Logic is Variable

Homepage is a new genre brought into existence by the Internet. Every one who uses connected computer has a homepage. Some users keep having the same homepage that came when they bought computer? Some others pick new ones: blank or showing their main interest on the Internet.

Homepage, also called as a default page, "is the main page or the first page of a Website that a browser opens with, or where the browser will return if the Home button on the Navigation toolbar is pressed." Good homepage should attract, hold the attention of the visitors and direct them to content within the rest of the site. Webmasters and designers obviously go a long way in their endeavors that users make their sites' Homepages as their own, apart from tweaking them for the search engines. Most Websites have options like this: 'Make us your home page, click here to make us your home page, click to make this as a default page. But that is not enough particularly with savvy and choosy users.

Research by Sonia Saleem

Harappa or “Hari-Yupuya” as mentioned in the “Rig Veda” marked the height of urban development of the Indus valley civilization at 2600 B.C.E till 1900 B.C.E. for 700 years. Harappa is located in the present day province of Punjab , near Gogera, and in its full glory was the perfect proto-type of a fully developed city of the Indus valley civilization. It was the perfect reflection of the kind of organized thought which the Rig Veda emphasized. [Wheeler, Kenoyer].[go over page25 at the end].

Harappa has the same humble beginnings as any other large city. It began as a village settlement, gradually growing over the centuries to accommodate renowned craft industries, world accessible markets, and clean residential areas and cemeteries. Harappa is 128,800 hinterland, and 150 hectares in area. Harappa city was so developed and central to the Indus Empire that the name Harappa became synonymous with the dominant culture at the time, followed by all the other cities in the Indus region, right down to Kutch on the coast in present day India. [Rehman, Kenoyer].

Read in Urdu here.

Flying over Astola Island (Pakistan)‚ my first sight of the Island and the speed boat anchored in a bay far below quite took my breath. Pointing hull of the boat lay in pale blue shallows‚ riding on the swell. Even a hardened seaman would have melted at the sight of a creature as beautiful as the speed boat. I looked forward to the promise of sailing around the Island in a boat and later exploring it in the company of botanist experts on a purposeful visit.We landed on a rough helipad marked with a circle in lime on the edge. Soon a sleek and small boat puttered towards us. I felt like a warrior and navigator Vasco da Gama, when he reached Calicut on May 20, 1498.

This article appeared in daily the Nation

The Salt Range derives its name from extensive deposits of rock salt. The Range stands as remnant of forts with bastions and temples. Exceptionally, this region maintains an almost continuous record of history that can define the evolution of society. Forts and temples surviving along the range are a reminder of how untouched many of the ancient remnants are. Alexander from Macedon came to this Range twice; one from Taxila and later when his forces refused to go any further from the banks of the River Beas. From here he marched towards the Arabian Sea on his way to Babylon. And, now an NGO is constructing a monument of Alexander near Jalalpur town in the foot of the Salt Range in district Jhelum.

For those who take their first chance to the area, the landscape all along the Salt Range is rock-strewn, lacking in softness and loveliness. In many parts, it becomes barren and uninviting. But, in truth the range is dotted with historical wonders, romantic legends, archaeological remains, and varying geological formations. Surroundings are very quiet. Urial is also found in the Range though facing extinction. A journey along the range is exiting as well as informative.

Ram La’l is to Abbas Khan as Abbas Khan is to me. Only Ram La’l Abbas Khan equation is more visible in recently published book titled Sultnat-e-Dill Say – compilation of letters written by India Urdu writer Ram La’l to Pakistani writer Abbas Khan over a period (1987 -1995) of time. They are all love letters.

The beautifully published book starts with a travelogue by Abbas Khan who traveled from Lahore to Mianwali (birth place of Ram La’l) and Islamabad together with Ram La’l when the later visited Pakistan. The narrative of the journey clearly shows how interests and observations of both the writers are similar.

People still write letters in this age of fast communication when most have switched over to email, cellular phones and social media channels. In his letters, Ram La’l has documented the contemporary literary history. His letters to Abbas Khan not only show personal relationship, love and affection between the two but also document what was happening and how in different fields of Urdu literature – new books, short stories, translations, literary functions. Most of all, Ram la’l’s silent efforts to urge Abbas Kahn to write more and to write everywhere and to read, read and read everything published not only relating Urdu literature but also of diverse subjects that help understand human behavior.

I suggest everyone who has any love for the written words must read the book that is published by Caravan Books, Sadar Multan Cantt.

Travelling on Grand Trunk Road all my life, it captured my imagination as a cultural curiosity when I read Rudyard Kipling's Kim. At the beginning of the last century Kipling called it "a wonderful spectacle.... without crowding.... green-arched, shade-flecked ... a river of life." But Pakistan's National Highway Number 5 (N-5), alias the Grand Trunk Road, or simply the GT Road, presents a different impression now. Commuting up and down the GT Road are caravans of trucks, buses, cars, animals and animal transport also auto-rickshaws, all having equal right of the way. On the GT Road every bus, truck, and a car must pass the vehicle ahead. "The GT Road," a veteran traveller John Otto wrote says, "really belongs to the trucker." And he is right in a way.

So much has changed since Kipling's description of the GT Road, which he saw "brimming with all manner of travellers -- rich merchants with elephants and camels laden with merchandise, guarded by retainers. The aristocracy on colourful horses and elephants with gilded howdahs for the ladies, their silk drapes fluttering in the wind, the raggle taggle of the gypsies roaming from one village to the next in search of food and work." The old identities have steadily defused by the common objectives for prosperity and development. Since partition, the new social and economic objectives have been the major engines of change. The only thing that still remains on this strategic, economic and cultural artery of Pakistan is that it is "the river of life."