I begin with a rather uneventful narration. This narration, in my view, has a certain bearing on the purpose of this short introductory essay on the unwritten polemic that surrounds the Sufi music of the subcontinent. ......

Thirty five years after the partition and two wars between India and Pakistan;  in the year 1982 the melody queen, Malika-e-Tarannum Noorjehan visited India. It was certainly a grand occasion for millions of music lovers of Indian  sub-continent. ...

Born in 1680, Bullhe Shah lived mostly in the town of Qasur where he had received traditional education before he became affiliated to Shah Ināyat Qadiri of Lahore as his murshid. Bullhe Shah’s mazār in Qasur became a place of pilgrimage after his death. ...

During the 17th, 18th and even the 19th century the appreciation of any art produced in the Punjab has been reserved for the paintings produced in the Punjab Hill States. The condition of the arts is largely dependant upon the political and social conditions in the area. A. R. Chughtai1 insists that the Hill States and their...

SARDAR Dyal Singh Majithia was the son of a family that had played a very important part in the history of the Sikh state founded by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. For three generations the family had provided generals to the Maharaja’s forces, and Dyal Singh’s father was the head of the kingdom’s ordnance. ....

There are various ways in which individuals approach the question of identity in their endeavor to feel and experience themselves as a moment containing past, present and future. In every society, particular conjunctures offer them a whole range of existing constructs of such identities. Many of us embrace them, make them as our own choices, living and many ...

Shaah Husayn (1538-1599) lived in the time of the great Mughal emperor Akbar. He was born in the same year as the passing of Baaba Naanak (1469-1538) another exceptional poet and the prime inspiration of the Sikh religion, and forty-two years after Kabir (1425-1496). .....

The place and date of birth of Baba Fareed is disputed by historians of all ilk. The following is one assessment. Baba Fareed was born in a village called Kothaevaal, near Multan. The date of his birth is uncertain but scholars seem to converge on 584AH/1188AD....

 Moments of my life in the womb of time-lived awhile, and after Time's span, seemingly entombed-are today alive again, stalk past me.... How have all the graves yielded to resurrect those moments? It must indeed be Doomsday, This is an aubade from a 1918 grave, a year before I was born. It comes to me now for the first time:...