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Revitalization of Saddar Saddar, once the pride of Karachi, is now a mess and becoming worse day by day. It has become congested and environmentally degraded....		Roman Urdu? No! Information technology has taken the world by storm. So has the English language. English has truly become the principal lingua franca of the so-called global village....
Mysteries of like-mindedness Two like-minded friends, a nut and a nitwit, embarked upon to witness the nuances of like-mindedness. Following is the abridged account of what they saw and experienced....		An explosion of merry marriages Winter is the season for a merry marriages galore. The population of the city is increasing and the rich, who get richer, want to celebrate their marriages more festively....
The inaugural flight to China Whether it was intuition or just good fortune, Nur Khan had put together a good team. He must have had his likes and dislikes, he was after all human, but he...		Early-bird riders The supply of milk and newspapers at homes has been an age-old practice in big cities. Three decades ago, hawkers could never think of distributing these items on motorbikes and made...
A mystical experience The heavens have always held a strong attraction for me. As a little girl, I used to say that I will one day become an astronaut and conquer the skies. My...		A foggy perspective Fog has been on its yearly visit to Lahore for the past few days. It has compounded the cold of the weather that, although the mercury has stayed a little above...
Revisiting Switzerland I consider myself a privileged Pakistani as I have been lucky enough to visit Switzerland a number of times. My brother and his family, living in Bern, provide me with the...		Desert safari “A trip to Dubai is incomplete without a desert safari,” I had heard and read this several time on my recent trip to Dubai. And after having an experience of this...
Fallaci ‘threatened’ by Muslims There was a time, decades ago, when Oriana Fallaci not only unhinged bullies such as Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Gen Ziaul Haq, but got them to grovel at her feet! At...		Me and my laptop Remember how people first reacted to anyone carrying a mobile phone in public about 10 years ago? Well, they react the same way to my laptop computer these days. I am...
The divine calling The pilgrimage for Muslims known as Hajj is compulsory for all who can afford it once in a lifetime. It consists of rites and rituals that have come down over the...		Kardar: the legenday filmmaker Mian Abdur Rashid Kardar (1904-1989) was to the Indian screen what Zaheer Abbas has been to Pakistani cricket. Like the cricket legend who was known for his proliferation in scoring runs,...
Mystical allusions of Bal-i-Jibreel Bal-i-Jibreel was the fifth, and in Urdu the second collection of Allama Iqbal’s verses. These verses were said, that is, composed by him at the stage when his intellectual and artistic...		CHAPTERS FROM HISTORY: Afghani and pan-Islamism If only because of the increasingly menacing encroachments by western powers against the peripheral Muslim states for a century and more, the feeling of Islamic solidarity was certainly in the air...
POINT OF VIEW: Origins of Urdu masnavi INSHA ALLAH Khan Insha, sitting in Lukhnow, found himself under the spell of Qissa Heer Ranjha, which compelled him to pay his compliments to this tale of love in these words:...		Looking for support It was glory days for Pakistan when Mohammad Yousaf received the world snooker title in 1994. However, now there has been a sharp decline in the quality of the sport....
Hunting houbara bustards I finally secured the permission to accompany a party that was going for a hunting expedition of houbara bustards, a small, beautiful migratory bird. The threat to its survival has long...		THROUGH THE COVERS: An ideal mix, but will it deliver? AFTER having discussed Australia and South Africa in the last couple of weeks in the context of the forthcoming World Cup, I endeavour today to have a look at Pakistan. This...
The hour of splendour Goth Ghazi was one of the hamlets in a far-flung part of Balochistan. It contained not more than 15 or 20 huts and farmers’ homesteads of adobe walls and thatched roofs...		NEWSMAKER THE dot-com bust isn’t yet over. If for any reason you were taking a breather that the worst of the dot-com debacle was over, well, you are sadly mistaken....