Lahore Quotes

Manto had earlier been prosecuted in Lahore for obscenity, and one of the words alleged to have been obscene was, “breasts

He sat in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammeh, on her old platform, opposite the old Ajaib gher, the Wonder House, as the natives called the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot.

Glaring is something we men of Lahore take seriously...

[Taken from a BBC documentary] Tariq was born in Lahore, now in Pakistan, then part of British-ruled India, in 1943. A Catholic school education did nothing to shake his life-long atheism, which he shared with his communist parents.

We should have realized it sooner, at least my father should have, that there was no coming back. Not in September when the riots died down, not in October when the subcontinent still lay in shock, not even in November as he had hoped and promised us. Lahore was now lost forever

After everything is said and done, a memory remains a treacherous thing…How long does one cling on to the people they’ve lost? How long could I have remembered my grandfather? How long had it been since I forgotten him and my mind began harbouring other things?

For we were not always burdened by debt, dependent on foreign aid and handouts; in the stories we tell of ourselves we were not the crazed and destitute radicals you see on your television channels but rather saints and poets and — yes — conquering kings. We built the Royal Mosque and the Shalimar Gardens in this city, and we built the Lahore Fort with its mighty walls and wide ramp for our battle-elephants. And we did these things when your country was still a collection of thirteen small colonies, gnawing away at the edge of a continent.

Imran Khan asked Pakistanis of four things at the Historic Lahore Jalsa. 1. We shall never lie and always speak the truth. 2. Leave our ego’s behind and only think of this Nation, there are 11 crore Pakistanis living beneath poverty line. 3. We shall be brave and break the shackles of fear. 4. We have to bring Justice to this society, even if our friends and relatives do injustice, we shall be fair and bring them to Justice.

I tried not to dwell on the comparison; it was one thing to accept that New York was more wealthy than Lahore, but quite another to swallow the fact that Manila was as well.

Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan, ancient capital of the Punjab, home to nearly as many people as New York, layered like a sedimentary plain with the accreted history of invaders from the Aryans to the Mongols to the British.

a raped girl is bad for the family: it shows that they can’t protect their women; that they have little social standing; and that they’re not respectable. It’s worse for the victim because once a woman, or a girl—or a boy—is known as the target of a rape she becomes so despised, so shamed, so worthless that she turns into public property. No one is raped only once.

A country should be judged by how it treats its minorities. To the extent it protect them, it stands for the ennobling values of empathy and compassion, for justice rooted, not in might, but in human equality, and for civilization instead of savagery.

It's true, you always remember your Love, and, for me, that will always be Lahore.

If Pakistani cities were caricatures, most would be easy to draw. Lahore is corpulent and languid, stretched out in a shalwar kameez, twirling its moustache over a greasy breakfast. Islamabad cuts a more clipped figure, holding court in a gilded drawing room, proffering Scotch and political whispers. Peshawar wears a turban or a burka, scuttling among the stalls of an ancient bazaar. But Karachi is harder to sketch. It has too many faces: the shiny-shod businessman, rushing to the gym; the hardscrabble labourer who sends his wages to a distant village; the slinky young socialite, kicking off her heels as she bends over a line of cocaine.

Christ will never more come down to earth nor will there be any law-giver, nor will murder cease nor theft, nor rape, and yet... and yet one expects something, something terrifyingly marvellous and absurd, perhaps a cold lobster with mayonnaise served gratis, perhaps an invention, like the electric light, like television, only more devastating, more soul rending, an invention unthinkable that will bring a shattering calm and void, not the calm and void of death but of life such as the monks dreamed, such as is dreamed still in the Himalayas, in Tibet, in Lahore, in the Aleutian Islands, in Polynesia, in Easter Island, the dream of men before the flood, before the word was written, the dream of cave men and anthropophagists, of those with double sex and short tails, of those who are said to be crazy and have no way of defending themselves because they are outnumbered by those who are not crazy.

I dream of a day when, while retaining our respective national identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. That is how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live.’ Manmohan Singh, FICCI annual general meeting 8 January 2007

In a world of intrusive technology, we must engage in a kind of struggle if we wish to sustain moments of solitude. E-reading opens the door to distraction. It invites connectivity and clicking and purchasing. The closed network of a printed book, on the other hand, seems to offer greater serenity. It harks back to a pre-jacked-in age. Cloth, paper, ink: For these read helmet, cuirass, shield. They afford a degree of protection and make possible a less intermediated, less fractured experience. They guard our aloneness. That is why I love them, and why I read printed books still.

There are all the hidden menaces of long journeys on the way. But we shall go. Treat it as exile or a new beginning.

Goodbye Lahore, you've been a kind friend.

Lahore was a different world in its own; the busy life, the rich history, the colourful culture, and the unfamiliar faces

His last years were beset with financial troubles; he drank heavily; he wrote to Chughtai on more than one occasion, pleading with her to find a way for him to come back to India. She was surprised to learn that far from large protests and signed declarations on his behalf, many in Pakistan felt he deserved to be punished. He died on January 18, 1955 in Lahore at the age of forty two.

NO DIVINE BOVINE ! The clumsy creature currently inhabiting the White House is a distinctly dangerous animal. Part boneheaded raging bully, part dastardly coward showing signs of advanced stage mad cow disease. Neither of good pedigree nor useful breeding stock, there is essentially very little of substance between the T (bone) and the RUMP, except of course for an abundance of methane and bullshit. It's high time brave matadors for you to enter the bullring, with nimble step and fleet of foot. Take good aim and bring down this marauding beast once and for all. Slay public enemy number one and we will salute you forever. A louder cheer you will not hear from Madrid to Mexico City, from Beijing to Brussels, from London to Lahore, from Toronto to Tehran and ten thousand cities in between.

Lightning’s echo comes as thunder. And the city waits for thunder’s echo, for a wall of heat that burns Lahore with the energy of a thousand summers, a million partitions, a billion atomic souls split in half.

Her conclusion was that the Mughal state was unusually extractive and appropriated 56.7 per cent of the total produce. Her research focused on five north Indian provinces: Agra, Delhi, Lahore, Allahabad and Avadh. The total

Another of them died last night. His body was in the bazaar this morning. It lay, with a collecting bowl at its feet, on the charpoy that is reserved for those who die without money or family to bury them. He looked desiccated and his skin had the sheen and color of the dates we eat to break our fast. There are new bodies on that charpoy every week.

I’m playing catch with Nisha and Nena. They’re standing against the opposite wall shrieking with enjoyment. They’re teenagers, but they’ve never played catch before and lack any sense of coordination; when they throw the ball to me it flies in any direction. Sometimes it hits the wall behind them. We’ve been playing for half an hour and they have only caught it twice.

We need language. We need language to tell stories. We need stories to create a self. We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains. The self we create is a fiction.

...if we accept contemporary literature as sufficient evidence, the society of Paris today is fully as corrupt as that of the Punjab in 1830; and the bazaars of Lahore, while Ranjit Singh was celebrating the festival of the Holi, were not so shameless as Piccadilly at night in 1892.

all the silahbands and the attendants upon the platoons gathered together in large crowds of thousands outside the gates of the fort of Lahore and inside it and began to cause various kinds of trouble and molestation to the various men who went or came and teased especially the attendants of the state and the glorious chieftains. Whenever people rode from their mansions and came towards the fort, they began to strike with sticks the face of the horses and the backs of the servants accompanying them and turned them out in great disgrace, uttering many improper and rude words.

That was the main thing wrong with Mrs. Kamal. She spent such an extraordinary amount of mental energy feeling irritated that it was impossible not to feel irritated in turn. It was oxygen to her, this low-grade dissatisfaction, shading into anger; this sense that things weren't being done correctly, that everything from the traffic noise at night to the temperature of the hot water in the morning to the progress of Mohammed's potty training to the fact that Fatima wasn't being taught to read Urdu, only English, to the fact that Rohinka served only two dishes at dinner the night of her arrival to the cost of the car insurance for the VW Sharan to the fact that Shahid didn't have a 'proper job' and seemed to have no intention of getting one, let alone a wife, to the unfriendliness of London, the fact that it was an 'impossible city,' to the ostentatious way she complained about missing Lahore, especially at dinner time, giving meaningful, sad, reproachful looks at the food Rohinka had cooked.

It was later disclosed that the Hindu majority Lahore was originally a part of India. But Jinnah objected to the ‘Radcliffe Line’ stating that all the four metropolitan towns of Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay and Lahore were given to India. Finally, the Indian Prime Minister Nehru was convinced by Gandhi to let go Lahore and thus, Lahore was acceded to Pakistan. The

I don’t seem to have said enough about the compensating or positive element of exposure to travel. Just as you discover that stupidity and cruelty are the same everywhere, you find that the essential elements of humanism are the same everywhere, too. Punjabis in Amritsar and Lahore are equally welcoming and open-minded, even though partition means the amputation of Punjab as well as of the subcontinent. There are a heartening number of atheists and agnostics in the six counties of Northern Ireland, even though Ulster as well as Ireland has been divided. Most important of all, the instinct for justice and for liberty is just as much “innate” in us as are the promptings of tribalism and sexual xenophobia and superstition. People know when they are being lied to, they know when their rulers are absurd, they know they do not love their chains; every time a Bastille falls one is always pleasantly surprised by how many sane and decent people were there all along. There’s an old argument about whether full bellies or empty bellies lead to contentment or revolt: it’s an argument not worth having. The crucial organ is the mind, not the gut. People assert themselves out of an unquenchable sense of dignity.

Incidentally, at a reception at Governor House, Atal recited his poem ‘Ab jung naa hone denge hum’. Atal was felicitated at Lahore Fort where, hinting at the common heritage of the two nations, he pointed out how Shah Jahan was born in the fort and Akbar had spent close to a decade there. The audience was so impressed by Atal’s speech that Nawaz Sharif quipped, ‘Vajpayee sahab ab toh Pakistan mein bhi election jeet sakte hain. [Mr Vajpayee can now win elections even in Pakistan.]

Welcome to Lahore, ma’am!” îmi spuse încă o dată în timp ce coborâsem în mulțime. Oprisem în fața restaurantului, iar o altă mare de oameni, gânduri și emoții mă aștepta să încep o nouă aventură. Am comandat biryani și paratha iar în așteptarea lor îmi ascultam gândurile cum îmi vorbeau, printre zumzetele unor muște prietenoase ce își traficau firimiturile căzute printre mese. Un tablou în care toate nuanțele purtau căldură și comfort. Probabil că lecții interesante de viață musteau printre crăpăturile secundelor, într-o lume cu totul nouă pentru mine, în care am înțeles pentru prima oară că universalitatea cuprinde mult mai multe nuanțe în paleta-i, decât cele pe care le priveam dintr-o rutină molcomă în spațiul meu mioritic. Și da, un aha moment m-a făcut să înțeleg că oricât de greu și întortocheat poate părea drumul în viață, se vor ivi întotdeauna portițe pe bucățile de drum despletite între curgeri de mișcare. Și că legea nativului din noi strălucește uneori deasupra oricăror reguli impuse de societate; are nevoie doar să-i dăm voie să se exprime… în trafic… Mișcare într-o structură perfect construită.

Perhaps it is because novels are like affairs, and small novels - with fewer pages of plot to them - are affairs with less history, affairs that involved just a few glances across a dinner table or a single ride together, unspeaking, on a train, and therefore affairs are still electric with potential, still heart-quickening, even after the passage of all these years.

In 2017 India’s nationalist government hoisted one of the largest flags in the world at Attari on the Indo-Pakistan border, in a gesture calculated to inspire neither renunciation nor disinterestedness, but rather Pakistani envy. That particular Tiranga was 36 metres long and 24 metres wide, and was hoisted on a 110-metre-high flag post (what would Freud have said about that?). The flag could be seen as far as the Pakistani metropolis of Lahore. Unfortunately, strong winds kept tearing the flag, and national pride required that it be stitched together again and again, at great cost to Indian taxpayers.11 Why does the Indian government invest scarce resources in weaving enormous flags, instead of building sewage systems in Delhi’s slums? Because the flag makes India real in a way that sewage systems do not.

As in Lahore, a road in this town is named after Goethe. There is a Park Street here as in Calcutta, a Malabar Holl as in Bombay, and a Naag Tolla Hill as in Dhaka. Because it was difficult to pronounce the English names, the men who arrived in this town in the 1950s had rechristened everything they saw before them. They had come from across the Subcontinent, lived together ten to a room, and the name that one of them happened to give to a street or landmark was taken up by the others, regardless of where they themselves were from. But over the decades, as more and more people came, the various nationalities of the Subcontinent have changed the names according to the specific country they themselves are from – Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan. Only one name has been accepted by every group, remaining unchanged. It’s the name of the town itself. Dasht-e-Tanhaii. The Wilderness of Solitude. The Desert of Loneliness.

Život je oduvijek bio najčistiji i najdublji tamo gdje se objavljuje u tajanstvenom trenu ljepote: razastrto golubinje krilo tamnoocalne boje u modrikastom sedefnom preljevu pastelnog, toplog proljetnog neba, lepet čistog ptičjeg krila kad sviće, a mladi jablan treperi na jutarnjem nebu. Otputovati iz ove strašne, crnim zavjesama zamračene sobe, u pastelnoplava svitanja, negdje daleko na jugu. Škrinula su vrata tihe osamljene kućice na dnu drvoreda, bijelo jare provirilo je između dva kamena stupa, jutarnji lahor nad plohom ustalasane rosnate trave, cvrkut ptičji nad lovorikama i oleandrima. Frascati, Grotta-ferrata, Castel Gandolfo, kao crta svijetle plave simfonije, u prozirnom pianissimu obrisa albanskih brda, pinije, čempresi, klokot vodoskoka, svjetlomrak teške, smeđe, mračne zlatnouokvirene renesansne slike. Žubori vrelo u sjeni hrastika, bijeli oblaci plove iznad krajine, zvone klepke, čuje se frula: idila. U jednu riječ: idila.

During the eighteenth century the Punjab was the scene of ceaseless turmoil between Sikhs and Moslems, and on January 7, 1761, at the battle of Panipat, the Sikhs were defeated. On their homeward march the victorious Moslems destroyed the holy city of Amritsar, blew up the Golden Temple with gunpowder, filled the sacred pool with mud, and purposely defiled the holy place by slaughtering a lot of holy cows within the temple enclosure. Although this happened in 1761, the Sikhs have neither forgotten nor forgiven it. When the Partition of India took place and Pakistan came into being, the dividing line passed between Amritsar and Lahore, leaving many thousands of Sikhs and Moslems on the wrong side of the line. In the scramble to get out of India and into Pakistan, great numbers of Moslems were killed by Sikhs. On the other hand, the Moslems who were already in Pakistan avenged themselves by slaughtering thousands of Sikhs who were trying to escape into India. How

Suppose I am told that a certain sample of wheat comes from Lahore, and that I do not know where Lahore is. I look it out in the gazetteer and ascertain that it is the capital of the Punjab.… If I know nothing of geography, I shall get up with the idea that Lahore is in India, and that will be about all. If I have been properly trained in geography, the word Punjab will … probably connote to me many things. I shall see Lahore in the northern angle of India. I shall picture it in a great plain, at the foot of a snowy range, in the midst of the rivers of the Indus system. I shall think of the monsoons and the desert, of the water brought from the mountains by the irrigation canals. I shall know the climate, the seed time, and the harvest. Kurrachee and the Suez Canal will shine out from my mental map. I shall be able to calculate at what time of the year the cargoes will be delivered in England. Moreover, the Punjab will be to me the equal in size and population of a great European country, a Spain or an Italy, and I shall appreciate the market it offers for English exports.7

Our coerced silence is the weapon that has been sharpened and brought to our throats. This is why Nawaz Sharif’s statement in defence of Ahmadis met with such an angry response. Because the heart of the issue isn’t whether Ahmadis are non-Muslims or not. The heart of the issue is whether Muslims can be silenced by fear. Because if we can be silenced when it comes to Ahmadis, then we can be silenced when it comes to Shias, we can be silenced when it comes to women, we can be silenced when it comes to dress, we can be silenced when it comes to entertainment, and we can even be silenced when it comes to sitting by ourselves, alone in a room, afraid to think what we think. That is the point.

