Owais Mughal
Some of the public parks in Pakistan are one of their kind. Few months ago we had introduced the Haunted House of Hill Park, and today we will introduce Mumtaz Mahal located inside the Karachi Zoo. Karachi’s zoological gardens (also called Gandhi Gardens) has many animals to boast about. Animals are however not the only creatures at display here.
For the past 35 years a ‘maa-fauq-ul-fitrat’ (super natural) character is also kept in captivity here. This creature has a head of a lady and body of a fox. It is kept in a special pavilion called Mumtaz Mahal.
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Raza Rumi
The passions of Khalid Hasan, a noted journalist and writer, are well known. The life and persona of Madame Noor Jehan have been celebrated in his writings for years. He has translated several leading lights of Urdu literature including Manto, Abbas, and Faiz. However, it is Faiz who has been a prominent subject of Khalid’s writings due to his close association with him as a friend. In all these endeavours, Hasan has made an immense contribution to introduce the gems of Urdu literature to the English-reading world that, alas, includes many Pakistanis as well given the way the reading culture faces a near-annihilation in Pakistan.
Translating Urdu poetry is an exacting task and runs the risk of losing the cultural nuances as well as the richness of the myriad metaphors that Urdu has borrowed from Persian, Arabic and the local Indian languages. And translating Faiz is even more onerous as the beauty of his poetry lies in the infusing of contemporary life into the otherwise passe classical idiom of Urdu Poetry.
This is why most translations of Faiz have been quite lifeless except the ones rendered by the inimitable Pakistani English language poet Daud Kamal and a handful of others. The Oxford University Press and Khalid Hasan teamed up to produce a fascinating collage of Faiz’s poetry in English. This Volume entitled “O City of Lights“ is not just a collection of Faiz’s translated verse but also includes accounts of Faiz’s poetry, stature and place in contemporary Pakistani history as well as snippets of Faiz’s life in his own words.
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S.A.J Shirazi
Industrialists (and owners) that define the corporate culture in Pakistan have many things in common. Exceptions apart, corporate leaders in private sector ruthlessly eliminate any one who is not totally behind them.
This trend breeds job insecurity in the blue as well as white collars incumbents at all levels. Result: lack of commitment, lack of involvement by the employees and not putting in their best that in turn results in non-standard work environment and poor productivity. In a
private survey restricted to some specially chosen industry units in
Lahore, Manga, Bahi Pheru, Raiwind, Chunnian, and
Sheikhupura reveals involuntary job loss, for any reason, as a most common concern of the employees. Survey also shows
an increase in unemployment duration and decrease in job tenure. Job security is defined as:
“a collective agreement clause which prevents or ameliorates the detrimental effects of job loss due to such factors as technological change, economic downturn, and or contracting.”
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