"I don't think death penalty should be abolished, as it is a hud (God's decree)," says 36-year-old Mirza Tahir Hussain, the Pakistan-born Briton, from Leeds, who has been on death row for almost 18 years.

Quite an irony when half the world outside Adiala Jail, foremost among them his own bother Mirza Amjad Hussain, has literally moved mountains and drummed up support, both politically -- at the highest level -- as well as from rights groups, in the United Kingdom and in Pakistan, to vociferously and relentlessly campaign for his release.

But says Tahir: "Executions should only take place when there is not even a shadow of doubt in the minds of the jury. Once proven guilty, the culprit should be executed swiftly. The person shouldn't have to go through endless waiting," he says quietly, obviously speaking from his own long painful experience.

A coalition of organisations led by Amnesty International has been campaigning for Tahir's release. They are convinced beyond doubt that his trial was dubious and that his conviction unsafe. Rights activists who term death penalty as 'state murder' in Pakistan call for its abolition. They are of the opinion that the Pakistani justice system is riddled with serious deficiencies. The death penalty has also not acted as a deterrent to heinous crimes, so goes their argument.

Tahir's execution was to be carried out on November 1 this year, three days after Prince Charles and Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Parker are due to arrive in Pakistan for a state visit. But, at the eleventh hour, the Briton has yet again been given -- for the fourth time -- another lease of life. The royal visit is obviously highly significant for relations between Britain and Pakistan.

Jail officials have confirmed the execution has been delayed till December 31, following a letter received from President Pervez Musharraf's office ordering for a two-month delay. It has been reported that the period will give the government time to find a 'permanent solution' to this issue.

The new date has come in the wake of media reports stating that the prince has been "concerned about this case for sometime" and may well pull out of his planned visit to show his displeasure unless the execution is postponed. The Guardian reported that the prince had written to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz calling for release of Tahir.

Speaking in the British Parliament, Prime Minister Tony Blair had reportedly said that the case had been raised constantly with Pakistani authorities. "I raised it personally with President Musharraf a couple of weeks ago. I hope even at this stage that there is an intervention to ensure this does not take place. I hope he can use the power that he has."

In December 1988, at the age of 18, Tahir Hussain, travelled to Pakistan to meet his family. He hired a taxi from Rawalpindi to take him to his village in District Chakwal. On the way, Tahir says Jamshed Khan, the taxi driver, stopped the car and tried to physically and sexually assault him at gunpoint. A scuffle ensued and the gun went off eventually killing the driver. Tahir, who had been in Pakistan for only one day, drove the taxi to the first police station he could find, handed over the gun and narrated the episode. He was immediately arrested. Jamshed's family has always disputed this and believes Tahir killed Jamshed to steal his taxi.

In 1989, Tahir was tried and sentenced to death. Three years later an appel court found serious discrepancies in the trial and, after a retrial in 1994, sentenced Tahir to life imprisonment. When his appeal was heard in the Lahore High Court in 1996, he was acquitted of all charges.

A week later, his case was passed on to the Federal Shariat Court, where he was convicted of highway robbery and death penalty was imposed on him by the jury by a vote of 2:1. His appeals to the Supreme Court and for presidential pardon were subsequently turned down.

Today, sitting behind a small barred common courtyard, outside his prison cell, Tahir with his untrimmed white beard and hair coming down to his shoulders, is a man who seems to have aged rapidly in the last 18 years. Quiet dignity envelopes him and there is an aura about him, an aura from which he somehow draws his strength.

And this strength, he says, comes from his absolute and unwavering faith in God, his study of the Quran and the philosophy of poet Allama Iqbal from where he has drawn lessons during his years in prison. "Living here would have been an impossibility if I didn't have these to prop me up." All his sentences are interspersed with supplication to God.

