‘Jinnay Lahore ni Vekhya’ depicts

‘Jinnay Lahore ni Vekhya’ depicts

Sunday, July 05, 2009

By Schezee Zaidi

Islamabad

The portrayal of the most glorifying human emotion of compassion and love as the core element to fight extremism and hatred was at the heart of ‘Jinnay Lahore ni Vekhya’ at the PNCA drama festival.

The popular play, staged by Sheema Kermani and her group Tehrik-e-Niswan on Friday and Saturday at the National Art Gallery Auditorium, was well received by the audience to the last for skilled performances by the entire cast around a well-knitted theme of an immigrant family in post-Partition Lahore.

Conveyed through the powerful and magical medium of theatre, whether in the form of tragedy, comedy or satire, the main idea of the play is to narrate the historical realities, touching the lives of ordinary people and shake up a nation’s collective conscience, make people think and question things, and admonish apathy.

Scripted and adapted for stage by Anwar Jaffery from the original drama, written by Asghar Wajahat, and with a finer touch of direction by Sheema Kermani, the wonderful production of Tehrik-e-Niswan is based on a true story of a Hindu woman, caught in the aftermath of Partition in Muslim dominated Pakistan. Set in Lahore of 1947 immediately after Partition, the story begins with the arrival of an immigrant family in Pakistan, which has been allotted a ‘haveli’ abandoned by a Hindu family. Having spent many torturous months in ‘Mohajir’ camps, the family looks forward to start a new life in their new home but to their dismay, they find a Hindu woman, the mother of the owner Ratan Lal Johari, still living in the ‘haveli’.

The presence of this old Hindu woman also irks some local ruffians, who believe that the country now belongs only to Muslims. This is opposed by poet Nasir Kazmi and the Maulvi of a local mosque. In the midst of the conflict, the old woman endears almost everybody she comes across with her loving and helpful nature, which is why that finally when she dies, a debate ensues in the community over the issue of performing her last rites.

As the play’s theme is based on a real occurrence, the dialogues of Nasir Kazmi have been taken from his letters and writings. The cast gave a very refined and accurate performance as per the mood of the play. It is also not out of context to mention that the play received great accolades in India.

Powerful dialogues with meaningful connotations from people like Sheema Kermani, who are engaged in activism and theatre for a cause, portrays the common concern about the exploration of ways in which the formal qualities of their art form creates a dialogue on ways in which important socio-political issues affect the everyday lives of people. Sheema explains that she believes that culture and cultural activists, the arts and creative media present many opportunities for promoting the understanding of human rights, and forging unity and awareness amongst the people.

Since its inception in 1980, Sheema Kermani’s Tehrik-e-Niswan (women’s movement) has consistently strived to raise awareness about women’s rights in Pakistan through cultural and artistic expression, using the medium of theatre, dance, music and video productions.

By Schezee Zaidi

The portrayal of the most glorifying human emotion of compassion and love as the core element to fight extremism and hatred was at the heart of ‘Jinnay Lahore ni Vekhya’ at the PNCA drama festival.

The popular play, staged by Sheema Kermani and her group Tehrik-e-Niswan on Friday and Saturday at the National Art Gallery Auditorium, was well received by the audience

Lahore tops list of most polluted cities

ISLAMABAD – Lahore has topped the list of most polluted cities with highest air pollution level of 121.85 micrograms per cubic meter that is three times higher than the safe standards, followed by Peshawar and the Federal Capital.

The facts were revealed in statistics gathered by the Pakistan Environment Agency (Pak-EPA) under its Air Monitoring System.

CDGL to restore Old Lahore

Staff Report LAHORE: The City District Government Lahore (CDGL) has reiterated to revive the historic city of Lahore under the Lahore Beautification Master Plan initiated by Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Shahbaz Sharif.

Lahore Commissioner Khusro Pervaiz Khan stated on Wednesday that the government was planning to relocate the vegetable market situated near the Kot Lakhpat railway gate

No Billboards in Lahore

LAHORE (Online) – Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has directed that the City should be made completely free of billboards while state land should be retrieved from illegal occupants for the construction of modern pavilions for providing facilities of recreation and sports to the youth.

Rickshaw dreams

Saad Sultan meets a rickshaw wala of a different sort

Rickshaw passengers will testify to the fact that these lethal vehicles treat all roads equally: as though they were still under construction. If they had been a species of aeroplanes, rickshaws would undoubtedly have treated the air as if it were under construction as well.

