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From the NEWS

Shah Allah Ditta caves are located on the route leading towards Khanpur. These caves are next to the shrine and tomb of a Mughal period ‘dervish,’ Shah Allah Ditta. Once you start travelling on Golra Sharif Road, a sharp turn comes for a village named after the saint — Shah Allah Ditta. The narrow road leads towards Margalla Hills on the base of which these caves are located. Old Banyan trees at the roadside marks the entrance to the caves. (more…)

Book Review by Fiona Torrens-Spence

Author: Fauzia Minallah

In the past travel writers have been dismissive of Islamabad, passing it off as ’sterile’ and ‘dull’; somewhere to be got through before visiting the real Pakistan. And the local joke ‘Islamabad, twenty minutes from Pakistan’ also belittles the country’s capital city by implying it is essentially foreign to the rest of Pakistan; a soulless, high rise city full of diplomats and other feather bedded foreigners.

As Fauzia Minallah writes, Islamabad and its surrounding villages have both a soul and an immensely long and fascinating story. It is sometimes hard to locate historic sites and harder still to find information about them so I wish that I had been able to read Fauzia Minallah’s book before living in Islamabad as I know I have seen many sites around Islamabad, such as the prehistoric shelter which can be seen from the Kashmir Highway, and entirely missed the story behind them.

I would recommend any visitor to Islamabad to invest in a copy of her book, particularly if they will be living in Islamabad for long enough to get out and about and explore. The book has the best map of Islamabad and surrounding areas which I have yet seen. The map explains the city’s grid system and how it extends beyond the currently developed areas and shows the location of the places she describes in such a way that it would be comparatively easy to find them on one’s own. (Maps of the surrounding areas of Islamabad were non-existent when we lived in Islamabad which filled me with sadness as I am a very visual person.) Her book also has a very good timeline which puts the sites she describes into a historical framework.

Fauzia Minallah’s book has beautiful photos of Islamabad and reproductions of the paintings of the well-known Islamabad artist, Gulam Rasul illustrating the exceptional beauty of “the garden city” and its surrounding villages. The photography and arrangement of the art work is a tribute to Fauzia Minallah, who is a well known artist in her own right successfully exhibiting throughout Pakistan and Europe. (more…)

Highly endangered heritage buildings of Abbottabad, this is inside of the old Tahsil,Revenue building,built 1876 AD,a masterpiece of stone masonry,craftsmanship..front has a massive stone arched gate and chieseled stones upto 200 Kgs were used in the arch

Originally uploaded by Environmentalist

text and photo by Environmentalist

We mourn slow death of that Abbottabad, which was once, an unforgettable experience for heads of states, commander in chiefs, poets, statesmen, writers, and thousands of nature loving souls.

I quote following words of Captain Thomas, in which he describes the magic of Himalayan hill stations, he writes:

” From March, when the sleet and snow may have passed away, to the middle of July, the climate is heavenly. There is nothing like it on earth. Nothing! Nothing in Italy! Nothing in France! Nothing anywhere that I know off. Recall the finest day, nay hour, of sunshine you have ever known in English spring, and conceive the beauty and gladness of that sunshine, brightened by continuing without a storm, and deck the fruit trees and bushes in a Thousand English blossoms;and spread violets and daises and berry blossoms and wild roses over the bright close emerald turf; over crags amid the pine roots, and far away down amid the ferns and you may fancy some thing….”
One of the gazetteer mentioned that places like Abbottabad, Srinagar, Murree and Shimla were pieces of Heaven on this earth and there were times of the year when these towns offered the world best climate.
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Are we completely helpless?? will some sons or daughters of Pakistan come forward to claim this heritage and ask government to protect leftovers of these assets for the appreciation of future generations ??..

In collusion with self imposed , contractors hiding as so called political and religious parties, Army sponsored Mayors (nazims) …Government Engineers are going to demolish these buildings.

They have already demolished various master pieces of stone masonry and chopped down dozens of mature old trees due to following reasons..

