S.A.J. Shirazi Traveling on Grand Trunk Road all my life, it captured my imagination as a cultural curiosity when I read Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. At the beginning of the last century Kipling called it: “a wonderful spectacle…. without crowding…. green-arched, shade-flecked … a river of life.” But Pakistan’s National Highway Number 5 (N5), alias the […]

S.A.J. Shirazi Picturesque Chitral town sits up in Pakistan’s northwest district, walled in by the Hindu Kush range. During winters, the only way in is by air (weather permitting) as the two passes, the 3118-meter Lowari from Dir and the 3810-meter Shandur from the upper Gilgit Valley are closed to road traffic. The Fokker Friendships […]

S.A.J. Shirazi The future lies in mud architecture. Though this sweeping statement may sound prehistoric, but it is very relevant to modern times. Building living spaces with mud is a tradition dating back to the start of civilizations. Some excellent examples from the Great Mosque – the world’s largest mud building and UNESCO’s World Heritage […]