And yet the nightmare, while it may have passed for now, has not ended for his family. The agony of living a life of uncertainty continues. "You can't even imagine how it feels to live in constant anxiety. Since May, when he's been given these stays on execution our lives have been put on hold. We have not slept or eaten properly. We just keep waiting, hoping against hope, praying for a miracle to happen," says Tahir's niece Shazia Manzoor, while waiting inside the premises of Adiala jail to meet her uncle for the first time. She was just eight when he was put behind bars. And that magic wand remains in the hands of President Musharraf. He has the power under the constitution to reprieve, pardon, remit, suspend or commute any sentence passed by any court, tribunal or other authority.

While the two-month reprieve has come as definite relief, Tahir's brother Amjad says the torture continues. With the cycle of stays taking a mental and emotional toll on the family, he says the recent postponement is neither "good enough" nor is it a "permanent solution". He wants guarantees that Tahir will not be executed.

"My brother's trial was unfair and his detention in Pakistan for the last 18 years has had a devastating impact on all our lives. I implore President Musharraf to end our agony and commute the sentence."

But for Tahir the execution holds no fears, well, not any longer. He has come a long way from the time when he first heard that he has been given the death sentence.

"That day only the judge, the court police and I were present in the court room. Even my lawyer preferred to stay away, it being such a dreadful occasion. To save my family from what I was going through, I just told them that the judgment had been postponed till the following week."

Since that time he has been preparing for his death. "God helped," he says.

Having said goodbye to some fifty or so of his mates who are also on death row and thus "sailing in the same boat", Tahir says, "one needs a combination of strong belief, patience, enormous courage, steadfastness and a lion heart" to be ready for the sentence to be carried out. "I am preparing in advance to face my death."

With his hanging having been postponed four times, once just a day before he was to be hanged, what are his feelings with death looming over him? "You have to understand that according to our belief matters of life and death are only in the hands of Allah. If the whole world gathers in my support to save me and it's not in Allah's will, then no one can save me and vice versa. Our goal in life should be to please Allah and we can only succeed in pleasing Him by accepting His decree with open heart."

And if tomorrow he were to be released? "The first thing I'd do would be to go to Jamshed's family and ask for their forgiveness. I may have suffered these many years, but so have they. I wish there was something I could do to change what happened that night, 18 years ago, but it was not in my hand. It just happened."

He met Jamshed's uncle Sohbat Khan, two years ago, while he was being detained in Kot Lakhpat jail and had then asked to be forgiven.

But for the past 18 years the deceased's family has only made one demand -- Tahir's execution -- and have refused compensation allowed under Islamic and Pakistani law, though they have been offered £ 18,000 ($ 33,500) by Tahir's family.

Like black and white photographs, telegrams and paisa coins, Eid cards with religious imagery now belong to the world of memory and nostalgia. For years, stalls used to be filled in Ramzan with cards showing an Arab riding on a camel against the backdrop of an arch, the crescent in a twilight sky, and a woman in a head-scarf in an attitude of prayer next to it. A few lines in Arabic script about the importance of Eid were sufficient to complete the picture.

This visual, found in different combinations on various greeting cards, is rarely seen these days. Now Eid cards sport images that are not only different from past images but can hardly be associated with a religious festival. These greeting cards for Eid are usually printed in Urdu and English, and range from simple folded cards to ones decorated with glitter, cut-out figures, tassels and plastic flowers. In addition to that, many Eid cards portray popular cartoons such as Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, enjoying Eid with musical instruments.

The recent additions and innovations in the designs of Eid cards reflect the transformation our concept of Eid is going through. Traditionally, Eid is a day to celebrate the successful conclusion of Ramzan, but nowadays it is treated an excuse to spend holidays at home watching movies, playing cricket in the street and calling on friends and relatives. Actually, besides offering the Eid prayer together, there is no other form of ritual on Eid that engages the public in a collective activity of pleasure. (In that respect, Basant in Lahore is celebrated with a much more fervour because it involves one ritual in which everyone can participate).

