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THE DANCING GIRLS OF LAHORE
₨ 1,695The dancing girls of Lahore inhabit the Diamond Market in the shadow of a great mosque. The twenty-first century goes on outside the walls of this ancient quarter but scarcely registers within. Though their trade can be described with accuracy as prostitution, the dancing girls have an illustrious history: Beloved by emperors and nawabs, their sophisticated art encompassed the best of Mughal culture. The modern-day Bollywood aesthetic, with its love of gaudy spectacle, music, and dance, is their distant legacy. But the life of the pampered courtesan is not the one now being lived by Maha and her three girls. What they do is forbidden by Islam, though tolerated; but they are gandi, “unclean,” and Maha’s daughters, like her, are born into the business and will not leave it.
Sociologist Louise Brown spent four years in the most intimate study of the family life of a Lahori dancing girl. With beautiful understatement, she turns a novelist’s eye on a true story that beggars the imagination. Maha, a classically trained dancer of exquisite grace, had her virginity sold to a powerful Arab sheikh at the age of twelve; when her own daughter Nena comes of age and Maha cannot bring in the money she once did, she faces a terrible decision as the agents of the sheikh come calling once more.
ISBN: 9780060740436
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL -
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PAKISTAN’S RADIOACTIVE DECADE AN INFORMAL CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE 1970S
₨ 3,500Pakistan’s Radioactive Decade focuses on the cultural output of the 1970s, the most momentous ten years in the nation’s history. The book examines the unprecedented experimentation that occurred in a diverse range of fields, including art, dance, music, television, fashion, and advertising, among others.
Over forty writers present their reflections of the national scene. The book also includes the interviews of many iconic figures from the 1970s. The catalyst for the book was an exhibition by the same title held at Amin Gulgee Gallery in March 2016. Co-curators Niilofur Farrukh and Amin Gulgee commissioned 47 artists of different ages to create work inspired by this pivotal decade. These visual acts of remembering and reflecting are included in the book as well.
Pakistan’s Radioactive Decade serves as a testimony of the times. Voices of the nation have shared their memories of this vibrant and turbulent decade—an era which older generations reminisce over and the younger generation strives to comprehend.
ISBN: 9780199405695
Publisher: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS -
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Sindh
₨ 16,534Sindh represents a unique geopolitical entity in the history of the Indian subcontinent. Drained by the Indus, its fertile plains stretch between the mountain ranges of Baluchistan to the west and the Thar desert in the east. Across the passes through Baluchistan, Sindh connects with Iran; on the eastern side the desert cuts it off from the mass of India barring a few caravan routes. The Indus delta makes up for this acting as a trade artery along its length and giving Sindh strong maritime links with Kutch and Gujarat and across the Arabian Sea with the Persian Gulf. Situated at the crossroads of diverse cultural influences, its physical terrain has fostered a variety of crafts from the time of the Indus Civilization to the present. Three major events have contributed to the shaping of Sindh’s history, politics, and culture: the Muslim conquest in 711, the British conquest in 1843, and the Partition of India in 1947. The last has been the most dramatic and far-reaching, altering the demography of the region when the Hindus moved out and Muslim refugees from other parts of India moved to Pakistan. This is the first lavishly illustrated book to look at the heritage of Sindh, with chapters by scholars from both India and Pakistan. The first half takes note of the famed Indus Civilization; the Buddhist Stupas and Sculpture, Hindu temples, Islamic monuments and tombs; the port city of Banbhore; and the coinage and economy up to the time when the British annexed Sindh. Later chapters evoke a sense of cultural nostalgia on a range of subjects: the colourful woven and embroidered fabrics of Sindh; the visual records of the region by British artists and photographers; Karachi, cosmopolitan city of Sindh, modelled on Bombay, as remembered by those who once lived there; the sense of tumult and displacement which still resonates in works by artists on both sides of the border; and the distinctive cuisine of the province as remembered by Diasporic Sindhis.
ISBN: 8185026882
Publisher: MARG PUBLICATIONS -
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