Fascinating History. Interesting Medieval Incidents from Indian and Middle Eastern past.

1965 Indo-Pak War: A judge remembers Justice Salahuddin Mirza (Retd) recounts his memories of 1965 Indo-Pak war, as narrated to Parvez Mahmood. I was studying in matriculation in Hyderabad Deccan in Sep 1948 when India took over the state through police action. I immediately migrated to Karachi and continued my studies. I did my LLB from SM Law College in 1958 and joined West Pakistan judicial service as a civil judge in 1960. I was in Lahore during the 1965 War and had my courtroom in the judicial complex at Lower Mall. The courts were closed for the summer vacations in August 1965. My wife and I decided to spend a few days at some cool hill station. After considering a few places, we settled on a visit to Kaghan valley that was not a much frequented spot at that time. I had bought a Vespa scooter in 1962, which was a very respectable and much coveted mode of family transport for local travel. I gathered the courage to drive the vehicle, with my wife in the pillion seat, all the w

It was the middle of 1972. I was nineteen and a flight cadet in PAF Academy, Risalpur. I was spending my summer break in Lahore with my family. We were residing in a rented apartment at 'Yadgar Chowk' -now renamed Azadi Chowk. The apartment block is opposite Minar-e-Pakistan, across the Old Ravi lake on the corner of Ravi Road. A part of that apartment building has now been demolished to construct a slip road for traffic coming from the River Ravi and turning left for the Circular Road, under the magnificent oval traffic bridge. The lower portion of the building housed the well known 'Ravi Chargha'; easily located on the google map. People familiar with the area would know that the place is a walking distance to the Shahi Mosque; and that’s what I used to do most mornings during holidays. With everyone at my home out for their daily chores, I would walk to the Mosque for my favourite past time; reading. As I had grown up in the area and had visited the Mosque-Fort co

Of all human emotions, hate is the deadliest. It provokes the vilest of behaviour. Around 500 BC, Confucius cautioned, "It is easy to hate and it is difficult to loe. This is how the whole scheme of things works." In a different part of the world and a hundred years after Confucius, the sagacious Socrates warned, "From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate." If I may add to these words of wisdom, deadly hate gives birth to senseless violence. Only a sick mind can have a deep desire to eliminate every human being of a group that he hates. The hate that bred in the 28 year old Christchurch shooter, took 50 lives and another 50 injured to satiate. If he had had his way, the list of victims would have been longer. It is hard to comprehend any purpose in creating carnage of this magnitude where innocent people are slain, loved ones are lost, families are shattered and children are orphaned.The fallen are all peaceful human beings, who were far removed from

How do I describe a pain that pricks my primordial existence? A loss that is deeply personal yet is universal in nature? The healing balm of time will blunt the most deadly pangs of this loss but the void, I know, will stay forever. Some voids never fill and this is one of them. My mother has died. This here is a story of a mother narrated by her son -I request the readers to allow me some emotions- but it is also a tale of trials and tribulations faced by the young migrants who were compelled to uproot from their ancestral abodes in the wake of partition of Punjab in August 1947. This is also a story of their struggle and triumph. My mother was born in 1935 to a family of tailors. My maternal grandfather had his prosperous tailoring shop on the ground floor of his house that he had recently built in Katra Karam Singh in Amritsar and was happily raising his seven children when Pakistan became independent. The people of Punjab, as those in other northern provinces of India, went berse

We write eloquent obituaries and pay tributes after the death of a loved one. I want to break this tradition and write about a living friend before either of us departs for the eternal abode. Orooj Ahmed Ali is my class fellow. We were part of a batch of 63 pre-teen boys who joined a boarding institution named Pakistan Air Force Public School, Sargodha on 6th September 1965 in class seven. We were barely twelve and a half years old and were to spend the next five years together; residing in four living houses and studying in three educational sections. I was assigned the Sabre and he the Attacker Houses. I was in section A and he in section B. I stayed in the College till September 1971 to complete my F. Sc. while he left the college a year earlier of his own volition. I went on to join the Pakistan Air Force to pursue a full professional career, while he lived a free lance life, pursuing his passions, whatever they were at any given time. I feel grateful to my prestigious alma mater