my mind is stuffed w/ the thoughts of my lost i.d card. it's in no condition to blog. ive been looking for it for two straight days now, and its driving moi crazy... "my preciousss is lost!" *stupid stupid gollum... smacks head* it's like im in the middle of doing somethyng, and *thought bulb lights up*i thynk of a place i may have missed in my search... and *poof* the hunt is on again. thys card hunting season is driving me mad(der). or maybe im just an obsessive compuslive dillusional schizophrenic. (hah! so they DO have a name for it) anyways, going down memory lane (10am yesterday morning) i thynk of all the places i visited, quaid-e-azam library being one of them. it sits smack in the middle of lawrence gardens, which were sometym ago renamed bagh-e-jinnah for patriotic reasons. they hopes getting rid of british names for roads and parks will get the rulers out of our systems for good. (like when u wash dirty laundry in ariel. comes out sparkling clean.) im still trying to understand why 'they' are tryin to get rid of our heritage. so our lives were worse than those of dogs for a long long tym... so? live w/ it. and if possible, try learn somethyng from it! ok so the british ruled over us for 150 years, and in that tym they rejected and succeeded in destroying our heritage and everythyng that went with it, but really, how strong were our roots anyways, that all it took was one blow? in less than 200 years, we forget our literature, our religion, our languages, our traditions, our history... i dunno... need we be so quick as to blame them gora sahibs? "many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. can u give it to them? then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement" forgive me, for i digress. i for one am totally cool with all the Mall roads and the Convents and the church schools we have. the city is growing, cant we just name the new areas after our muslim heroes(!?!)...? having spent a day exploring the city i have lived in for over twenty-two years, i have come to one conclusion. the only buildings worth anythyng in lahore are those that were built by the queen's men, over a hundred years ago. their architecture is superb, notably that of Bhai Ram Singh (the only desi whose work was acknowledged by the snobs running Mayo School of Arts). while i can find no websites for BRS, if you google the guy, plentyov pictures of his work will come up) he did a bunch of fabulous buildings, including the now in ruins, run by incompetent asses, filled with replicas, Lahore museum; National College of Arts, Lahore High Court, (2), GC Univeristy, Lahore secretariat... and the list goes on. Bhai ram singh was a genious, and so were her majesty's men (for hiring him). it's a national tragedy, that lahore hasnt seen good architecture since then. Nayyer Ali Dada is a much hyped architect, but personally i believe he guy is nothing short of a rip-off... (no offence meant). most of the public buildings he has designed in lahore have been heavily inspired by the muslim architecture of spain and turkey. the houses he has designed for various government projects were again, all drawn catering to western needs and requirements. (i would know, i live in one) and frankly, the facades are hideous. if you are still reading say aye! nations and civilizations leave their mark through their architecture. and when i look around today, i see visual monstrocities cropping up all over the place. it is said, doctors bury their mistakes, and architects build them. oh man! we are a nation plagues with errors and aberrations. im a sucker for beautiful buildings and i fell in love with the library i visited. tall white corinthian coloumns, lofty ceilings, huge halls, stairways out of the sound of music... and the silence. uff! it's out ov thys world! someone wanted to know why i thynk lahore is so special. well, for one, the city has a history older than tym itself. ok so i exagerrate a little, but still. it's old and still alive. then, it has these buildings that are to die for. *sigh* and anyways, there's no place like home :)