Accidentally stumbled on this sort of information last night and was surprised at some of the places where visitors had been clicking on this website - I am just picking up the first 25 - Internet is amazing..

1. Mount Gretna, Pennsylvania, United States
2. Fremont, California, United States
3. Sana, Hadramawt, Yemen
4. Trondheim, Sor-Trondelag, Norway
5. Slough, Slough, United Kingdom
6. Pakistan
7. Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
8. Ferij Al Muhadham, Dubayy, United Arab Emirates
9. Mexico
10. New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
11. Lincoln, Nebraska, United States
12. Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
13. Lecce, Puglia, Italy
14. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
15. Queens Village, New York, United States
16. Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, United States
17. Makati, Rizal, Philippines
18. Sweden
19. India
20. Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
21. Yeadon, Leeds, United Kingdom
22. Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
23. San Antonio, Texas, United States
24. Washington, District of Columbia, United States
25. Horsham, Birmingham, United Kingdom

 I have been rather casually posting news, stories and comments on Lahore’s heritage and its current status on Lahore Nama. While blogging here I was always tempted to write about Lahore or post stuff by others on my beloved city. Noting that this would be rather obsessive, I have created an outlet for this obsession and a new blog is now on the block, as they say.

What differentiates Lahore Nama from other Lahore-centred blogs? Indeed, it is no way near the excellent Lahore metblog that is managed by a good team of motivated bloggers. My focus is on Lahore’s past and viewing the present in relation to that.

Luckily, Darwaish in Lahore has sent me some brilliant pieces and Ahmad Rafay Alam has agreed to the use of his incisive articles on urban planning; and Mayank Austen Soofi has also been contributing stories for cross-posting. In fact Soofi was most kind to announce the birth of Lahore Nama on The Delhi Walla. I quote from that story:

More than 60 years have passed since the creation of our two nations. 60 years should be but a blip in the life of great cities like Delhi and Lahore but meantime much has changed in their characters. And character is destiny. Both cities have continued to grow in ways that makes them very different from each other. Delhi lost its Muslim refinement. Lahore lost its Hindu heritage. Today there are three cities of Delhi and three cities of Lahore: what they used to be; what they are now; what they could have been.

So Lahore Nama is on the blog-horizon and without much effort on my part it is attracting a few hundred visitors each day.

Such is the pull of Lahore….

Three quotes from this story covering the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual State of the News Media report struck me:

It was believed at one point that the Net would democratize the media, offering many new voices, stories and perspectives. Yet the news agenda actually seems to be narrowing, with many Web sites primarily packaging news that is produced elsewhere…., Two stories - the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign - represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found. (more…)

A budding writer from Lahore visits the city of his beloved author.

I was [pleasantly -why lie] surprised this morning to discover a story on yours truly with the byline -Raza Rumi, A Pakistani About Town. It is a well written piece - not because that it concerns me but it sort of collates the various things I said and did during my recent visit and twists them into an engaging narrative. Never mind the less flattering description as a “cliched tourist”. My delusions about being a traveller were sort of questioned.

I still have to write about that visit earlier this month when I stayed at the Jamia Millia Islamia to attend a seminar on Qurratulain Hyder, the towering Urdu littérateur. During this visit, I met a number of interesting people and participated in some lively sessions that brought me much closer to the intellectual core of Delhi. My friend Mayank Austen Soofi, whom I finally saw after all the blog exchanges, attended the seminar at Jamia and later accompanied me to the Nizamuddin dergah. Of course Sadia Dehlvi was there as always - walking me through the chaotic moods of Delhi.

All I can say is that one has to be careful with bloggers and journos. Who knows when mundane conversations turn into eloquent posts and stories, only to unexpectedly appear in your inbox a few days later.

When I get my act together I will write about what I had to say about Qurratulain Hyder’s dual belonging.

While I continue to overcome my indolence, please read this accountby The Delhi Walla. (more…)

KM and I have known each other for ages. There were days when we were at school and the height of excitement of pre-globalized Lahore was visiting friends. So we would plan our visits and then sit for hours and talk. Random, intelligent and human stuff.

And, then our lives expanded so to speak when we arrived in London as undergraduate students, lost and a little disoriented in a college with thousands of students. I remember that we watched “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” together and few other alternative films. KM was a little shocked at the Kundera’s hedonism. There was one that KM did not find too exciting. Perhaps it was Greenway’s “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover“. Of course we were growing up and finding our little paths and dealing with our demons and gods. (more…)

Indian Muslims Blog is now two years old. The IM team have compiled the best articles published at the blog in 2007. Shameless as it sounds, one of my guest articles - Journeying into Mysticism is included in the category. As the editor Mohib, said the “colorful downloadable pdf file is worth reading for the diversity of views and opinions. IM blog team has been most kind to allow me to occasionally contribute to the space. In the process I have learnt a lot about the country and its Muslim population. But most importantly, I have found a few good friends from Lucknow, Kakori, Bhopal, and Bihar among other places. wah wah, kiya kehnay blogosphere ke…

To blow my own little trumpet in this seamless and infinite blogosphere, here is my piece for those readers who may not have read it earlier. (more…)

I had written this piece for Shirazi Saheb’s wonderful blog - The Light Within. I am cross-posting it here. There is just one omission from the list below and that is the unique, powerful blog of Ali Eteraz. One of the reasons for this calculated omission is that this is not a Pakistani blog in my view but a global platform and a loud voice of reason. You can disagree with Eteraz but you cannot discount the force of his writing.

I have to admit that selecting Top Ten from Pakistan blogsphere was a difficult task. I used an arbitrary criteria: quality, diversity, regularity; and value-addition to Pakistani blogosphere. As you can tell this is a pretty subjective criteria and I apologise if I have missed out the good blogs (I write these lines stuck in a traffic jam with no internet access).

The list is not ranked – there is no way that one can do such a thing… (more…)

Before I could write about meeting a fellow blogger in Delhi, Sidhu posted this account of our meeting. It was amazing to meet a friend in the blogosphere in person. Sidhu is a mild-mannered and intelligent person; and travelled a long distance to meet me in South Delhi where I was staying. There is much that we share: a common heritage, a language that removed all the social barriers and of course blogging. I am cross-posting Sidhuji’s piece below: (more…)

The Light Within has placed Jahane Rumi in the top ten Pakistani blogs. This ranking has been made on the basis of a statistical analysis of the Pakistani blogs. This is quite pleasing. Interestingly, the list (other than my blog!) coincides with my assessment of the blogs that I made earlier… (more…)

“….humans made a mental trade-off as they diverged from their common ancestor with chimps some 5 to 6 million years ago. In gaining brawnier brains that can process language and other complex symbols, we may have dulled our ability to take quick mental snapshots.”

Text and image taken from here

Came across this brilliant quote from Einstein:

“In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests.” (more…)

Negotiating with my middle class guilt, I have been pondering over this article. I had posted on Richistans earlier - somehow the obscenity of excessive (many would disagree here) wealth continues to irk me and thankfully countless others. (more…)

 I am a child whose teacher is love.
surely my master won’t let me grow
to be a fool* (more…)