Top travel blog by Odysseus Lahori
posted by Dilshad Rao @ 12:46 PM,
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Matters of hearts – Ram La’l’s love letters to Abbas Khan
Saturday, February 4, 2012
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. [Also here]
Labels: Abbas Khan
posted by Dilshad Rao @ 4:29 PM,
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Dolls of the World
Saturday, January 21, 2012
posted by Dilshad Rao @ 7:18 PM,
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Microfiber Cleaning Products
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Enter any living space, home or an office, hotel or airport lounge, and the standard of cleanliness will form your first idea of a place. Cleaner the place, better the image you form. If the things are messed up, given chance, you would not like to deal with the place again in anyway. That is why one people going a long way to clean up. More so in corporate world.
The cleaning of living spaces – interior and exterior – is a fine art as well as science. The living spaces cleaning activities includes the cleaning of edifice’s facades and floors, the cleaning of steel structures such as bridges, wind turbines, and the cleaning of tunnels, sewage systems as well as items placed inside the space.
In modern living spaces, such as office blocks, supper stores, hotels or a hospital, facades and partitions made of glass are widely used. To maintain the characteristics and transparency of these building elements over the long term, they have to be regularly cleaned. How these requirements can be met cost-efficiently and with the necessary thoroughness.
One needs to have a right product for a right job. May be your cleaning staff doesn’t know the difference between cotton cleaning material and micro fiber cleaning products. Which one absorbs water more and which one lasts longer? I suggest the mangers at the upper ladder of the pyramid need to decide before bulk purchase. That is how any concern can save on cleaning products. No?
posted by Dilshad Rao @ 6:36 AM,
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Lali Khalid Photography
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Hani Taha
An art exhibition, portraying the works of a husband and wife, opened at Alhamra Hall on March 4. Lali Khalid, a Fulbright scholar, had to stay back in Pakistan with her American husband Taimur Cleary to fulfill the scholarship’s requirement of serving in the home country for some time after the programme completion. Cleary is back home now and Khalid will soon follow when her term ends this summer.
An art exhibition, portraying the works of a husband and wife, opened at Alhamra Hall on March 4. Lali Khalid, a Fulbright scholar, had to stay back in Pakistan with her American husband Taimur Cleary to fulfill the scholarship’s requirement of serving in the home country for some time after the programme completion. Cleary is back home now and Khalid will soon follow when her term ends this summer.
The couple’s work is so emotive it stirs the deepest recesses of one’s soul and haunts the viewer for hours after. Be it Khalid’s prints or photographs in “The Number” and “The Place 2011” or Cleary’s oil on canvas “With you” (What we take), each piece seems drenched in emotions.
“This is clearly not art that you can buy to match your living room sofas”, said an observer at the exhibition. There’s certainly no better way to describe this work colloquially. There are paintings and photographs that adorn walls in ultra chic homes to add character to a space or at the offices of creative directors at advertising agencies: Khalid and Cleary’s work does not fall into that category. You will not be able to find a ‘place’ for this kind of work unless you can connect to it.
Although both the artists use different mediums to express themselves, their work as a whole is soaked in nostalgia. Even those who do not know who these people are can assess the inherent anxiety and listlessness latent in these images.
“We affect each other’s work constantly,” said Khalid candidly. “It’s all about him and us and the cultural conflict that this relationship embodies.” One of Khalid’s most cherished projects was to photograph South Asian women. “Living in an alien environment like New York City, it was my way to reach out and connect to something familiar that I could relate to. Therefore I have chosen Women’s Day to commence my exhibition which is my way of paying tribute to women,” she said.
Each image is seductive as it lures the viewer into some private domain of the artist’s situation. These are not moments frozen in time as is typical of photographs, instead they are more like movie stills; a slice of life that you will need to rewind or forward. “They are very private moments,” admits Lali Khalid. Yet, despite how squeamish one feels, the images are such that you keep returning to them, and will look to, for answers, when your own relationship is undergoing struggle.
“Our work is a lot about transformation and change and the constant struggle that a lot of people go through on a daily basis,” explained Khalid. “A lot of people think my work is sad, which is great because my art is able to stir emotion in them,” she said.
But perhaps there is no escaping the self in self-portraits, particularly since the pictures show an introspective view of both artists relationship. Most of her self portraits are actually phototransfers in black and white. But they are actually black and white photography, clarifies Khalid. “I need to see my work in colour first. Although black and white is classic, I am not too fond of it.”
The complexities in the images arise from the dichotomy of who the artists are and their personal situation: a very obviously South Asian woman married to a very obviously American man. Their personalities appear as light and day in the images and their personal conflicts of this specific condition glares at the viewer. They are both searching for something and as Khalid says poignantly: “We are all searching for something on a daily basis. To be satisfied with what you have becomes the end of the quest and of life, I feel.”The exhibition continues till March 17.
Click om images to see more of Lali Khalid PhotographyLabels: Lali Khalid, Photography
posted by Dilshad Rao @ 11:31 AM,
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Product Impex offers you your brand
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Private label have added another dimension in trading and selling. Given the advantages both for retailers as well as consumers, the trend to use private labels is growing and you see goods and services available in a wide range of industries from salt to aprons and towels in the market. Private labels offer several benefits to both retailers and customers and that is why the trend to use private labels is growing fast., For retailers, margins on private label goods are an average of higher than those on similar branded products. Customers benefit from private labels' lower prices, which are often significantly less than those of national brands. Consumers look at them as a lower cost alternatives to famous brands.
This trend has created new opportunities for traders to offer more. Product Impex, for example, is a trading company offering salt and salt products, garments (overall, socks, towels, aprons, beachwear and the like) and a whole lot more. They have close relationship with manufacturers and can also offer custom products exactly as required by the clients.
Basically, private label refer to products manufactured for sale under a specific retailer‘s brand – your own brand.
posted by Dilshad Rao @ 11:35 AM,
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