Eavesdropping the Mughals: Sounds and silences from a bygone era on March 28, 2018The Mughals are dead. Removed from power by the British, and disowned or caricatured by its progeny states of India and Pakistan,many of us tend to see the Mughals inthe same light as we view the Gandhara or Indus Valley cultures: as objects in the museum of history. To encounter the Mughals, it is believed,one […]
Inside Punjab’s plan to ‘digitise’ its past on March 19, 2018Located in the mighty Arfa Tower, the seminar room of Information Technology University (ITU) is lit with tamed yellow light that dispersed neatly across the expanse. Built for function rather than form, and conceived in the image of a corporate boardroom, the space of the seminar room almost purposefully denies presence to RGB colours and […]
Tamasha workshop uses theatre to educate and empower youth on August 26, 2017In the protected space of Alliance Française cultural centre in Lahore, a group of three dozen young people hop, dance and run. The air is made candid by chairs pushed to the margins and floor becoming the site of all action. Participants are required to leave out their shoes, and feel the grey marble beneath […]
The solace of sprinkling water on August 7, 2017 Minutes after midnight, when traffic noise has died down and soft yellow lights start to mingle with the cool breeze to enact a rare outdoor calm, an Albayrak truck jingles down the main boulevard of Gulberg. Its mechanical brooms, with plastic bristles that look like porcupine quills, insistently scrub the black tarmac and bring […]