Guest Post
by S A J Shirazi

With Balochistan in the news, maybe we should also talk about the locale and the beauty of the area.

Visit Pishin at this time of the year and you will find thousands of acres of fruit orchards. The rich harvest of apples, grapes, plums, peaches and apricots is seen every where. Legend attributes the origin of the name Pishin to a son of the Emperor Afrasiab. Until the middle of the 18 th century, when Quetta finally passed into the hands of Brahvi rulers, the history of Pishin is identical with the province of Kandahar. The earliest mention of Pishin is found in the ancient writing in which “Pishinorha” is described as a valley in an elevated part of the country and containing a barren level plain.

Little is known of the history of Pishin up to the 13th century. It was in 1221 that Kandahar and its dependencies passed into the hands of the Mughals. During the first half of the 15 th century, Kandahar was under the rule of the Timurs’ successors and it was probably at the beginning of this century that the Tarins emigrated from their original homes in the Takht-i-Sulaiman and made their way into Pishin.

Guest Post by Raza Rumi

While responding to the comments on my ATP post on Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi (also see earleir ATP post here), I rambled a little on the literary feuds among the Urdu stalwarts. However, this post has two parts: first, a little more on the literary cross currents; and second “our” collective treatment of literary and cultural giants.

As Adil Najam pointed out in his comment, Qasmi was criticized by those on the left as being right wing. Interestingly, the conservatives also criticized him for his outspoken views on the abuse of religion and Zia’s dictatorship.

But Qasmi remained a humanist till his last and never allowed “ideology” to taint his creativity. This aspect of his long literary career has been astutely analyzed by Sarwat Ali has rightly titled him Un-Progressively Progressive in his obituary published in the News on Sunday, and he aptly describes the Qasmi predicament:

When Pakistan was created the question of the identity of the new nation became the trickiest one to handle, especially in its cultural context. Muhammad Hasan Askari took the issue by the horns and called for a specific entity known as Pakistani literature. Of course, this prescriptive drive was not received well in the camp of the artists and writers. On the other extreme were those who did not see the need of manufacturing a specific identity but liked to see it grow and evolve with an evolving sensibility. This was taken as denial by the more hardline writers, and a war of words ensued which pushed the central issue into the background and brought forth the battle lines on ideological and political affiliations of the writers.

Read Full Post

Owais Mughal

When Shoaib Akhtar bowled Jamie Dalrymple today, he grabbed his 200th wicket in One Day Internationals.

Shoaib is Pakistan’s 5th and World’s 25th bowler to reach this milestone.

Following is the number of matches, Shoaib took to reach major milestones in his bowling career:

• 50th wicket in 29th match
• 100th wicket in 60th match
• 150th wicket in 91st match, and
• 200th wicket in 130th match