In fact, this lack of display of joy on Eid accounts for the ambiguous content expressed in Eid cards. In the past most cards were drawn in a scheme that highlighted the link between Eid and the land of Islam. Thus all the symbols -- like man with Kaffaya, camel and crescent -- signified the Arabian Peninsula; and for many the Muslim festival of Eid was a way of identifying with the motifs of Arab culture and society.

However, in this post-modern age, our concepts -- like our customs and ways of living -- are changing. Looking at the Eid cards on sale at different stalls around the city, one notices how the signs of global culture and symbols of international entertainment are infiltrating our religious festival. One of its examples is the presence of cartoon characters in several Eid cards. These cartoons have become so all-pervasive that they even appear on artefacts and visuals prepared for Independence Day celebrations on 14th August. But apart from figures from Walt Disney cartoons, most Eid cards are made like greeting cards for Valentine Day. Hence one is likely to see cards with flowers -- especially red roses and love messages -- along with typical Eid greetings. And if the few words about Eid are removed, the rest of these cards do not indicate any connection with the religious festival.

This shift in imagery is a sign of the changing nature of our society. Preferences of food, choice of dress, and fascination with technology reflect how we adapt foreign elements to our local culture. This phenomenon is visible in the realm of art too. And interestingly, when some artists confront the problem of maintaining a balance between indigenous images and themes and imported ones, they behave in a manner not much different from the makers of Eid cards. Instead of adapting elements from outside and altering them, they unreflectively pick up some form and technique and sanctify it by using it for a local subject or genre.

This superficial solution can be witnessed in the way some of our contemporary art is produced and the manner in which a good part of our miniature painting is practised. A number of our artists, inspired by art from other places, try to implant it in our environs; one instance of this is the attempts to make alternative public art over here, which is made without realising that the idea and need for public art originated in a society where a certain kind of public art always (from the time of the Roman Empire) existed. Western artists tried to subvert this tradition by creating an alternative, public and less official art -- often with perishable materials. We, on the other hand, do not have a history of public artworks, yet a few of our artists do strive to execute works in open spaces. Normally, and unsurprisingly, their 'public works' are ignored by the public, who are not used to this genre. But the work of these eager artists is preserved in the form of slides and photographs for the purposes of posterity and for the sake of other artists and critics.

Miniature painting in present-day Pakistan is being treated in the same manner. Many of our new miniature artists are reproducing already existing visuals or composing images in the format of a large picture that shows some aspect of our modern setting; they convert a few elements, such as dresses, utensils etc., in order to make a 'perfect' miniature painting. These works may be considered as small works of Western realistic art, but it is hard to classify them as miniature paintings since they lack the formal structure and pictorial sensibility associated with original miniature art.

Acknowledging Eid cards commonly observed in our bazaars may prompt our miniature artists to examine the potential of this genre. It may also raise the question of whether it is possible to portray the 'present' in miniature painting while other, more appropriate forms are available. If the representation of the present is taken too far, it may come to resemble an Eid card with Mickey Mouse playing guitar and singing Happy Eid Mubarik.

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The major centres of music in the Punjab before it was divided and hacked into many provinces, that is in Punjab during the colonial period, were nearly all situated in what is now East Punjab. Of the gharanas of kheyal gaiki the Punjab based gharana was that of Patiala. It was also the youngest gharana, the one which formally qualified to be called so only in the later half of the nineteenth century. The founders of this gharana had benefited from the generosity of such diverse sources as Dehli, Gawalior, Rewa and Jaipur. Sham Chaurasi, the other gharana of kheyal, made famous by Ustads Salamat Ali Khan and Nazakat Ali Khan, only became a kheyal gharana with this duo; actually it had been a centre of dhrupad gaiki for a long time in the Punjab. The other three centres of dhurpad in the Punjab were Kapurthala, Haryana and -- the oldest among them-- Talwandi, all situated in that part of the Punjab which no longer falls in Pakistan.

