Adil Najam

Our ATP Poll today is a simple question – one that all cricket lovers in Pakistan are thinking of. Lets hear from you, what you think. And figure out also what our collective thinking on this is: How far will Pakistan go in the ICC Cricket World Cup that starts in less than two weeks – i.e., what is the highest level that the Pakistan team will get to in the World Cup? (Remember, we are asking you what you think will happen; not what you want to happen!)

Pervaiz Munir Alvi

Fred Bremner was not born or raised in Pakistan. In fact during his life time there was no country on the map by the name of Pakistan. Yet, for thirty five years he lived and worked among, owned studios and properties at, and traveled through out the areas that would later become Pakistan.

He was a commercial photographer who like thousands of other enterprising Britons earned his living by working his trade. But he was one of the pioneers of his art working in Karachi, Quetta, Rawalpindi and Lahore, the four important and major cities of Pakistan today.

He was not a diplomat, historian or a journalist, yet his photographs and publications have become an important source of historic records of the cities, events, places and people in Pakistan. By helping record the history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century he, however unintentional it may, has rendered important services to what would later become Pakistan.

Adil Najam

Pani da Bulbula represents original Pakistani rap. A wondrous and catchy rhythm  that can plant itself inside your head and keep playing on and on forever.Even when you want it to stop!

I do not know if it was his original creation or not, but for years the song has been synonymous with Yaqoob Atif. In fact, Yaqoob Atif has been synonymous with the song. So much so that his named changed to “Yaqoob Atif Bulbula.” (See: Cover of his 1979 LP from EMI Pakistan).

I realized that this was not a simple affectation when – sometimes in the mid-1980s – I was introduced to Mr. Yaqoob at Lahore’s PTV station (where he had become a bit of a fixture) as “Bulbula Sahib.” Both the person introducting him and Bulbula Sahib himself took this to be the perfectly appropraite and natural introduction. By then, that was his name. It was not a laqab, not a cheR, not an affection. That is what he was. He was his song. That is what this song meant to him and his life. It was his life. Here, indeed, was a one song wonder.