In many places, the past fifteen years have been a time of economic turmoil and widening disparities. Anger and resentment are high. And yet economic policies that might address these concerns seem nearly impossible to enact. Instead of the seeds of reform, we are given the yoke of misdirection. We are told to forget the sources of our discontent because something more important is at stake: the fate of our civilization. Yet what are these civilizations, these notions of Muslim-ness, Western-ness, European-ness, American-ness, that attempt to describe where, and with whom, we belong? They are illusions: arbitrarily drawn constructs with porous, brittle, and overlapping borders. To what civilization does a Syrian atheist belong? A Muslim soldier in the US army? A Chinese professor in Germany? A lesbian fashion designer in Nigeria? After how many decades of US citizenship does a Spanish-speaking Honduran-born couple, with two generations of American children and grandchildren descended from them, cease to belong to a Latin American civilization and take their place in an American one? Civilizations are illusions, but these illusions are pervasive, dangerous, and powerful. They contribute to globalization’s brutality. They allow us, for example, to say that we believe in global free markets and, in the same breath, to discount as impossible the global free movement of labor; to claim that we believe in democracy and human equality, and yet to stymie the creation of global institutions based on one-person-one-vote and equality before the law. Civilizations encourage our hypocrisies to flourish. And by so doing, they undermine globalization’s only plausible promise: that we be free to invent ourselves. Why, exactly, can’t a Muslim be European? Why can’t an unreligious person be Pakistani? Why can’t a man be a woman? Why can’t someone who is gay be married? Mongrel. Miscegenator. Half-breed. Outcast. Deviant. Heretic. Our words for hybridity are so often epithets. They shouldn’t be. Hybridity need not be the problem. It could be the solution. Hybrids do more than embody mixtures between groups. Hybrids reveal the boundaries between groups to be false.

NOBEL PRIZE–WINNER, British poet laureate, essayist, novelist, journalist, and short story writer Rudyard Kipling wrote for both children and adults, with many of his stories and poems focusing on British imperialism in India. His works were popular during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even though many deemed his political views too conservative. Born on December 30, 1865, in Bombay, India, Kipling had a happy early childhood, but in 1871 he and his sister were sent to a boarding house called Lorne Lodge in Southsea, where he spent many disappointing years. He was accepted in 1877 to United Services College in the west of England. In 1882, he returned to his family in India, working as a journalist, associate editor, and correspondent for many publications, including Civil and Military Gazette, a publication in Lahore, Pakistan. He also wrote poetry. He found great success in writing after his 1889 return to England, where he was eventually appointed poet laureate. Some of his most famous writings, including The Jungle Book, Kim, Puck of Pook’s Hill, and Rewards and Fairies, saw publication in the 1890s and 1900s. It was during this period that he married Caroline Balestier, the sister of an American friend and publishing colleague. The couple settled in Vermont, where their two daughters were born. After a quarrel with his brother-in-law and grumblings from his American neighbors about his controversial political views, Kipling and his family returned to England. There, Caroline gave birth to a son in 1896. Tragically, their eldest daughter died in 1899. Later, Kipling’s son perished in battle during World War I. In 1907 Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize. He died on January 18, 1936, and his ashes are buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

When I wake, it seems a little less hot than usual, so I’m worried I have a fever until light flashes behind the curtains and the sound of a detonation rolls in with a force that makes the windows rattle. As I step outside with a plastic bag over my cast, a stiff breeze pulls my hair away from my face, and I see the pregnant clouds of the monsoon hanging low over the city. The rains have finally decided to come. I sit down on the lawn, resting my back against the wall of the house, and light an aitch I’ve waited a long time to smoke. Suddenly the air is still and the trees are silent, and I can hear laughter from my neighbor’s servant quarters. A bicycle bell sounds in the street, reminding me of the green Sohrab I had as a child. Then the wind returns, bringing the smell of wet soil and a pair of orange parrots that swoop down to take shelter in the lower branches of the banyan tree, where they glow in the shadows.

It happens.” He turned again to the garden. “To the brain, I mean. It’s the drink, naturally. And the hepatic function. But there is clearly something else occurring, too. Certainly in other men I’ve seen it. There is something in certain abilities that is never far from—far from—” He looked out at the lake. “I cannot really know.” “No, please go on.” “Far from terror, perhaps. It is not such a rare phenomenon, you see. I used to encounter it around the maths division when I was at university, and I have seen it here, even, in my little country practice. It seems to be quite primal. At its crudest, it is a bona fide paranoia. Plenty in the field are gone before the age of twenty. I’ve seen that, too. Perhaps it is a harbinger. I believe it to be physiological.” He looked down. “I sometimes imagine it as God’s revenge.” “Against mathematicians?” “One must bear in mind that they might be considered spies.” He was smiling now. “By the Deity, you mean?” “Indeed. Your dad’s cantankerous nature, by the way—you know that this is his liver, too, don’t you? And of course the drink plays a part in it—but it is also the man himself. The emotions are ablaze in him.” He set down the bucket. “For people like you and me—well, we are shielded by all our damping circuitry. We maintain a cushion against the world, if you will. A comfort against the ravage. But I believe it is not so for him.” He regarded me. “Think of what life must be like for a mind like your father’s. I mean, human existence is bounded by tragedy, is it not? And shot through with it, as well. I was born in Lahore, so I know this in a particular way. But your father, too—he knows it just as particularly, in his own way. I have learned to keep such thoughts somewhat at bay. And so have you. But for him, there is no ignoring it. There is no joy in God’s creation. No pleasure in sunlight or water. No pleasure in a good meal. There is no pleasure in the company of friends. There is nothing. Nothing that might assuage the maw. He

