S.A.J Shirazi

Climbing the mountain had been on my mind for almost all my life, particularly ever since I did a course in Rock Repelling and trekked some softer mountains up in the North. But I have never climbed K 2 or Nanga Parbat — icons of Pakistani climbing, as identifiable and as famous as the Mount Everest. I have been pretty close to them, at the distance that seemed nearly close enough to touch their summits.

In different capacities, I had lived some of my life in the base camps of these majestic mountains and some others in Northern Pakistan; with mountaineers, explorers and adventurers from all over the world.

Sitting in the base camps, I have seen determined, committed and sponsored climbers arrive at base camps; some less savvy teams taking a look around and going back. Some staying and waiting for the weather breaks that do not come; some even taking a start only to abort and some conquering the mighty mountains. Staying in base camps is important for climbers to give their bodies more time to acclimate to the elevations.

Adil Najam

Thanks to the magic of internet search, our last ATP quiz was not difficult to decipher. Yes, it is Government College Lahore. The photograph was taken in December 1947 by LIFE magazine famous photographer Margaret Bourke-White, and is of freshmen students in a physics class. What made the picture interesting to me was that it was taken in 1947.

There is a whole series of photographs by Margaret Bourke-White of education in Pakistan, as witnessed by her camera lens in December 1947. The one of the left (above) is of the same class at Government College Lahore. The one on the right is of first graders in a school at Faizpur, near Lahore. They represent two faces of Pakistan’s “Class of 1947.”

Adil Najam

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