What can one say. Lahore, I still love you!

Published in the Daily Times, 21 July, 2006.

Adil Najam

No, these are not the pictures of the planes that will replace the old PIA Fokkers. These are pictures of the new luxury jets that the government of Sindh is buying for its ‘offiical’ use!

It was just a week ago that a PIA Fokker aircraft crashed killing all 45 people on board. It was wisely, but belatedly, decided that the Fokker airplans would no longer be used for passenger traffic.

You would expect that the priority now would be to replace the old Fokkers as soon as possible. You would be wrong.

As it turns out, the priority seems to be to continue the luxury jet buying binge for ‘VIP’ government officials. Super expensive cars and airplanes seems to be the ‘in thing’ on the wish list of government officials, and this time it is the Sindh government that wants to get rockstar treatment for its travel. According to The News (20 July, 2006):

Bombardier Aerospace on Wednesday announced from London that the Sindh government has signed a contract to acquire a new Bombardier Learjet 45 XR super-light business jet… The Sindh government’s new Learjet 45 XR aircraft will be based in Karachi, at the Quaid-e-Azam International Airport, and used to provide logistics support and transportation of the government delegations. The high-performance aircraft is scheduled for delivery in late 2006. A Sindh government spokesman said that we are impressed with the flexibility and performance offered by the Learjet 45 XR aircraft… which will be configured to carry maximum of nine passengers, makes it perfectly suited to varied missions.

Of course, the news report did not mention that Learjet is the preferred luxury jet of the super-rich and Hollywood types,

Adil Najam

Building on my other post today (‘Trilingual’) and after Sabizak’s message on our first ATP post on Pinglish, I am no longer sure if I am using the term correctly or not. Hence the question mark.

However, this one is somewhat like another earlier ATP post, titled ‘Lost in Translation’. Literally, the translation is not incorrect. However, the addition of the word ‘Room’ at the end makes all the difference.

[By the way, another one I saw in yesterday’s The News was the reporter quoting someone as calling an event a ‘golden evening’; I assume the real word used was ‘sunehri shaam’!]

But let me say that the choice of this photograph as the Picture of the Day is not motivated by the quality of translation. I saw this and wondered what has happened to all the ‘Garam Hamams’ in Pakistan. They were an urban necessity for a long time and some are still around (I remember using them back when I was a University student in Lahore and we had a multiple-day water closure).

In some places, Turkey for example, traditions of public baths are remembered and conserved as part of cultural heritage. The South Asian tradition of public baths – and this ranges right across the subcontinent – seems to have been less well cared for.

This picture was taken in Peshawar in 1996 and is from the personal travel website of Galen R Frysinger, a retired scientist who now spends his time travelling the world and recording his travels at his website.