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facility MOOD
STREET * Ajoka´s Basant Bahar Theatre at Alhamra Arts Council, The Mall. Play, Film & Documentary: Mera Rang de Basanti Chola written by Shahid Nadeem & directed by Madeeha Gauhar. Screening of documentary: Becoming Bhagat Singh by Nirvaan Nadeem on Thursday, Mar 22 at 7:00 pm. education Milking
consumers
facility An open court Punjab Squash Complex — an ever-present training ground for amateurs and professionals alike By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed Young boys and quite
often girls in sports outfit attract the eyes of commuters who whiz past
the bricked building along the Old Club Road, adjacent to the majestic
Governor’s House wall. The building named Punjab Sports Complex is
thronged by these regular visitors from early morning till late at night.
The complex has nine squash courts the maximum number of them at any
single sports facility in the city. They come here to flex their muscles, learn and play the game of squash, and see top-seeded players from all over the country pitched against each other in closely contested matches. International players have also played here in the past but their number has plummeted mainly due to the security situation in the country. Apart from this place and a couple of shops whose major clientele is these players, there is hardly any other activity along this stretch of road that links The Mall and The Davis Road. A visitor to the main reception hall is greeted by larger than life portraits of stalwarts who have ruled the game in the past. For a moment, one feels Jehangir Khan donning the attire of Ghengis Khan literally staring at you. One also gets to hear the staff, including coaches and honorary patrons, talking about how to gain the lost glory and fixing responsibilities on those responsible for the downfall. The writing on the wall, that courts cannot be occupied for more than 45 minutes by members on first-come basis, explains the facilities are far less than desired. Zain Shahid, 15, a grade 9 student, has been referred here by his uncle whose office is not far away. His uncle goes home during the lunch break and plans to bring him along on his return to the office. As per plan, Zain will spend some time at the complex and then walk to his uncle’s office from where they will go home together. Talking to TNS, Zain
says he has three options but he will go for the cheapest. He can deposit
Rs 500 as security amount and play in cemented courts for Rs 350 a month,
pay Rs 1500 security and use courts with wooden floors for Rs 750 a month
or deposit Rs 3,000 security and play in air-conditioned court with glass
wall for Rs 2000 a month. “I would love to play in glass court but can’t right now. Just as you learn driving in an old model car, I would learn to play squash in cemented court and gradually move to the better courts.” The admission process is simple and all that’s needed is an application to the secretary of the squash complex, copy of CNIC if applicable and two passport-size photos, explains Shahid, the caretaker of the complex. Children less than 10 years old can become members free of cost. The complex is working as both a training academy and private club and timings are different for both. The selected players are trained from 10 am to 1 pm by a team of coaches headed by Squash legend Gogi Alauddin. After that there’s a break and players gather again for physical training and endurance exercises. They can use the courts again but have to leave the premises before evening so that private members can occupy the courts. “Its ensured that private members are fully facilitated as they are a source of revenue generation for the club,” says Gogi while adjusting his grey flat cap on his head. He calls the complex a blessing for squash players as most of the other squash courts in the city are not accessible to the general public and rights to admission there are reserved. To mention some, there are two courts in Iqbal Park, two each in GOR I and GOR II, six in DHA, four at Gymkhana Club, three at Services Club, Tufail Road, two at Garrison Golf & Country Club, four each at Government College University (GCU) and Aitchison College, two in Mayo Gardens, two in EME Society, four at LUMS and five at Shapes Fitness Club, Gulberg. Gogi tells TNS they are
struggling hard to regain top rankings for Pakistani squash players and
prospects are quite bright. He proudly states that a Lahore-based squash
player Israr Ahmed won this year’s British Junior Under 15 Open title
and his son Omer Alauddin won the Scottish Junior Under 15 title. “Due
to performances like this, the popularity graph has suddenly risen among
the youth,” he says. Gogi laments the fact that many talented players cannot afford to play this game which is quite expensive. A quality squash racket costs Rs 8,000 and a ball not less than Rs 120 per piece. The complex, he says, has secured a sponsorship to buy local rackets that cost Rs 2500 each. These rackets will be given to deserving players and they will have to return them to the caretaker after their playing sessions. “The Punjab Racket Association provides 35 dozen squash balls every two months for the players,” he adds. Gogi says the coaches can coach privately as well but their first priority is to train the selected players. He says they have enforced strict discipline and coaches are not supposed to leave the courts during training hours. Earlier, he says, some of the coaches would select only top players and focus on them. “Now their performance is gauged on the basis of improvement in game of all the players under their supervision.” The secret of recent successes of Pakistani players, he says, is that they are