Guest Post by S.A.J. Shirazi

While travelling off the beaten track, not only you travel in soot free and serene environment but you explore new vistas too. Interesting things come in the way, which normally remain hidden from common commuters in the area. The journey on the byways embraces you with lovely colours, atmosphere, people and bits and pieces of history. And, there is no hassle anywhere in the way.

Set up in the foreground of legendary Salt Range on the bank of River Jhelum, Mishri Mor Buss Adda (stop) is a wonderful place with its unique character. The passenger busses and wagons stop here and commuters get down to stretch their legs, have some food, and do some shopping or to take another bus to a different destination.

Owais Mughal

I am back with some more Urdu press news which I find very amusing. English translation is also given under each news item.

(1) The following news is from Jang . Some of the villages around Multan are under flood waters these days and that is the reference to context here.

Translation: Despite floods, a person named Md Bakhsh arranged for the wedding ceremony of his son. Dozens of guests (baraati) took the bridegroom on protective dams of the river and there they kept dancing on the rhythms of drumbeats (Dhol). Guests told this correspondent that wedding date was fixed long before the floods came and they didn’t want to cancel it so they took a boat, went into flood waters and brought the bride to bridegroom’s house.

Futhermore, yesterday in a nearby village called ‘Hamrot’ an 8 ft long snake also came ashore with the flood waters. The villages however beat the snake with sticks and the snake ran away.

Adil Najam

Today is 9/11. Much will be written and much discussed on the 5th anniversary of the cruel attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, on what has happened since, on all the ways in which the world changed, and on all the other ways in which it did not. Today is a sad day, and at ATP our hearts and prayers go out to the dear ones of the victims of this tragedy, and to the loved ones of all who have lost their lives in the events that were unleashed by it.

While 9.11.2001 will be much debated elsewhere, we here at ATP want to recall the events of 9.11.1948.

For Pakistanis, 9/11 has always been a sad date. A date on which – barely a year after the nation’s birth – its founding leader, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, died. Here is a short (50 sec) newsreel video clip on Mr. Jinnah’s death :

Like every year, APP has announced in advance how the “nation” will mark this occasion, and every newspaper (e.g., Dawn) has printed this “news” on its front page: