The Lahore General Hospital (LGH), known for providing unmatchable medical treatment in cases of head injuries, renal diseases and several other ailments, was at the centre of news for a totally different reason for the last couple of months. Though strange it may appear, it's a fact that the government of Punjab had decided to give this hospital on lease to a US based company that wanted to set up a private medical institute in its neighbourhood.

Under the proposed plan, the administration, assets, medical equipment, furniture etc of the hospital had to come under the administrative control of this company. Even the land, approximately 100 kanals, required to set up the proposed college had to be provided by the government.

The issue was brought to the limelight by Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Punjab that feared that the ordinary man would lose the privilege to get cheap or free treatment once the agreement between the government and the US company stands finalised. What followed was a series of protests, public condemnations of the plan, press conferences and complete strikes at the hospital premises on the call of PMA. While the agitators rejected the whole idea they were shocked to find how daring and fearless the provincial government had become over the time. Hardly a couple of years back it would not have thought of coming out with such an anti-public and unworkable idea, PMA office-bearers believe.

Dr Azeem-ud-Din Zahid, Secretary General, PMA Punjab tells TNS that the doctors could easily smell the rat when they found that a foreign company was being facilitated in an extra-ordinary manner. Under the law, a private medical institute has to buy its own land to build a structure on it and establish a teaching hospital as well, he says. But in this case, he says, a huge hospital as well as the land required for the institute was being provided by the government on a 30-year lease.

Dr Azeem says it's an open secret that Dr Mubashir Chaudhry, a renowned cardiologist and president of Doctors Hospital in Lahore, is the person whom the government wants to oblige. He says the government has succumbed to doctors' pressure and given us certain assurances but we will not rest till we have something in writing. He tells TNS that the medical staff at LGH had observed complete strike against alleged privatisation of the hospital and called off one once the Punjab Health Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Iqbal had assured them that he would take up the issue with the chief minister.

A Lahore-based lawyer Muhammad Azhar Siddique also sent a notice to the Punjab health secretary wanting details of the health department's agreement with a US company to set up a medical college attached to LGH. His contention was that LGH's board of management should have been consulted by the government before making any announcement in this respect.

A senior doctor at the hospital, requesting anonymity, tells TNS that the government wants to hand over LGH and a stretch of land measuring 100 kanals to the Centre for International Medical Education (CIME), United States. He says he has inside information that CIME plans to set up a medical institute that will give preference to children of expatriates only and charge well above Rs one million per year as annual fee from the students. This means the investors will be able to make windfall gains without making any significant investment in the venture.

The doctor says if the said plan get through it will harm the poor the most as this 612-bed hospital connects Lahore with many neighbouring villages and rural areas. Mostly people from the lower and middle class visit the hospital. He tells TNS that the hospital receives a large amount of funds from the Bait-ul-Maal, Zakat fund and philanthropists and spends it on poor patients.

Besides, he says, LGH is one of the only three public sector hospitals in the whole of Punjab that has a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. It can also boast of having 20 computerised dialysis machines provided to it by the government. One can easily imagine how big the loss would be if all these facilities go under the control of a US firm.

When contacted, Punjab Health Minister Chaudhry Iqbal tells TNS that the government has accept doctors' demands and assured them that LGH will neither be privatised nor handed over to any foreigner. Instead, he says, the government would ask the US company to establish its own hospital and college after purchasing its own land for the purpose. Chaudhry Iqbal says the initiative was taken in the first place to promote the concept of public-private partnership and there's no truth in the allegation that the government wanted to oblige one single person.

Dr Azeem-ud-Din Zahid says though PMA has postponed its protest it will not be content with the verbal commitments made by the health minister. "We have filed a petition with Lahore High Court and would try to get a ruling that will stop way of any similar attempts by the government in times to come," he adds.

If somebody put a gun to my head (I would prefer a female) and gave me sixty seconds to recall my all time favourite movie, book and music album, then I would be dead by the sixty-first second.

I would get stuck on choosing an all time favourite book but this isn't about books or movies, it's about music.

Since I remember, there was no table, cutlery or surface; I wouldn't bang my hands on. My parents were both music lovers. Our house was full of ghazal tapes, Noor Jehan, old Indian songs and my sister's Nazia and Zohaib tapes; especially Dad and I remember how he would sometimes sing to my mother, and how she would look at him.

It's strange, I realise now that all my passions have somehow stemmed out of what my parents have done for each other over the years, small things, things out of love and compassion which got transferred to me.

But that was just a detour, through dusty old tapes, broken tables, my mother's smile and my father's voice, what I actually wanted to talk about was records and their strange almost mystical way of totally changing one's adolescence into what? Perhaps some kind of negative confirmation of the path or pattern of one's destiny? A valuable secret about the universe or girls?

Let's put it this way, at eighteen, you put on a record for the first time with not merely a dire hope but a good possibility that it is somehow going to completely alter the course of your life.

So there I was, eighteen years old in the summer of 1999, still smoking secretly, reading Stephen King trade backs by the dozen and having not a care in the world.

My personal 'record collection,' which I had started at sixteen and which wasn't much of a collection had slowly grown from a single tape of a Doors compilation to other tapes of some Rolling Stones, a U2 tape and yes this is embarrassing, a Michael Bolton cassette (which I still have somewhere!).

You have to realise that then, Jim Morrison singing 'Come on baby light my fire' or Michael Bolton screeching 'I loved you but I lied' were the epitome of what English lyrics were all about.

I simply wasn't ready for the rudest shock of my life -- this is what happened.

In that sweat induced summer of discovery one night, I landed at the doorstep of my cousin who is ten years my senior. A naval dropout, a social miscast, an inducer of philosophy, a guitar player who could actually play. A keeper, a finder. What really hooked me was the way he smoke a cigarette -- it was like he would totally suck out the life of the cigarette -- and I was his biggest fan.

We talked, all that night on the rooftop, actually he spoke and I listened. He told me about obscure blues players and rock n roll fables.

He played me tapes of strange bands called Velvet underground and the Grateful dead.

We talked about everything and anything an eighteen and a 28-year-old could possibly talk about.

And then when dawn came and it was time to leave, he gave me a black tape and told me that it was time I gave it a listen. The inscription read Bob Dylan, 'Blonde on Blonde.'

But I didn't listen to it. I was more interested in cooler things.

That all changed when I got the flu that summer.

It was dark, and it was difficult to breath and the bed sheet stunk of mucus. My eyes were too heavy to read anything and my head hurt if I thought of television. My hand slipped to a tape lying near the tape recorder. I put it on and closed my eyes.

The sound was of a harmonica and a lonely guitar and then somebody sang, 'The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face.'

I sat up; I had never experienced a line like that in my life. A second later Dylan made me feel like crying and never stopping, "Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial, Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while. But Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues you can tell by the way she smiles."

The tape died somewhere in the middle of the night and I never recovered.

For me Bob Dylan changed everything. It was like someone was singing ghazals in English.

There is a lot of information out there of what all these songs really mean, of how Dylan is elusive and that listening to Blonde on Blonde is difficult and how most people don't understand it.

To be honest I am one of those. I don't understand what they all mean; probably never will but you know what? When sometimes I come home tired and depressed, when I hit the bed and stare at the ceiling, when everything makes perfect sense and then doesn't, when it hurts and you can literally feel those bruises, I put on that tape. I put on Blonde on Blonde and then realisation comes because realisation comes not when things go always good for you, but it comes when you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes; and the only person that I think really understood that was Bob Dylan and his words on Blonde on Blonde.

'Goddesses', A Solo Show by Sumera Jawad at Nairang Gallery on Monday, October 22 at 4:30pm. The exhibition will continue till Monday, October 29.

• Exhibition of Farrukh Shahab's works titled 'Linear Expressionism' is opening at Croweaters Gallery on Wednesday, October 24.

• The All Pakistan Music Conference today at Haveli Wajid Ali Shah, Jogi Teer Khan inside Bhaati Gate at 6pm. Vocalists: Ustad Fateh Ali (Gawalior), Aqeel Manzoor, Beenish Pervaiz.

• 47th Amateur Golf Championship of Pakistan, Ladies Amateur and International team matches organised by Pakistan Golf Federation will close today. The match will start at 9am at Gymkhana Golf Club. Teams from Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cyprus, Egypt, India, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nepal, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Thailand and UAE are invited in to the championship.

• Soccer -- Pakistan vs. Iraq on Monday, October 22 at 7:30pm at Punjab

Stadium in the Gaddafi Stadium complex.

• A concert of unheard melodies at Government College University Lahore every Saturday at 1:30pm.

• Puppet Show for Children at Alhamra, The Mall at 11am.

• Puppet Shows at Peerus Caf'e every Sunday at 3pm.

• Sufi Dhol at Shah Jamal every Thursday

A number of homeless, penniless people spent the Eid days in Chauburji ground which is home to some 250 persons at all times. Sixty percent of these people managed to go home. Some of those left behind share their feelings with The News on Sunday.

"We are here because we are unemployed. We believe the government does not care for the people. If it does, it should see to providing them employment." Most of the people here are labourers. Men can be seen sitting in circles on the green grass in groups. The biggest group is playing card game, and is of middle-aged and old men. These are residents of the area who come here to have a good time. They are but a small number for the majority are in search of work. There are people from all over Punjab here.

I stop by the first group of men I come across. A well-spoken man introduces himself as a retired army man turned labourer. He was in infantry, Punjab Regiment and hails from Gujrat, has married off his children and is here in search of work. He remains out of work half of the week. "Money is not reaching the poor, please tell the people at the helm of affairs. We are here because we cannot pay rent of a one room house in this city that does not come for less than Rs 2000 to Rs 2500 a month. The utility bills are apart from that. What will the poor man eat if he rents out a house? All that I have seen in my lifetime is increasing tyranny, squeezing space for the poor," says 65 year old Riaz who has made this ground his abode for the last three years.

He requests the government to open an old people's home free of cost. "Please make a trust for old lonely people," says Riaz. There are many old men in the ground. Sher Khan, 65 plus, is not in good health to go for labour, if someone is kind enough, they feed him but on Eid nobody came here with food for anyone, I learn.

Here I also learn that throughout ramzan, till the 27th of the month, a trader would send a Suzuki pick-up loaded with food for the inhabitants of Chauburji ground where 250 people sleep at night. Most of them go to work during the day. "The food would reach both at sehri and iftari and everybody would eat to their fill. The person who had arranged the food for us is a very kind man," says a man with one hand cut and a broken leg. He hails from Dera Ghazi Khan and is living in the ground for five years now. Everybody is praise for the man who also gave these people cloth for shalwar kameez to get stitched on Eid. Those who did not have money to pay for stitching were given money, it was learnt from the labourers in the ground.

"The trader who used to feed the poor is Mian Shahbaz. He lives near Ichhra bridge and has some business on The Mall. He is also president of some traders union, that is all we know," say the men in the ground.

A common complaint of these people is prices of food items in the different hotels around the ground which is their abode. Here rates differ from hotel to hotel and they are all poor man's hotel. "Around Chauburji ground roti is selling for Rs 4, kulcha for Rs 6 and there is one hotel which charges Rs 10 for paratha. While omelette is for Rs 7 at one hotel, at another it is for Rs 10." Shall we expect from the price control committee check this.

In the same group of people is a mason around 40 year old from Kahna Kachha. He says, "Its the tenth day that I could not get work. I could not make new clothes for my children. Who cares for the poor? Nobody."

An old man Riaz says, "Mercy, kindness are a thing of past. Everybody looks down upon the poor. There was a time when people protected the oppressed now everybody wants to get rid of them. Where should the poor go? How shall they raise family?"

A very exclusive feature of the day is to pay visit to the graveyard in order to offer fateha at the graves of their dear and near ones. Visit to the graveyard has become so relevant to the Eid day that majority of the people perform it as a religious duty. It takes many residents of major towns to the remotely located rural areas on Eid day and they feel consoled once they reach to the graveyards and offer fateha at the graves of their dear ones.

Not only the elder male members of the family but women and children are also found in large number on Eid day roaming around the graves to sprinkle flower petals, light candles, burn incense and offer fateha besides minor repairing of the graves. Men and women are found reciting from the Holy Quran, showering flower petals on graves, throwing grains and rice towards the birds. Tents around the shrines, green flags on various tombs and scattered beggars are common glimpses of the day.

In Lahore, Miani Sahib graveyard is the centre place of activity on Eid day. According to a rough estimate, some 200,000 people, including men, women and children, visit this place on Eid day. Relatives of the dead persons start pouring in a day before Eid. However, real festivity starts right after the Eid prayer. Hundreds and thousands of citizens keep visiting graveyards till midday. Roads adjacent to the Miani Sahib are flooded with heavy traffic, disturbing the normal flow during first half of the day. Many prefer to visit the graveyard on their motorbikes, as those on four-wheels are supposed to park their vehicles far away from the main graveyard.

The flower-sellers do not offer Eid prayer on Eid day. They set up their stalls early in the morning and charge almost double from the visitors on this day. Grain and rice sellers, besides the beggars, also queue up throughout the graveyard to avail the opportunity. This day also brings extra money for the grave-diggers, as they charge separately to put extra clay on graves.

Why visit graves on Eid day? This question was posed to many on Eid day. Each one of them had different approach. For example, Izhar Ahmed Khan, Director Parks & Horticulture Authority, present at the Miani Sahib with his family called it a 'trend' which became popular in the mid 80s.

"Visiting the graves of our elders and dear ones provides us consolation in highly tense circumstances around us. Trend of visiting the graveyard on Eid day was rare during 60s and 70s," he said.

Mohsin, another Federal government employee sees visit to graveyard as a religious duty. He feels guilty in case he fails to do so and observes that more and more people are visiting graves with rising awareness.

Mohammed Aslam Saleemi, Naib Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami, is of the view that there is a saying of Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) that Muslims should visit graves occasionally to remind themselves of life after death, adding, nowhere it is specified that Muslims should visit graveyard on Eid day. "It is a sign of weak faith," he says and adds that this practice is more common in Lahore than in other cities.

Mufti Munib-ur-Rehman, Chairman Rooat-e-Hilal Committee, however, felt no harm in visiting graveyards on Eid day. "The tradition in itself is noble. There's no restriction on visiting graveyards at any time during a year," he says.

1. Bagh-e-Jinnah

2. Race Course Park

3. Linear Park

4. Model Town Park

5. Canal

6. Minto Park

7. National Park

8. The Mall (1962)

9. Liberty Park

10. Hazoori Bagh

To enlist by popular vote the 'top ten' for next week, send in your emails on top ten

'Top ten graffiti in Lahore'.