I’d met Madison, as I’ve already mentioned, two months earlier, in Budapest. I’d been at a conference. She’d been there with some girlfriends. We’d got talking in the hotel bar. An anthropologist, she’d said; that’s … exotic. Not at all, I’d replied; I work for an incorporated business, in a basement. Yes, she said, but … But what? I asked. Dances, and masks, and feathers, she eventually responded: that’s the essence of your work, isn’t it? I mean, even if you’re writing a report on workplace etiquette, or how to motivate employees or whatever, you’re seeing it all through a lens of rituals, and rites, and stuff. It must make the everyday all primitive and strange—no? I saw what she was getting at; but she was wrong. For anthropologists, even the exotic’s not exotic, let alone the everyday. In his key volume Tristes Tropiques, Claude Lévi-Strauss, the twentieth century’s most brilliant ethnographer, describes pacing the streets, all draped with new electric cable, of Lahore’s Old Town sometime in the nineteen-fifties, trying to piece together, long after the event, a vanished purity—of local colour, texture, custom, life in general—from nothing but leftovers and debris. He goes on to describe being struck by the same impression when he lived among the Amazonian Nambikwara tribe: the sense of having come “too late”—although he knows, from having read a previous account of life among the Nambikwara, that the anthropologist (that account’s author) who came here fifty years earlier, before the rubber-traders and the telegraph, was struck by that impression also; and knows as well that the anthropologist who, inspired by the account that Lévi-Strauss will himself write of this trip, shall come back in fifty more will be struck by it too, and wish—if only!—that he could have been here fifty years ago (that is, now, or, rather, then) to see what he, Lévi-Strauss, saw, or failed to see. This leads him to identify a “double-bind” to which all anthropologists, and anthropology itself, are, by their very nature, prey: the “purity” they crave is no more than a state in which all frames of comprehension, of interpretation and analysis, are lacking; once these are brought to bear, the mystery that drew the anthropologist towards his subject in the first place vanishes. I explained this to her; and she seemed, despite the fact that she was drunk, to understand what I was saying. Wow, she murmured; that’s kind of fucked. 2.8 When I arrived at Madison’s, we had sex. Afterwards,

Bilour’s death meant that the NA-1 seat was, conveniently, up for grabs. There were many out there who would never have defeated him. A few months later, in the subsequent general elections, the NA-1 seat would be won by none other than Imran Khan, although he would be defeated in his own home town of Lahore

The bathing boys abandoned their frolicking and gathered in a horde around the singing man. Nobody made a sound. Their heads swayed gently in tune. Even Malik sahib and the fruit seller looked enchanted. The mysterious contours of his voice in the mellow, orange twilight were like the sound of nature, the call of beauty. And the road water, though the filthiest in Lahore, mimicked the red blush of Heer's cheeks which, the player revealed, "were scented like a rare flower on a spring morning." -- The Player

Asia Bibi is the only woman this century to have been condemned to death for blasphemy. Her lawyer appealed against the decision, but until the date for the hearing is set by the High Court in Lahore, Asia risks being murdered at any time, or simply dying of exhaustion. A mullah in Peshawar has offered a reward of 5,000 euros to anyone who kills Asia. This sum is a fortune in Pakistan.

Now we’re all alone.’ Tahir answers me firmly: ‘No, Asia. We aren’t alone. Shahbaz Bhatti has a brother called Paul. He has taken up the torch and he’s going to fight on. I know he’s seen Pope Benedict XVI.’ ‘The Pope?’ My heart leaps inside me. ‘Yes, and he didn’t go alone. The Bishop of Faisalabad, Monsignor Joseph Coutts, went with him, and the imam of the Badshahi mosque in Lahore, Syed Muhammad Abdul Khabir Azad.’ ‘The imam went too?’ It’s one surprise after another. Ashiq says nothing, but a timid smile appears on his lips. ‘Yes, the imam went too. He’s a brave man. That’s why we mustn’t give up hope. You must stay strong, Asia. You are not alone.

Lahore Conspiracy Case, as it was called, contains no Muslim name and only one Sikh name, that of Bhagat Singh.

Lagan lahor struji kroz šumu, zbog njega treperi lišće oko mene. To bezimeno šuštanje stvara mreške na naborima moga uma. One mreške izgledaju kao da su znak, nekakav signal, ali su poput stranog jezika koji ne mogu odgonetnuti. (...) Ti se znaci preustrojavaju, metafore se preobrazuju, a ja se rastavljam, rastavljam se od sama sebe. Onkraj ruba svijeta postoji prostor gdje se praznina i tvar čisto preklapaju, gdje prošlost i budućnost tvore neprekidnu, beskrajnu petlju. A naokolo lebde znaci koje nikada nitko nije pročitao, akordi koje nitko nikada nije čuo.

A non-existent revolutionary plot was crushed by the Raj. Punjab, including Amritsar and Lahore, returned to ‘normal’. And Gandhi halted his satyagraha. But the Empire’s reputation was in tatters.

A raindrop strikes the lawn, sending up a tiny plume of dust. Others follow, a barrage of dusty explosions bursting all around me. The leaves of the banyan tree rebound from their impact. The parrots disappear from sight. In the distance, the clouds seem to reach down to touch the earth. And then a curtain of water falls quietly and shatters across the city with a terrifying roar, drenching me instantly. I hear the hot concrete of the driveway hissing, turning rain back into steam, and I smell the dead grass that lies under the dirt of the lawn. I fill my mouth with water, gritty at first, then pure and clean, and roll into a ball with my face pressed against my knees, sucking on a hailstone, shivering as wet cloth sticks to my body. Heavy drops beat their beat on my back and I rock slowly, my thoughts silenced by the violence of the storm, gasping in the sudden, unexpected cold.

During his second term, Sharif built my favorite road in Pakistan, a hundred and seventy miles of paved, multilaned bliss connecting Lahore to Islamabad; named Musharraf as chief of the army; and successfully tested the country’s first nuclear weapon.

He then offered to meet me the next day, at a friend’s apartment in Lahore, to give me the iPhone and have tea. No, I said. I was going to Faridkot. Sharif finally came to the point. “Kim. I am sorry I was not able to find you a friend. I tried, but I failed.” He shook his head, looked genuinely sad about the failure of the project. “That’s OK,” I said. “Really. I don’t really want a friend right now. I am perfectly happy without a friend. I want to be friendless.” He paused. And then, finally, the tiger of Punjab pounced. “I would like to be your friend.” I didn’t even let him get the words out. “No. Absolutely not. Not going to happen.