being made to go through rigorous physical and aerobic exercises. Merely concentrating on technique is not enough as overall fitness is a must to perform well at international level. Gogi urges the government to patronise the sport without which, he says, Pakistani players cannot win high rankings. “It’s a pity our players cannot travel abroad quite often. In our times, PIA offered us tickets free of cost. Today, there’s no such offer.” He tells TNS Pakistani players cannot win high rankings as they miss a lot of international events due to high costs of travel and sometimes non-issuance of visas. He says that due to the special efforts of Punjab Squash Association President Malik Amjad Ali Noon, the Punjab Squash Complex could get a grant worth Rs 20 million from Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. The courts and other facilities at the complex are being repaired and upgraded with this money, he says adding: “If state patronage continues and the corporate sector also steps in to sponsor the game and its players, no one can stop us from clinching world titles.” shahzada.irfan@gmail.com
“I, artist and poet, wrote and taught without myself knowing what. For this I was paid money; I had excellent food, lodging, women, and society; and I had fame, which showed that what I taught was very good. And without noticing that we knew nothing, and that to the simplest of life’s questions: What is good and what is evil? We did not know how to reply, we all talked at the same time, not listening to one another, sometimes seconding and praising one another in order to be seconded and praised in turn,” said great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy in his “Confession”. After spending almost 20
years in journalism, I realised I actually know nothing, though all my
life I feigned as a cerebral professional. On the other hand, we
journalists normally receive and pass information on to others just as a
medium like computers and the papers on which we print. Observing the mess
and chaos in society, I must admit that I, as a journalist, also
contributed to it. I have skillfully avoided my basic responsibility to
inform and educate people, and have been smart enough to fend off any
criticism for that negligence; because I am paid for what I do. Common people often make me realise that I know nothing by putting some basic questions to me, like what is happening in the society, what is this violence for, whose war on terror is this, who is our friend and who is our enemy, what is happening in Balochistan, why is there so much poverty and inflation in our country? And they keep asking as I keep replying. Arguments and counter arguments sometimes turn into a verbal war as different perspectives leave us groping for consensus in the dark. “I don’t know” is always my exit point at the end of the exhaustive discussions. Let’s face the reality. Do we journalists really know what is this entire hullabaloo about? We have yet to find time from the headline making non-issues to focus on issues that really hurt us. National Reconciliation Ordnance (NRO), memogate scandal, immunity or no immunity, contempt or no contempt, Mehran Bank scam, suo moto on this and suo moto on that are all we are left to deal with. Do these issues matter for our toiling people? A journalist colleague is convinced that Osama bin Laden was not in Abbottabad. It was all a well-scripted drama, he thinks. “And why do you think so,” I asked. “It was the biggest lie of the decade by a biggest power,” he continued, adding the Americans themselves shot down the chopper with all the 30 Marines on board who had taken part in the operation. “They also demolished the compound in Abbottabad to spoil any clue proving that Osama was not there.” “What makes you think that Osama was there,” he asked in turn. Because they (Americans) say so, I replied. “You are naïve,” he ended the debate. We don’t know who the Pakistan army is fighting for. Is it for us, Pakistanis, or the Americans who pay it in cash and kind. We don’t know who is carrying out suicide attacks at high valued installations. We don’t know what is happening in Balochistan except that foreign hands are involved — another confession that we know nothing. We do make some guesswork and claims, but we are far from the truth. Someone is wrong because someone is right. Who is right and who is wrong is left for a bloody war to decide in Pakistan. We keep silent and let the guns roar because both the rights and the wrongs have guns and we have a hapless life to fight with. We do profess professionalism but in reality we follow different agendas thrown our way by those ‘who matter’. Famous Austrian writer and journalist Karl Kraus had aptly said, “How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.” A very unsuccessful politician friend of mine always comes to me for advice on politics for he thinks that I know a lot about politics. The day he realises that my advice it is that has made him a third grade politician, we will be friends no more. Perhaps, we don’t know the truth, or perhaps we don’t have the courage to speak and write the truth.
* Ajoka´s Basant Bahar
Theatre at Alhamra Arts Council, The Mall. Play, Film & Documentary:
Mera Rang de Basanti Chola written by Shahid Nadeem & directed by
Madeeha Gauhar. Screening of documentary: Becoming Bhagat Singh by Nirvaan
Nadeem on Thursday, Mar 22 at 7:00 pm. *Open Mic at Institute
for Peace peace and Secular Studies (IPPS) on Wednesday at 6:00 pm. People
not just share intellectual works like essays, papers, articles, poetry
but also other talents like songs, music compositions, monologues etc. *Youth Poetry Contest:
Institute of Peace and Secular Studies is holding youth poetry contest.
