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Salome had to take off her seven veils to make the desired impression. In comparison, a poet can disrobe the universe with a line. What awesome power he commands! The ceremony began rather informally at the new department premises for the PhD programme in Fine Arts at the Punjab University. Later, the guests were requested […]

Chestnut leaves of varying sizes are clustered together in bunches of eight. Each cluster is similar in form, all leaves converting to a round tip of a stem that then attaches itself to a twig. Leaf joined to leaf, cluster over cluster assemble in multitude a glorious unity of vivid green I am told that

Since the dawn of civilisation teaching lessons has been a prized pursuit of tyrants and bigots. Alexander burnt Persipolis in order to teach the Persians a lesson. The atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to teach the Japanese a lesson. Sharon is constantly teaching Palestinians a lesson. Bush wants to teach the ‘bad’

It is so easy to live with prejudice and so difficult to live a life without it. It is so convenient to surrender and hard to resist a prejudice Bobby who has recently retired from service recounted a rather interesting dialogue he had with a village notable who boarded the bus Bobby was travelling in

 The way their young student Bashir realised in a matter of a few years what the great peers could not achieve is quite remarkable. While the old masters were singing lullabies to the dying muse, Bashir nursed her to life by imparting to it a new meaning. Ever since, the miniature painters have multiplied by

Usually memories have a sweet vanilla scent, some time a burnt caramel flavour. Almost everyone loves to have pudding for desert. Pampering a sweet tooth is fine, once in a while Time destroys everything — vanity above all. The past is whatever is out of sight. And what is out of sight, as they say

One doesn’t need Khaled Ahmed to conjecture where Sheedi has been derived from. It is from Sheeda, which is an endearing way of referring to Shahid Julie, former wife of my friend Hamid, observed once that whenever she ventured out in Lahore’s old city, she never ever had a problem with what the English called

The tree, which was my inspirational source for these panels, grew at the roadside next to Simla Pahari. For years the tree had been happily bearing its golden burden for our enrichment. The extent and the number of blooms it shouldered were incredible. Why the tree was cut down and removed I will never comprehend.

Ibn Khuldun was wise not to enter into a controversial debate and left matters touching divinity to the divines and pursued his study of human history without metaphysical distractions There was a time I believed most poets were bad. They never ceased to run down others and brag about their own achievements. Today I am

The proud young lad, with the physique of a Greek god, turned his head left and right in a sympathetic rhythm, admiring his sizeable biceps. For years we frequented the place not just for his lassi but the way he would fix it Abdul Butt is a rare Butt, who earns his livelihood in a