After the four Indian judges had neutralized one another by their separate and contradictory opinions, Radcliffe gave his own binding decisions: Lyallpur, Montgomery, and Nankana Sahib to Pakistan; most of Lahore district and all of Lahore city to Pakistan; Amritsar district (and city) to India; Ferozepore district, including its Muslim-majority tehsils (Zira and Ferozepore) and a portion of Muslim-majority Kasur tehsil (Lahore district) to India; Gurdaspur district’s Shakargarh tehsil, which lay west of the river Ujh, to Pakistan; all the rest of Gurdaspur district to India. Reached before 14 August, the day of Pakistan’s founding, Radcliffe’s decisions were however only announced on 17 August, i.e. two days after India’s independence.

Arson was frequent in Lahore and Amritsar. Between 14 April and 14 July, there were 495 attempts in Lahore to burn non-Muslim property and 116 attempts to set fire to Muslim property.88 The biggest and most destructive fire was set off in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, 22 June, when much of the carefully guarded inner-city Shahalmi Market, totally owned by Hindus and Sikhs and seen as something of a fortress, was burnt down. The Shahalmi fire broke the will of Lahore’s Sikhs and Hindus ‘to fight and stay on in Lahore’. Evidence that the city magistrate, Muhammad Ghani Cheema, was deeply involved in this arson attack appears to be compelling.89 Jenkins visited the market after the fire but there is no evidence that Cheema was even questioned.

On 3 March, after Sikh and Hindu MLAs refused to support an alternative League ministry, which therefore could not be formed, Master Tara Singh unsheathed his sword on the steps of the Punjab legislature building in Lahore and said that Sikhs would not live under Muslim rule nor allow Pakistan to emerge.

between March and August there was a steady flow of urban and rural Sikhs and Hindus from Rawalpindi, Multan, Attock, Lahore and other western districts to safe havens in eastern Punjab. In all, about 500,000 may have moved east before mid-August.

In 1947, additional factors contributed to the carnage. London’s abrupt 20 February announcement that the British would very soon leave Punjab, Bengal and all of India was not accompanied by any plan of who would replace them in Lahore, Calcutta or Delhi.

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And what if the Vice-Consul of Lahore were no more than one man among the many looking for a woman with whom he hoped to find oblivion?

Even today, as the world moves around these spaces oblivious to them, their stories continue to unfold, dancing and singing for anyone willing to listen. In these performances, Valmiki discourses with Jesus Christ, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto meets Qutb al-Din Aibak, nationalists participate in historic Mughal wars, Mughal princesses witness the heralding of a neo-liberal model of development, Bulleh Shah dances with Bhagat Singh.

After the news came that their troops had surrendered, an Urdu newspaper in Lahore wrote that ‘today the entire nation weeps tears of blood . . . Today the Indian Army has entered Dacca. Today for the first time in 1,000 years Hindus have won a victory over Muslims . . . Today we are prostrate with dejection.’ Within days, however, the Urdu press was seeking consolation from the lessons of history. While the defeat was certainly ‘a breach in the fortress of Islam’, even the great Muhammad of Ghori had lost his first war in the subcontinent. But as another Lahore newspaper reminded its readers, Ghori had come back ‘with renewed determination to unfurl the banner of Islam over the Kafir land of India’.54

It reveals opinions and attitudes that are malleable, showing the plasticity of what in any given present moment one typically presents as a rock of certainty.

OSJEĆAJ PROLJEĆA Riječ znaocima voda. To bi moglo biti jedno sjedalo na parobrodu, na sunašcu (ovo je umjestandeminutiv). Mogao bi biti prozor u kakvoj staroj kamenoj kući, četverouglastoj kao kutije ilisanduci, s pogledom dalje, ili kakva zdušna terasa, ili pak ljuljka među stablima. Nisu sezone samokalendar; ima jedan osjećaj proljeća, pored osjećaja drugih zbivanja u prirodi, osjećaj upisan u duši,dan za obećanje svim živonosnim klicama.Proljeće. Manimo emfazu ukrasa, rast trave i žubor vrela, javljanje ptičica, kolanje krvi i otapanjesnijega. Manimo proljeće organizma. Nego ovaj mlaz u srcu. Ima duševnih proljeća, unutrašnjihosvita, kresova nade. Proljeće. Okupat ćemo se u zelenkastom kristalu rijeke, protrljat ćemomišice, i naše rite svući; zrak ćemo dublje udisati. Razvigor, razvigorac. Jedan ćuh ili lahor koji setako zove. Nosilac peluda. Pravda moćima bića.Radit ćemo. Jest ćemo jedan pošten kruh mrko ispečen, piti zdravu vodu s česme krepkih umovadrevnoga svijeta. Zrak i nebo će biti puni simpatije, i nešto će mahati, visoko. Pahalice, pahuljice.Ne englesko ladanje, ni alpinski krajolik, pa ni uobičajeni motiv Arkadije. Ali ona treperenja iblaženstva atmosfere koja su na dohvatu ruke (isto kao sjena, kao sunčev trak, kao zvijezde u jezeru), elektricitet u našim živcima i duhu. Struja od prirode čovjeku. Manastir, zvona? Ovdjesamo naša samoća, naša mala sobica, kovčeg manje ambiciozan nego štivo pred maturu, kakav vrt koji diše duboko kao momak na spavanju. Praštanja u dubini perspektive. Misli kao vedro nebo,nadahnuća s crvenim i plavim munje. Skice u eksploziji. Koliko nam je godina? Obmane registra.Mladi smo, proljeće je, krv kola, pluća slobodno dišu, nadanje pupi. Prostor liječi oči, šarena sjenase igra s dušom, puna izazovnih ljubičica. Proljeće. Vječiti ne stare, živi ne umiru, mladi se bude ukasnim godinama i traju kao stabla, kao iskreni sokovi zemlje. Sokovi teku, limfa škaklje, žar palucai žeže.Neka me ne mine dobri osjećaj proljeća ni u kojoj eposi ni godini života, ni u kojoj sezoni godine.On je cvjetanje organizma, rezonancija zaspalih žica, palingenezije mogućnosti dara i umnih sila.Evo povratnika, mohuna, klasova, šišarica, bobica. Proljeće će "ponijeti", biti plodno. Nije proljećesamo fikcija ili istina kalendara. Proljeće je data žive duše, vječito i moćno, u nama, s nama. Domoje smrti neka ne mine spasonosni osjećaj proljeća, jer je od snaga koje periodički jačaju, aposlije moje smrti neka živi kao moj vlastiti i lični nadgrobni spomenik, moj marcijalni znak, zadobročinstvo drugima, čovječanstvu, svima.Pozdrav njemu. I koji me ne budete umjeli izreći ni opisati, naslikajte me kao mladu živu proljetnugranu s dvije hiljade cvjetića koje prva ptica osjeti kao neodoljivo i gizdavo pijanstvo, da bih takolistao i granao u junačka i teška vremena, u teške plodove, u grane blagoslova, u bremesmrtonosnog uživanja, u eksplozije zelenila - i bujio, brektao, pucao u prostor

