Uzair Sukhera

Auto Rickshaws – or ‘Ricksha‘ in more local parlance – are not just a popular mode of transportation in Pakistan, they are an expression of Pakistaniat. This blog has featured many different rickshaws (explore ATP’s Rickshaw collection here), but none like this one. This is not just about art and design on rickshaws, this is about a total redesign.

Imran H. Khan

(Editors Note: This is the first of a two part post on the author’s reminiscences of growing up in pre-Cultural Revolution China. In this first part Imran H. Khan looks at the cultural and social aspects of the China that was and how they looked to a young Pakistani boy. In the second part he will look at the political dimensions).

On a drizzly cold night in Dec of 1965 I found myself traveling with my father to see the Tienanmen Square from our Sinchou hotel located close to the old city.

I had just arrived from Pakistan via Canton on an ex-PIA Viscount turbo-prop of CAAC, the Chinese airline, and it seemed that I had landed on an alien planet. Everything was different here. The bread was white (steamed bread), music was string percussion, no one spoke English and bicycles were everywhere.

Traveling on a two piece electric bus that silently carried the huddled Chinese in their quilt coats was a novelty for this eleven year old. I had seen photos of the Tienamen Square, but experiencing it at night for the first time with well lit anchor buildings was sensory overload. This was my introduction to the Pre-Cultural Revolution China, where my sense of novelty was only matched by the curiosity Chinese around me. I later on realized that I was amongst only a handful of foreigners in the city and country where PIA’s Boeing 707 was the only jet servicing the whole country.

Here was a dark kid with a pointy nose in a mass of not so dark and not so pointy nosed people.

Adil Najam

As I write these lines, Pakistan is on the verge of a massive victory against New Zealand in the first Test Match of the series. By the time you read these lines, Pakistan would probably have already won the game – if, for some reason they don’t, this would already have become a mega story in sports!

As I watch Pakistan going into its second innings, needing 19 runs to win, it feels good to have some good news to write about. This time, cricket seems to have delivered, at least a straw of consolation to hold on it – or, maybe, to distract the mind!