The one big centre of music which is now in the Pakistani Punjab, Kasur, has produced some outstanding vocalists and instrumentalists, yet it never qualified to be called a gharana of kheyal or, for that matter, a centre for dhrupad. One wonders why Kasur, despite its great contribution in to brilliant musicians, never became the centre or focal point of musical activity which could be raised to the status of an institution.

Some of the gharanas of kheyal were called so before of the patronage that was extended to them by the ruler of the state. Patiala only became Patiala gharana because the patronage of the Maharaja attracted outstanding musicians from all over the country. The Patiala Gharana musicians were not all from Patiala -- they were also from Kasur and Amritsar, probably from Jaipur -- but all had congregated because of the opportunity that was created by lavish patronage. Some of the well known gharanas of kheyal, like Rampur, kohlapur, Gwalior and Indore, were thus called after the state. Delhi Gharana, the mother of quite a few vocal gharanas and the source of instrumental music, was the centre of musical activity till it was the capital of the Central Empire in India, but later with its disintegration and the establishment of colonial rule musicians and vocalists moved out to the princely states which initially offered them refuge and then an opportunity to develop and display their art.

Many of the gharanas of kheyal were named after small cities, towns and even villages, for instance Agra, Sahaswan and even Kirana. The last was and is only a village, at best a qasba in district Muzaffar Nagar in U.P province on the eastern bank of the Jamuna, and probably became a gharana because of the number of outstanding musicians that it produced. It was not that court patronage constantly attracted talent. The bigger cities, some under the British administration and some under the princely rulers, never came to be known for fostering a gharana despite being centres of musical activity. The biggest centre in the Punjab was Lahore, where all the outstanding musicians performed, but it was never known as a gharana -- the Lahore Gharana. There is no Lahore gharana of anything, let alone music.

When India was divided, many in Pakistan tried to label the music of the Punjab as the Punjab Gharana -- the kheyal of the Punjab singers like Patiala, Sham Chaurasi and Nangli was taken as an example of the Punjab style of kheyal, and seen as enough proof of a separate gharana, the Punjab Gharana. Similarly the tabla playing by the outstanding tablanawaz like Allah Rakha and Shaukat Hussain was labelled as the Punjab Gharana of tabla playing, or to be more correct the Punjab Baaj of the tabla, like the established bajis of Benarus, Lucknow, Ajraar, Farrakhabad and Delhi.

Other places in India which at times served as centres of music never could reach a status where they could be called gharanas. Certain rulers of Hyderabad Deccan, the biggest state in India and the richest, were fond of music and patronised musicians. It is said that Tan Rus Khan and Banne Khan moved to the Deccan after Delhi was ransacked and destroyed with the Central Rule coming to an end. The Nizam Mehboob Ali Khan was lavish in his patronage of the artists, but Hyderabad could not become a gharana of music. Similarly Kashmir, another one of the largest states of India, whose rulers too were fond of music, could never become a gharana and most of the Patiala Gharana musicians went to perform on a regular basis in the darbaars of the Dogra Rulers. Similarly Bahawalpur, one of the biggest states, could never be raised to the status of a gharana despite patronage by the nawab of musicians. It is said that the Nawab and Khawaja Ghulam Fareed were very fond of the singing of Aliya Fatoo -- Ali Buksh and Fateh Ali Khan, Jarnail and Karnail, the founders of the Patiala Gharana -- and they were more often than not invited to sing for the nawab as well as the sufi poet.

Although musical activity was more institutionalised in that part of the Punjab, classical forms have not remained intact there as well, while in the Pakistani Punjab the classical forms have steadily eroded and have been in a state of decline. What one can gather from information received from across the border, the state of classical music is just as appalling as it is in Pakistani Punjab. There is hardly any classical musical activity in that part of India and classical music begins to be heard only after Delhi. It has survived to a large degree in the Maharashtra and Bengal and in the whole of South India where, for a number of reasons, the Carnatic System had been more jealously guarded and preserved.