The last date for submission of poem is April 7. The poem can be in Urdu,
English, Punjabi, Seraiki or any other language spoken in the Punjab. *Exhibition of Plas
Print Pack Pakistan at Expo Centre. The exhibition will continue till
Monday (tomorrow).
education Amidst the haphazard, mostly illegal high rises of the Walled City and heavily encroached roads, there stands the dilapidated structure of an important educational facility of its time – Rang Mahal Mission High School. Half of the red-painted
brick building of this historic school has been declared dangerous by the
city administration a couple of times and is not being used at all, while
the other half, consisting of 15 classrooms, is under-utilised because of
the few students and critical condition of the three-storey building with
visible cracks on it. After the British occupation of the Punjab, this was to be the first mission school in the city of Lahore established by a clergyman called Farmson. That school came to be known far and wide as the Rang Mahal Mission School, recalls late Khalid Hasan in one of his popular writings on Lahore. “It was a palace”, points out Amanat Ali, the sitting headmaster of this Punjab government-run school recalling it as a palace in the 18th century that was later used as a court by the Sikh rulers of the Punjab Maharaja Ranjeet Singh and later his son Maharaja Daleep Singh. Ir was a palace of a minister of Shah Jahan, turned into an educational facility in 1849 when it was purchased by the board of foreign mission from Saeedullah Khan – its legal owner at that time, the history of the school available with the Presbyterian Church reads. The place also housed the Forman Christian College before it turned into the Rang Mahal School. The college, founded in 1849, was shifted from here in 1860. From then onwards till 1972, the school prospered under the control of the Presbyterian Education Board (PEB), an autonomous body led by Presbyterian Church of Pakistan and supported by Presbyterian Church of the United States of America and other churches and organisations worldwide. The school was nationalised during the Bhutto regime in 1972. The very first year the school had 55 Hindus, 22 Muslims and three Sikh students, which included Punjabi, Kashmiri, Bengali, Hindustani, Afghani and Balochi. The teachers were from Punjab, Hindustan, Bengal, Scotland and USA. Currently number of
students in the school is not more than 225, says the headmaster, adding,
“Frankly, it is really hard to find students for the school for the past
few years.” It is a poor area and even the poorest people and the
vendors and small shopkeepers and daily wagers of this part of the walled
city decline to send their boys to this school for many reasons which
include dilapidated condition of the school building, dispute with the
missionary board over the control, encroachment, and great rush around the
schools, giving tough time to parents to pick and drop their sons. The dispute between the Punjab government and the Presbyterian Church is pending before the Lahore High Court for the past few years. The litigation started in 1998 when after 1972 for the first time, government returned the school to the board and the local teacher union moved court against the decision. Later, there were a couple of moves to take the school back which prolonged because of legal fights; the matter is still pending before the court and the next date of hearing is March 26. The legal dispute over the custody has cast a shadow on the school as the government departments refuse to improve its conditions saying the matter is pending before the court while private donors also decline to help. The teachers are also reluctant to join the school for the same reasons. “Even now, a number of posts are vacant while we have got a new science teacher after four to five years,” says the headmaster. Previously, no science teacher was willing to come to this school even after many requests by the Education department. “We have repeatedly brought this to the notice of the Education Department’s high-ups but there is no response towards the bad and dilapidated condition of the school building because of the legal dispute,” the headmaster says. “I have repeatedly written to the higher authorities of my department that God forbid, if some accident takes place here like collapse of building or any other emergency because of the building neglect I, being the headmaster, should not be held responsible,” he says. Around four and a half kanal stretch of land, situated in the middle of the busiest commercial hub of the walled city, called Shah Alam Market is worth billions of rupees. A teacher requesting anonymity says, “Whether the school goes to the church or remains with the government, this place should be a proper and state of the art educational facility providing standard education to the highly illiterate and poor side of the city.” He suggests “Half of the school, declared dilapidated and dangerous, should be preserved as an archeological site and freed from all sorts of encroachments. After all, it is part of the glorious history of the Punjab.” And this should be at the earliest in the best public interest of the local population, he concludes. vaqargillani@gmail.com
Milk is taken by all the population one way or the other but it is full of impurities. While there has been much talk about adulterated gawala milk, expert opinion is that even no packed milk is pure. The problem with milk is