Rickshaw wala’s speak to their passengers as though they were all short of hearing. I put this down to their vocal chords being accustomed to competing with their rickshaw’s engines to be heard. One has to wonder if that horrendous buzzing ever stops ringing in their ears. From how they speak, it would appear not.

Shakeel Massey, the rickshaw wala whom I interviewed, assured me that he knew no colleague who would not prefer driving any vehicle other than a rickshaw. After giving that contention some thought, he drifted off for a while into a world of his own, his brows knit together, fore-finger and thumb ponderously squeezing his chin, as though carefully shaping his next words, which he spoke with the confidence of a man who had thought up the aptest analogy. “For instance, a rickshaw is no BMW!”

Cleric’s killing turns Pakistan public against the Taliban

Pamela Constable, The Washington Post

LAHORE, Pakistan – The modest office where Sarfraz Naeemi kept his library and received visitors seeking spiritual guidance is now a charred hole. The floor is strewn with burned pages, glass shards and ball bearings from a young suicide bomber’s lethal vest.

WorldCall launches wireless broadband in Lahore

LAHORE: Following an encouraging response in Karachi, WorldCall Telecom Limited (An Omantel Company), a reputed name in Pakistan’s telecommunication market has successfully launched WorldCall Wireless Broadband in Lahore, which is a compact USB device which provides broadband Internet connectivity with mobility to its users.

Lahore tops list of most polluted cities

ISLAMABAD – Lahore has topped the list of most polluted cities with highest air pollution level of 121.85 micrograms per cubic meter that is three times higher than the safe standards, followed by Peshawar and the Federal Capital.
The facts were revealed in statistics gathered by the Pakistan Environment Agency (Pak-EPA) under its Air Monitoring System.

Sikhs from India in Pak to mark anniversary of Guru Arjun Dev

Lahore (PTI) Scores of Sikhs from India arrived at the Wagah border on Tuesday to participate in events marking the death anniversary of fifth Guru Arjun Dev here.

A total of 260 Sikhs from India were greeted by officials of Pakistan’s Evacuee Trust Property Board and Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee at the border point to take part in the events at Lahore’s Gurdwara Dera Sahib.

Over 1,000 Indian Sikhs were originally scheduled to attend the events, but security fears amid recent terror attacks in Pakistan’s eastern city reportedly kept many of them away.

CULTURES OF PUNJAB

The geographical entity in the north-western region of India called Punjab, the land of five rivers, has been and still is an integral part of the common pool of Indian culture. Its arts and crafts also form an important part of the deep-rooted artistic tradition of India and are equally rich and significant.

The culture of Punjab prior to the partition of 1947 was a mixture of three strains one flowing frorn Kangra hills, the second from south-western area from Multan to Lahore, and the third from Peshawar w Lahore.

Abandoned pleasures

LAHORE: The paien bagh at the Lahore Fort is without visitors. The garden was adjacent to the sleeping chambers and was built by Emperor Jahangir in 1633AD. It was used only by the inmates of the emperor’s harem.

SSE in Lahore

Salal Humair

This newspaper’s editorial ‘Whither and wither’ of Jan 4 articulates two excellent questions about the direction of Higher Education in Pakistan, while expressing disappointment over the shelving of HEC’s plan to create world-class universities in Pakistan. The editorial asks: ‘If you are poor and bright you have few options and ‘abroad’ isn’t one of them. But what if ‘abroad’ were somehow to be able to come to us? What if the benefits of a foreign education system could somehow get transplanted to Pakistan?’ I believe those are well-phrased questions to which we may still find solutions, but we would need some visionary political leadership to do so.

Cycle bling

Last Sunday’s Critical Mass event was a success.  About 40 cycle enthusiasts turned out in the late afternoon to cycle around the city in an effort to raise awareness about the environment, alternative modes of transport, democratic development and also just to enjoy themselves.

One enthusiast brought what was, by far, the most blinged-out cycle I have seen.  Here are some photographs:

This is what he had written on the front of the cycle:

Now that’s cycle-sense if ever saw it!!!

