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
Malvolio wrote on Oct 27th, 2006 at 2:27 am:
“Ranikot Fort dates only to 826 AD. Cement is much older than that. The Romans used lime-based cements to make concrete 1000 years earlier.”
That could be true. The use of cement in its earlier compositions is centuries old. It was used as mortar or binder in between stones and bricks and occasionally as decorative material especially for painted frescoes. It was a coarse material with very little plasticity and would not stick to the surface. However the use of cement as plaster to protect the surface and strengthen the structure is historically recent. That is one of the reasons why the old and historical structures have stone, brick and wood exteriors, Rani Kot (fort) and Roman structures included. The plastered dome does not belong here in this incident. We could blame the overall ignorance of our officials in Pakistan for the follies like this. Being a Pakistani myself I know the level of ignorance of our officials first hand.
Ranikot Fort dates only to 826 AD. Cement is much older than that. The Romans used lime-based cements to make concrete 1000 years earlier.
For me the first picture symolizes Darwin’s theory of evolution.
About Sheikh Rashid picture, i was just thinking that he was one of very close cronies of Nawaz Sharif too.
Ahmad Faraz says:
YouN hi mausam ki ada dekh kay yaad ayaa hai
Kis kadar jald badal jatay haiN insaaN jaanaN
Seems like your post has hit Boing Boing – Great Job
[quote comment=”5553″]I do not know who the ‘minister of railway’ in the picture no. 4 is, but from the looks of it he appears to be a retired army general double dipping from the national plate. Then again army generals do not dye their hair. Do they?[/quote]
Sheikh Rashid of Lal Hawaili (Rawalpindi) fame. Used to be Minister of (dis)Information. Apparently said too much once hence the new “side line” portfolio.