REALITY & HOPE

In the Corporate, where I worked for 25 years, as leaders we were trained to communicate by ‘defining reality and giving hope’. It’s because, psychologically, everything that makes man work and get excited, hinges on hope that springs from the reality of the present situation. At Rawalpindi in Pakistan, when...

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PATIENTLY

In previous life, before the partition of Indian subcontinent in 1947, during a visit to Kahnau Nau in the outskirts of Lahore, I had bowed at this door as HIS humble seeker. Jhukiya Main Dar Tey Ban Key Sawaali I bowed at HIS door as a humble seeker Having been...

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FRIENDS, NOT FOES

Our forefathers erred in 1947 to have fallen in the divisive traps laid down by the political leaders, the stooges of the British Empire, who cared less about humanity and more about their business of becoming the power wielders. Thereafter, for seven decades, the new leaders have built their fiefdom...

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DIVIDED SIMILARITIES

From the grounds inside the Lahore Fort, as I looked at the domes of Badshahi Mosque (left) and the Ranjit Singh Memorial (right), the similarities were striking. In addition, the minarets of the Badshahi Mosque reminded me of the Bungas (minarets) around the Golden Temple in Amritsar. In these architectural...

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PRIDE & PREJUDICE

At Nankana Sahib in West Punjab of Pakistan, I was surprised to see a large concentration of Sikh community, none of whom are of Punjabi origin. The partition of Indian subcontinent in 1947 was founded on the concept of the ‘two-nation theory’ that Hindus and Muslims can henceforth never coexist...

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MOST BEAUTIFUL AND THE BEST

As Ranjit Singh expanded his empire, it was Hari Singh Nalwa, his valiant Commander-in-Chief who took it to the mouth of the Khyber Pass in the western frontier. After the partition of 1947, Maulvi Mahmood Yasin who migrated from Ludhiana had occupied the residence of Hari Singh Nalwa in Gujranwala....

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SINGH WAS KING

SINGH WAS KING: One cannot imagine that the lush green agricultural fields of today’s Punjab were once thick forests where lions (SINGH) roamed freely as the King of the jungle. Madho Lal Hussain (1538 – 1591), the great Sufi poet mentions about lions (SINGH) in his Sufi poetry about Heer-Ranjha,...

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GUILT & PARDON

At Temple Road in Lahore (Pakistan), as I stared at the locked gates of the Mozang Gurdwara, built in the memory of the visit of Guru Hargobind, the sixth Sikh Guru, I recalled the testimony of Mujahid Taj Din on how during the partition of 1947, religious sentiments were nudged...

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MOMENT OF EON

MOMENT OF EON: At the ‘Post Graduate Islamia College’ in Gujranwala (Pakistan), which in the pre-partition era was known as the ‘Guru Nanak Khalsa College’, a peeling poster on a column offered a clue of Gurmukhi inscriptions. As I took the liberty to scrape the poster, Mr. Baig, a teacher...

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PARKED LEGACY

Khushwant Singh, the noted Indian novelist had written in his famous classic work of 1953 entitled ‘THE SIKHS’, “chief reason for my writing an account of my people is the melancholy thought that contemporary with my labours are being written the last chapters of the story of the Sikhs. By...

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