In All Things Pakistan, Darwaish tries to get to the bottom of Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s lesser known personal life
More than 61 years have passed since the death of founder of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. But even today, nothing about Jinnah seems ordinary —not his legal career, politics, personal life, his legacy and even the property he left behind.
The great South Asian intellectual Eqbal Ahmed once described Jinnah as an enigma of modern history. His aristocratic English lifestyle, Victorian manners, and secular outlook rendered him a most unlikely leader of India’s Muslims. Yet, he led them to separate statehood, creating history, and in Saad R. Khairi’s apt phrase, “altering geography”.
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Previously on AW:
Jinnah and Ruttie
A mixed neighbourhood, wonderful used book shops and bakery shops that sold the yummiest cream rolls. Darwaish goes down memory lane in All Things Pakistan
I grew up in Androon Shehr (old city) of Lahore in the 1980s.
Most of my childhood and teenage years were spent in my Nana Jan’s house located at Lodge Road in Old Anarkali. It was an old but large house, left by a Hindu migrant family, located inside a narrow street of hundreds of years old neighborhood with Jain Mandir (when it existed) just two blocks away and Mall Road merely a ten minutes walk.
Nana used to tell us that Gayan Chand, the head of that Hindu family, spent three long years building this house and it was a strange twist of fate that finally when it got completed in 1947 and he was just about to move in, partition took place. Not only did he lose his newly built house but he also had to flee the city where his forefathers had lived for centuries. Just like Nana Jan had to leave everything behind when he migrated from Amritsar, a high price that millions of people paid in 1947.
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Darwaish in All Things Pakistan laments a fading tribe.
There was a time when being a Pehalwan was a way of life, an art and a passion.
Thousands of people used to watch Rustum-i-Pakistan which was a very popular event in Lahore (just like a one day cricket game these days). You could easily find many Ukhara’s or Akhara’s (kinda small stadiums where traditional wrestlers exercise) in the city with Pehalwans doing their routine exercises but not anymore.
I have some wonderful childhood memories of having Khalis Lassi (sorry folks, I don’t know what Lassi is called in English but Khalis means Pure) near Pehalwani neighborhoods just behind Lahore Fort.
Going there once in a month with family for traditional Lahori Nashta+Lassi was just great. Not to mention some serious exercise was a must and we used to skip lunch after having that Nashta+Lassi. I don’t know if the quality and taste is still the same, I haven’t been there in ages which is sad.
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After whipping world champ Australians in 2-0 series win, India’s other great sport, kabaddi, scores wins over Pakistan. Adil Najam reports in All Things Pakistan
Here are a few things about Pakistan’s recent sports performance that I did not know. Maybe you did not either. The Pakistan Kabaddi team is currently on a five (some say six) Test tour of India. In the second (some say third) match of the series, held in Gopalpura, the Indian Kabadi team defeated Pakistan by an undisclosed score.
By the way, I also did not know that there was such a thing as the “Asian Beach Games”, that these were held a few weeks ago in Bali, Indonesia, or that they also featured Women’s Kabaddi (in which Pakistan did not participate, India won a gold and Thailand bagged the silver medal)!
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In All Things Pakistan, Adil Najam on the famous alumni of Forman Christian College
At the new Prime Minister’s oath-taking recently, the body language of Gen Pervez Musharraf as well as Yousuf Raza Gillani made it obvious that neither was comfortable being with the other. Each has deep reasons to distrust the motives of the other. One doubts, therefore, if they took any time to reminiscence about their college days. Both, after all, went to college at Lahore’s famed Forman Christian (FC) College; although at different times.
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In All Things Pakistan, a look at Fauzia Minallah’s coffee-table book on Islamabad sends Mast Qalandar off on a trip to neighbouring Saidpur, home to black goats, unglazed pottery and a Hindu temple:
People often describe Islamabad as a city without a soul. Actually, Islamabad’s soul is not to be found in the city itself, but on the fringes of the city. In the little hamlets and hills. Fauzia Minallah, an Islamabad based artist, has recently published a delightful coffee-table book titled ‘Glimpses into Islamabad’s Soul’. She describes many such places in and around Islamabad with long history and heritage, myths and folklore.
One such village is Saidpur, situated just off the Margalla Road, hardly a 5 five minutes drive from the upscale neighborhoods of Islamabad. I knew Saidpur only as a place one ordered garden-manure from. You didn’t have to go there. You just called the guy on his cell phone and he would have a Suzuki-full of manure delivered at your doorstep – literally, sometime.
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