Guest Post by Dr Ghulam Nabi Kazi

I spent a long period of time spanning over two decades from 1974-1994 within the campus of Dow Medical College and Civil Hospital Karachi, initially as a medical student, and later as an intern in Burns and Medicine, resident in Dermatology and for the last eight years as a member of hospital management team. These were truly the best of times and the worst of times for different reasons; there were upheavals followed by periods of tranquility. We nevertheless managed to remain optimistic at all times and I found my work always quite rewarding despite the minor irritants. Several incidents over this long period are so deeply etched in my memory as if they occurred yesterday. Those were my wonder years. The photo below is of Bohri Bazaar Karachi.

Adil Najam

The 1960s PIA advertisement that had been featured as the ATP Picture of the Day on 12 June, 2006 is one of the most visited blogpost to date.

We had featured a second PIA Ad from that era on June 24, 2006, which is also interesting but got considerably less attention.

Today, as I prepare to catch my PIA flight to Pakistan (this evening) I thought I might repost it. As we have commented on various occasions, the edge has come off PIA. Sometimes one wonders if the wings will too. I hope they won’t; at least not today!

The crew I will encounter tonight will be wearing a different set of custom uniforms, but the PIA crew uniform from the 1960s has an interesting pedigree to it. That celebrated uniform is featured in this PIA ad.

Guest Post by Pervaiz Munir Alvi

Poured in goblet wine gains its luster many fold
But for beautiful faces mirror is just a piece of glass

This is part III in what is going to be a 4-part series on famous Pakistani compere (Late) Dildar Pervaiz Bhatti. In part-I, I gave a brief memoir to Dildar as a friend. In part-II, I wrote about him and I growing up together. Today I’ll write about some of the debating contests in which Dildar and I took part.

Talent unless polished and nurtured with dedication may never gain its full luster. Dildar had both the talent and the dedication in him. By the time we graduated Secondary School (Matric) we had gained enough confidence and skills to continue in the field of public speaking. In eleventh and twelfth grades (F.A./F.Sc.) Dildar and I as a team took part in numerous debating and declaration contests. One of us will speak for and the other against the house resolution. For the in-school debates two of us will fill the slots of Leader of the house, Leader of the opposition. We will travel to various cities of Punjab, Kashmir and Frontier to take part in college debates. Some times our team will win and other times we will get bombed. But that was beside the point. We got chances to meet people and see places that our class mates may not have. It was fun.