Unlike Lahore, Amritsar was unable to reclaim the proud position that it once commanded.

Iranian or Pakistani writers who saw the violence in the West realised that if clerics issued fatwas against them in Tehran or Lahore, they could no longer expect to flee to a safe haven.

As with Nazism, the conspiracy theory needed Jews. The Iranian interior minister said that Zionists had ‘direct involvement’ in publishing the book. The Iranian president said that ‘Zionist-controlled news agencies’ had made Rushdie famous. In Syria, the Ba’athist dictatorship said that the novel was part of a plot to distract the world’s attention from Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. In Pakistan, religious leaders talked of an ‘American Jewish conspiracy’. Across the planet, the drums shuddered to the same beat: ‘It’s the Jews, it’s the Jews, it’s the Jews.’ The demonstrations against Rushdie were not confined to the poor world. The faithful marched in Bradford and London as well as Tehran and Lahore. They inspired a fear in the West that went almost unnoticed during the elation the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe produced.

Kesteven confided to us that he had heard whispers that Nazir Ahmed, a Pakistani who was the head of the WFP for this region, wanted the aid to go to Pakistan. Nazir Ahmed had copied our entire proposal and sent it to the Ambassador of Pakistan in Rome, advising him to simply substitute the names of cities – change Bombay to Lahore, Calcutta to Karachi and so on – and submit it as Pakistan’s proposal to the WFP. I was aware that Nazir Ahmed was deeply prejudiced against the Indian government. I remember that he had once asked me how a Christian like me could be designated Chairman of NDDB. I had replied: ‘Mr Ahmed, that is because India is not Pakistan. When your country attacked India, the Collector of Kutch district was a Christian, the IGP in Gujarat was a devout Muslim, the Home Secretary of Gujarat was a Christian and the Governor of Gujarat was a Muslim. That is India for you.

Many of today’s youngsters are unaware that in their grandparents’ time Kolkata, Dhaka and Chittagong were part of a single entity, and Lahore, Rawalpindi, Amritsar and Jalandhar likewise. And they are unaware of what it means for a nation to find freedom.

The reason for a Lahore-based cricketer being treated with a degree of animosity by the Karachi lobby (or vice versa a Karachi cricketer being treated similarly by the Lahore lobby) needs to be set in a wider context of historical regional and provincial tensions.

Groups that had focused most of their energies dreaming up bloody attacks against India had begun aligning themselves closer to al Qaeda and other organizations with a thirst for global jihad. Some of these groups had deep roots in Lahore, which was the very reason why Raymond Davis and a CIA team had set up operations from a safe house in the city.

The city waits for thunder's echo, for a wall of heat that burns Lahore with the energy of a thousand summers, a million partitions, a billion atomic souls split in half.

ओ लगदी लाहौर दी आ जिस हिसाब ना हँसदी आ ओ लगदी पंजाब दी आ जिस हिसाब ना’ तकदी आ ओ लगदी लाहौर दी आ जिस हिसाब ना’ हँसदी आ कुड़ी डा पता करो केहड़े पिंड दी आ केहड़े शहर दी आ

The whole country was aghast with the ‘Lahore Resolution’ as it was known then. But, Gandhi whole heartedly supported it by saying “If the vast majority of Muslims regard themselves as a separate nation having nothing in common with the Hindus, no power on earth can compel them to think otherwise. And if they want to partition India on that basis, they must have it, unless Hindus want to fight against such a division”.1

Once a Lahori, always a Lahori

کوئی وقت تھا کہ ہر موسم ایسے اپنی آمد کا اعلان کرتا تھا، جیسے کوئی پُرانی اور مہذب معاشرت کا علمبردار مسافر فصیل شہر کے باہری بلند دروازے کے سامنے کھڑا شسُتہ لہجے میں اندر آنے کی اجازت مانگے۔ فصیل شہر سے جب محافظ نیچے جھانکنیں تو انھیں ایک خوش پوشاک اور معتبر ہستی نظر آئے۔ جس کے انداز، لباس، اسلوب اور مختصر مگر نفیس زادِراہ سے اس کی ذات میں مضمر کئی صدیوں کی تمدنی اور اخلاقی رعنائی ٹپکتی ہو۔ کچھ اس طرح آتے تھے کبھی موسم میرے اس شہر میں۔

To all their life they're told that they can do whatever they want. However when it comes to the matrimonial topic, parents are intent to clip their wings. It hurts that first someone shows you how to fly and then suddenly encage you. Life of Most Girls in Lahore!