adulteration. Talk to experts and they say the gawalas are not to be
trusted. There are a number of chemicals they mix to increase the volume
which pose danger to human health. Other than contaminated water, all
alkaline like urea, surf, soda, keep PH level high and people use it
indiscriminately, says a professor at University of Veterinary and Animal
Sciences. To check adulteration in milk, the University of Veterinary and Health Sciences (UVAS) has developed a kit which can check 12 different adulterants. The milk changes colour if it is adulterated and the colour determines the chemical added. The kit is for Rs.7000 and can test 1200 samples of milk. Ask a gawala or milkman what he mixes and he will say, “We are simple people. We mix nothing but water. It’s the big dairy farms which send milk to cities on trucks and trawlers who may be using chemicals.” One revealed mixing caustic soda to save the milk from rotting as it has to be transported to far off places in extreme weather and is a perishable item. A milkman from Olakh village on Multan Road says he can give pure milk for Rs.60, another says it will cost Rs.70 while people are getting pure milk at Rs.81 per/kg from Naimat, a dairy service started recently in the city that delivers milk at people’s doorstep twice a week. A person who subscribes to this milk, says, “The cream we get every day on the milk is so thick that we make desi ghee with it.” Dr. Mohammad Sadiq Gill at the Dairy and Livestock Department says you cannot have pure milk at less than 80 rupees but the issue is we cannot have good, healthy milk if the animals that give us milk are not healthy. “While Livestock inspectors keep a check on meat, milk is checked by Food inspectors who just put a device in milk for checking at city entrance points which is not enough. If Vets are given this job, the animals’ health will improve.” Asked how Vets check milk, he says, “We prescribe surf test by mixing one teaspoon surf in one cup of water and divide this in four cups, then milk the animal in all the four cups. If it leaves residue in strainer, it shows the buffalo has mastitis – inflammation of the mammary glands. This milk is not fit for human consumption while the milkmen mix this in healthy milk. There are three such stages. 25-30 percent animals have it and even when treated many are rendered unfit for milking. If Livestock staff gets to check milk, they will know how many animals have TB. If animals get right medicine at the right time, they can stay healthy and be saved. “Livestock is cash. It has 55.10 percent share in agriculture,” he says and suggests establishing laboratories in every tehsil where people can come with milk samples for detection of the disease. This way the animals can get the right medicine at the right time. The milk will be good if
the animal that gives milk is healthy. A big issue is buffalo feed. Locals
give khal and left over roti (chhaan pura) to buffaloes as they increase
milk in animal. The rotis that are already stale, are spread for drying.
Fungus develops over them which is green/grey in colour. The animals that
feed on it produce milk that has aflatoxins. Prof Dr. Makhdoom Abdul Jabbar of the UVAS took samples of milk and mithai from all over Punjab. “Forty seven percent of the milk samples while 70 percent of the mithai samples were found to contain aflatoxins. Toxins don’t end with boiling, they concentrate. It is important to educate people not to give dry rotis and bread with coloured pigments on them to buffaloes.” Another common concern among people is hormones injections. Senior teachers at UVAS say it is nothing to worry about. One is Oxytocin given to buffalo for milk letting and is given just before milking. The other injection is of Bovine Somatotropin (BST) hormone which speeds up growth of the animal and increases milk production by 15-20 pc. Scientifically there is no evidence of any adverse effect of BST either on the animal or humans, says the professor. The world is divided in two over injection of BST hormone. USA is for it, while Europe is opposed to it. Now the demand is to write BST on packed milk, he says. Animal farming is mostly with landless people. Most of the milkmen have 1-6 buffaloes while there is little organised farming where they keep both cattle and buffalo. Professor Dr. Tahir Yaqub, Director Quality Operations Lab which has prepared the kit to check adulteration in milk, when asked about the solution, says, “Set up points to purchase milk. There are usually three points in a city and the parameters to procure milk are somatic cell count that is white blood cells, percentage of fat and solid non-fat (SNF). Add colour to milk if found adulterated so that the milk cannot be sold, he says. Associate Prof. Dr. Aneela Zamir says the government needs to improve the policies in consultation with the stake holders. She believes the marketing system also needs to be developed. The animal popular in Punjab is buffalo, also called black gold. Though fat is high in buffalo milk, cholesterol level is low as compared to that in cow milk. The best quality milk is used to make yogurt and the worst milk turns into dry powder, according to expert opinion. Doctors say milk is complete nutrition and people’s immunity level will improve if we improve the quality of milk, especially at a time when we are living under the scare of Dengue. It’s the government that has to take initiative for this.
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