Moving Journeys: An Exhibition of Photographs of the Colonial Punjab

Photographs of the Punjab taken by London’s Royal Geographical Society
(RGS) members during the late 19th and early 20th centuries form the
core of the exhibition. The RGS images provide a glimpse of the Punjab
province through the ages, capturing the changes brought on by
different empires and the impact of internal and external migration.
To help interpret the pictures, the exhibition also makes use of
travelogues collected and written by RGS members during the colonial
period.

First Gurmukhi course concludes

First Gurmukhi course concludes

By Ali Usman

LAHORE: The graduates of the first Gurmukhi Certificate Course were awarded certificates on Wednesday after the completion of the course at the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (PILAAC).

The Gurmukhi Learning Certificate Course – the first course of its kind in Pakistan to teach the Gurmukhi script of Punjabi commenced at the institute last month. Some 35 students were registered for the course, of which 21 qualified the final examination. Gurmukhi is the universal script used for writing Punjabi, and is quite close to the Hindi script. In Pakistan, the Shahmukhi script (also called the Persian script by some) is used for writing Punjabi.

The aim of the course was to equip the students with the basic skills of Gurmukhi and making them able to read and write the script. The course instructor was eminent Punjabi scholar Jameel Paul. Speaking at the ceremony, Paul said Gurmukhi was the universal script for writing Punjabi. He said there were around 100,000 Punjabi websites, and only two used the Shahmukhi script for the language. He said by learning this script, the poetry of great Sufi poets like Baba Fareed, Shah Hussain, Waris Shah and Bulleh Shah could be written in Gurmukhi and the people living in Eastern Punjab could learn about this rich Punjabi treasure. PILAAC Director Dr Abbass Najmi said the institute would keep organising such courses in future.

First Gurmukhi course concludes

By Ali Usman

LAHORE: The graduates of the first Gurmukhi Certificate Course were awarded certificates on Wednesday after the completion of the course at the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (PILAAC). 

Punjabi Taliban

By Frederick Kagan, Ahmad Majidyar

(The Critical Threats Project is developing a site focused specifically on the threat from al-Qaeda and Associated Movements (AQAM); until that site reaches production, related pieces will be posted on the IranTracker site.)

A group called Tehrik-e Taliban Punjab (TT Punjab) released a message on May 27 claiming credit for the suicide car-bomb attack in Lahore that killed at least 40 people and injured nearly 150, according to a translation prepared by the SITE Intel Group.  The message said that the attackers struck to retaliate for the operations the Pakistani Army has been conducting against the Tehrik-e Nafaz-e Shariat-e Mohammadi (TNSM) in the Swat River Valley and elsewhere in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan.

Royal tombs in a shambles

Royal tombs in a shambles

Dawn Editorial

Sunday, 24 May, 2009

It seems that the Taliban are not the only ones who have little respect for national heritage.

Mughal Empress Noor Jehan (d. 1645) was prophetic when she composed the epitaph for her own grave. It runs thus: ‘Pity us, for at our tomb no lamp shall light, no flowers seen/ No moth wings shall burn, no nightingales sing’. What she did not foresee was that a similar fate would befall the nearby tombs of her brother Asif Khan and husband Emperor Jehangir at Shahdara.

Officers describe deadly Pakistan attack

The assault on security force buildings in Lahore that left 27 people dead and more than 250 hurt was carried out by gunmen who fired at police before their explosives-laden van detonated.

By Alex Rodriguez

Reporting from Lahore, Pakistan — Officers guarding Pakistani police and intelligence agencies saw the gunmen jump out of the white van that had stopped at their gate.

Time To Bring Mullah On Board

The horrific tragedy in Lahore has done little to either bring the country together. There is the usual condemnation; people voice their anger, especially if they are in front of the camera or talking to a reporter. The talking heads on television channels repeat the same mantra – India with the help of Israel and America wants to destabilize Pakistan because of its nuclear capabilities, etc. In other words, nothing new in analyzing the causes and no effort to actually examine internal facts that might be a cause of suicide bombings or terrorists acts in the country.

Third attack in Lahore – terror regime continues unabated

It was the third attack in three months in or near Lahore, the capital of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province. The bomb left a crater eight feet deep and a vista of flattened concrete and destruction. Dozens of vehicles were crumpled like paper and broken glass filled the street. The dark pink brick building of the Rescue 15 ambulance service collapsed and emergency workers dug through the debris to try to find survivors.