According to the latest report of PAMA (Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association), we witnessed a greatest achievement of Suzuki Alto in Dec 2021. Interesting fact is Suzuki suspended booking of Suzuki Alto VXL for a while, because the AGS/VXL variant cut out of production because of the shortage of semiconductor chip. How They Achieve This Landmark? There are few simple reasons behind it, they didn’t compromise on the quality of their procurement. There are few factors which enhances car performance, including installation of Quality tires, because Pakistan’s road qualities are below the average, so the maintenance of the car tires are so important. Various tires brands claims that they are best in the business, but according to the performance, no brand ever achieve the landmark what Maxxis achieved. If you are car owner and want to change or update your car tires and didn’t knew how to identify your car suitable tires, you can purchase it from Maxxis.pk, or visit our nearest affiliated outlet. Maxxis.pk is only Tire Dealer of Maxxis brand in Pakistan, and can only found at Maxxis affiliated outlets. Faisalabad, Lahore, Islamabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Sheikhupura are some of the leading cities, however you can find these Quality tires all over Pakistan. If not Maxxis then you can visit Tyre Dealers official website and grab your tires.

Aren't Hindu, Sikh, Mussalman, Isai, Parsee like the spices in Panjab's masala box? Assorted?

Beli, my friend, the ting with Panjab men is that they can wrestle camels to the ground, but in matters of the heart, they are destined to be losers. So, take my advice: Quit before you begin.

Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs were not separate nations - they were Panjabis who had lived for years on the land, enjoying each other's festivities or ignoring them, but co-existing nonetheless.

Kashmir and Hyderabad were the two apples of princely India that were the rosiest, and on the thorniest branch too.

Was Bapu right then? The line was meant to be only on paper, but it had morphed into the bloody battle line of brothers. Two millennia later, the Mahabharat was being re-enacted. Just as Bapu has feared...

Beli, my friend, the ting with Panjab men is that they can wrestle camels to the ground, but in matters of the heart, they are destined to be losers. So, take my advice Quit before you begin.

India was free... broken in parts... bruised, but free. There was an essential unity to India that no partition could destroy.

The Mahabharata is our story, but in this modern version - our Shakuni has an English avatar.

Gandhi. Jinnah. Patel. Three men from Gujarat who had worked together as one team at one time for one goal, Now the British were leaving, goal achieved, but the team had fractured.

Por supuesto, resulta espantosa e insoportablemente aburrida esta inactividad tan absoluta, este quedarse sentado sin hacer nada en un estado de postración mental, pero, por otro lado, ¿acaso no pasan el tiempo de esa manera tan pasiva y apática millones y millones de gentes del planeta? Y además, ¿no lo hacen así desde hace años, desde haces siglos, independientemente de la religión, de la cultura, de la raza? Basta con que, en América del Sur, vayamos a los Andes o nos paseemos en coche por las polvorientas calles de Piura o naveguemos por el Orinoco: en todas partes encontramos aldeas de barro, poblados y villas pobres y veremos cuánta gente permanece sentada en la puerta de su casa, sobre piedras o en bancos, inmóvil, sin hacer nada. Vayamos de América del Sur a África, visitemos los solitarios oasis del Sáhara o los poblados de pescadores negros que se extienden a lo largo del Golfo de Guinea, visitemos a los misteriosos pigmeos en la jungla del Congo, la diminuta ciudad de Mwenzo en Zambia, la hermosa y dotada tribu Dinka en Sudán: en todas partes veremos gentes sentadas que de vez en cuando articularán alguna palabra, que por la noche se calentarán alrededor de un fuego, pero que en realidad, aparte de permanecer sentadas, inmóviles e inactivas, no hacen nada en absoluto y se encuentran (podemos suponer) en un estado de postración mental. ¿Acaso Asia es diferente? ¿Acaso, yendo de Karachi a Lahore o de Bombay a Madrás o de Yakarta a Malangu, no nos chocará ver que miles, qué digo, millones de paquistaníes, hindúes, indonesios y otros asiáticos están sentados inmóviles con la vista fija en no se sabe qué? Cojamos un vuelo a las Filipinas o a Samoa, visitemos las inconmensurables extensiones del Yukón o la exótica Jamaica: en todas partes veremos el mismo panorama de gentes sentadas que permanecen inmóviles durante horas enteras en unas sillas viejas, en unos tablones de madera, en unas cajas de plástico, a la sombra de olmos y mangos, apoyadas contras las paredes de las chabolas, las vallas y los marcos de las ventanas, independientemente de la hora del día y de la estación del año, de si hace solo o llueve, gentes aturdidas e indefinidas, gentes en un estado de somnolencia crónica, que no hacen nada excepto permanecer allí sin necesidad y sin objetivo, y también sumidas (podemos suponer) en una postración mental.

Beli, my friend, the ting with Panjab men is that they can wrestle camels to the ground, but in matters of the heart, they are destined to be losers. So, take my advice Quit before you bwgin.

Bapu could not bear the thought of India being partitioned, but the bitter truth was that in the hearts of Indians, lines were already drawn.

The world hat day appeared perfect. Like a great wrong had been righted. India had shrugged off her shackles and had stood upright, ready to claim her rightful position o the world stage.

As the tricolour was unfurled against the sky, a light rain began to fall an s a resounding cheer broke through. he stood in the sea of his countrymen and women, unable or unwilling to return to the flagstaff. The Governer general, standing upright in the car, saluted the flag. A bright rainbow appeared emblazoning saffron, white, green - the colours of Independent India - in the blue sky. Jawahar felt curiously light. As if Indra himself had unfurled the tricoor from his indradhanush!

the British colony of India connecting the cities of Lahore and Karachi in present-day Pakistan.

British engineers John and William Brunton, were digging out the foundations on the Multan-Lahore section of the track

These bricks now provided ballast along 93 miles of the railroad track running from Karachi to Lahore.

150 kilometers (93 miles) from Lahore.