer to the ground is warmer than the air above it, and therefore rises. Inversions are frequent on winter nights after the ground has cooled down so much that it begins to chill the air closest to it often causing mist to form as water vapor precipitates on dust particles. Normally the morning sun swiftly breaks through the mist and heats the ground, which warms the air above it, breaking the inversion.
Labels: Environment, Lahore
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Monday, January 06, 2025,
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Lahore Lahore Aye
Friday, 27 December 2024
I first became familiar with the city of Lahore during the 1970s, and now, after wandering about in different parts of the world for over thirty years, I have come once again to be part of it.
Away from Lahore, I wondered if all the rhetoric about the magic city had any substance. Land of superlatives, Lahore is Pakistan’s second biggest and one of the most prosperous cosmopolitan cities, home to universities and colleges, spiritual centers, and historic, cultural, commercial, and political center. It has been a land of plenty for centuries. “Lahore is one of the greatest cities of the East,” wrote William Finch, a traveler from the West, in his journal back in 1610.” I found new answers every day.
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posted by S A J Shirazi @ Friday, December 27, 2024,
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Shalimar Garden
Sunday, 30 June 2024
It's easy to love a place where residents make efforts to feed the squirrels. In the Shalimar Garden, a few senior citizens party with the squirrels every morning.
When my friend Hussain Qazi who is naturalist and a photographer told me about people feeding birds and squirrels, I planned to skip my ‘ritual morning walks’ and decided to visit Shalimar Garden instead; hopping to find more about the party with the squirrels.
The care and feeding of squirrels in Shalimar Garden is a recent phenomenon. Long overshadowed by heritage talk (it is on UNESO’s world heritage list), Shalimar Garden is overcrowded during day. Whether or not Shalimar Garden ultimately can maintain its past glory - and with it, an influx of foreign and local tourists - it's a surprisingly satisfying open space during early hour of the day.
Every morning, two charismatic old men, loaded with biscuits, rice and pluses came to the waiting population of birds and squirrels in the Shalimar Garden. They sit on the same benches and start throwing grins to the birds. When this is happening, one can see squirrels coming down from nearby trees for their breakfast and then those gentlemen dig deep down their satchels and take out biscuits and start feeding the squirrels. The tiny winy animals are so use to those caring hands that they jump to take the first bite.
One of the old men Fazal Karim – a retired primary teacher who lives in nearby Daroge Wala – explained me this phenomenon and said, “I am coming here for my morning walk every day for a long time now. I feed the bird population and squirrels and find them very friendly. I miss them and look forward to meeting them every day. I think they miss me too.”
Labels: Environment, Lahore, Shalimar Garden
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Sunday, June 30, 2024,
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