Owais Mughal
These photos are all from the daily Dawn and were posted there in the past two to three weeks. Each photograph is a story in itself and we would love to hear your comments or titles for them.
(1) This photo is from Lahore. A monkey; unable to find one of his own specie; is seen busy collecting lice from his master’s head. This photo reminds me of the sher:
teray zanoo pe meiN sar rakh kar abhi sota hooN
inqalaab aaye to mujh ko bhi jagaana saaqi
(2) A physcally challenged person on a roller-board in Rawalpindi is seen here taking a free tow from a suzuki pickup. A title sher that comes to mind will work fine here if the word ghoRa is replaced by Suzuki and the word nathia is replaced by steering:
kis cheez ki kami hai khwaja teri gali meiN
ghoRa teri gali meiN, nathia teri gali meiN
(3) Rani Kot fort in Sindh. Some contrator hired by the archeology department has criminally used portland cement plaster while restoring a domed room to its original era. We had a similar post earlier here, when modern day mortar reportedly got used to preserve buddha era stupas. A title sher that comes to mind could be:
pooch beTha hooN meiN tujh se teray koochay ka pata
teray halaat ne kaisi ye teri soorat kar di
One more for the above photo could be:
hazaar baar zamaana idhar se guzra hai
nayee nayee si hai kuch os ki rah-guzar phir bhi
(4) The King Maker MNA and the minsiter of railways having dessert from the same plate. In Urdu we call it baahum sheer-o-shakar hona. This photo also reminds me of a couplet by Rafiq Mughal (not my relative) who recited it in a mushaira in Hyderabad some 5 years ago:
hum bhi kash jalali hotay
beNgan hotay thaali hotay
haath kabhi na khali hotay
Chaudhry ya Jamali hotay
rawalpindi
allah ham sab ko ziundagi ki haqiqatoon ke kathin door se bachayte aur har buire waqt se ham ko bachaye, b.coz us ke hi rahmat hai jis ke wajah se ham is dunya main saans le rahe hain warna koi bhi tu nahin us ke sahare ke ailawa, hammien in sab ka khayal rakhna chahiye
Yasir, you are correct in your observation and we have made the necessary corrections in photo captions above. thanks
About Picture #2:
Shows how much ATP writers know about Pakistan. This scene is not from Islamabad, but Rawalpindi. There are no Richshaws of any kind in Islamabad. Plus, the Rickshaw displays a Rawalpindi registration #.
– A Pakistani from Lahore