Owais Mughal

The scene below is from June 01, 2008 where people are seen pushing a broken down bus near S.M. College, Karachi. The photo is a very good representative of our society in literal as well as philosophical way.

Let me tell you why I think so..

Zakintosh

Continued from Part 1, here.

When you have had the benefit of a 25-year stint at sea (1959-1984), there is bound to be much that is narratable and shareable, with some of it even of interest to a few people outside your immediate family.

But this post is, primarily, about Gupta Cha (and his family) – so I shall make only brief references to the other parts which will be covered in greater detail in “Ships and Shoes and Sealing Wax” (if that “book+” ever gets completed).

However, as indicated at the end of my previous post, the real conclusion to the tale – which took place last year – will make up the second half of this post. The first will be spent breezing through the intervening years.

Ok, so it’s 1947, the last day of September.

Raza Rumi

There was a Lahore that I grew up in, and then there is the Lahore that I live in now. Recovering from an exile status for two decades, I find myself today turning into something of a clichéd grump, hanging desperately on to the past. Yet I resist that. Writing about Lahore is a sensation that lies beyond the folklore – Jine Lahore nai wakhaya o janmia nai (The one who has not seen Lahore has never lived). It has to do with an inexplicable bonding and oneness with the past, and yet a contradictory and not-so-glorious interface with the present.