1- They get expensive seasoned timber , heavy gauge roof sheets , chieseled stones and antique building items for their private bungalows..

2- They make huge money from kick backs, bribes, commissions, shares etc..from sham contractors during reconstruction phase..

3- They remove neatly built buildings, so that eventually Pakistanis won’t be able to compare ugly and ill designed buildings with well proportioned, symmetrical and environmentally friendly buildings left for us by Britishers..

Please note the land scape and grace of these buildings and it is so damaging to know that instead of retrofitting them..they will be demolishing such buildings of Abbottabad and other districts of Hazara…??

Abbottabad, NWFP, Pakistan , height above sea level, 4100 feet was founded in 1853 AD by Major ( later, General, Sir) James Abbott of Blackheath London, who became first deputy commissioner of Hazara,.. and Hazara gazetteer of 1883 AD declared Abbottabad as the most beautiful hilly town of sub continent..trees from UK and Kashmir were brought to this unmatchable town and avenues and landscapes of Abbottabad had trees of horse chestnuts, Elms, Ash, Pistacia, Chinar (Kashmir maple), himalayan pine, Cedars of Lebanon, fragrant camphors of England, etc…and shrubs and flowers of all kinds including fragrant gardenias etc..were present

Major James Abbott fell in love with the rolling hills and awe inspiring views of Himalayan peaks of this thickly forested little England of East and he wrote following mystical lyrical Love poem in the praise of nature and Abbottabad

Poem “Town Abbottabad” by Major (later General, Sir) James Abbott

I remember the day when I first came here
And smelt the sweet Abbottabad air
The trees and ground covered with snow
Gave us indeed a brilliant white glow
To me place seemed like a dream
And far ran a lonesome stream
The wind hissed as if welcoming us
The pine swayed creating a lot of fuss
And the tiny cuckoo sang it away
A song very melodious and gay
I adored the place from the first sight
And was happy that my coming here was right
And eight good years here passed very soon
And we leave our perhaps on a sunny day
Oh! Abbottabad we are leaving you now
To your natural beauty do I bow
Perhaps your wind’s sound will never reach my ear
My gift for you is a tear
I bid you farewell with a heavy heart
Never from my mind will you memories thwart

by Simon Jenkins

Here in the city of Kim, Pakistan’s magnificent history is being left to rot - Musharraf has allowed one of the wonders of Asia to disintegrate; and a country that neglects its past endangers its future

Poor Lahore. Yesterday this jewelled city of the Raj was hit by a suicide bomber aimed at lawyers protesting at President Pervez Musharraf’s imprisonment of his top judiciary. As body parts scattered the tree-lined Mall, Kipling’s “city of dreadful night” became the city of dreadful day. Nor could the outrage have happened in a more symbolic spot. Just up the road from the bombed Victorian high court stands “Kim’s gun”, the great 18th-century Zam-Zammah cannon, pointing towards the scene.

While the historic cities of Pakistan’s great rival, India, soar up the league table of celebrity, nothing better displays Pakistan’s current misery than the state of Lahore, joint capital of many an Indian empire and of British Punjab. Splendid Victorian palaces still line the boulevards of the Mall: the high court, the governor’s house, the general post office, the government college and Lahore’s museum, Kim’s “Wonder House”. Even the art college built by Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling, survives, with students squatting under giant fans in its corbelled hall. (more…)

by Yasir Nisar

Sir Olaf Caroe, the Governor of North-West Frontier Province (1946), described his initial impression of Rohtas Fort in the following words “There it stands, sprawling across a low rocky hill a few miles north of Jhelum. Its great ramparts growing from the cliff like the wall of China, looking north a sandy stream bed to the low hills of the salt range and beyond them, to the snows of Pir Panjal. The circumference is large enough easily to hold a couple of Divisions of troops. As you approach the fort, the crenellations look like ominous rows of helmeted warriors watching you with disapproval. It is an awe-inspiring sight.”(from ‘The Future of Great Game’ by Peter John Brobst). (more…)