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One hour Improving
on nature Tidbits
Aesthetic experiences don't
come when you're concentrating too hard By Sarah Humayun Ajaib ghar -- house of curiosities. Museum: place of the muses, the presiding spirits of the art and knowledge, daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, memory and civilization, Greek to most of us. A ten rupee ticket bought me within this portal of ambiguity, the Lahore Museum, in which I spent an hour drifting, musing, and sometimes, in moments of distraction, actually looking. On a typical day, the
Museum's cavernous building is likely to harbour schoolchildren, art
students, teachers, parents shepherding their children, newlyweds, lovers on
assignations, uncoupled and It's not so much that you don't mean to look. It's a number of factors, not all explicable. The light, for one thing. The central hall of the Museum, the one you see directly on entering, is given over to a rather remarkable collection of miniatures. They are arranged in two panels, above and below, and protected by sheets of glass. The lights illuminating them beam down on the upper panel, leaving the works below in relative darkness. You can get a good look at the pictures below by standing very close to them and squinting, and the ones above by craning up your neck and peering hard. Clearly, no one has reckoned with the possibility of anyone wishing to spend too much time before these objects of curiosity. In museums of art that I've visited abroad, the attendants are used to dealing with viewers in various poses of wonder or prostration. Also common is sitting down before a work -- mutely challenging it to exhaust your attention. These viewers are often of considerable interest in themselves, but it is tacitly understood that you do not look, blatantly at least, at visitors in a museum. The shrine is dedicated to the muses, any fascination that the worshippers command is invisible according to the custom of the place. Here, invisibility is impossible and it is transgression that exercises the policemen's talents. Haath na lagaain! Beta pas na jaen echoed not too softly in the halls. The Krishna-and-gopi miniature must witness this very different kind of hide and seek each day. Soon, eddies of a school trip were swirling around me. A long unruly train of schoolchildren trooped in, followed by straggling teachers. Boys and girls, idhar aien! Boys and girls, linain banaein!. The boys and girls in question fanned out, tested how their finger prints looked on the glass cases, sneaked behind ropes and as close as they could to the paintings in the B. A. Qureishi art collection, made the best, physically and vocally, of the large echoing spaces of the hall, and then were herded out by their teachers amid shows of mock anger. These conditions may not
seem very conducive to what is called aesthetic experience. But I rather
suspect that aesthetic experiences don't come when you're concentrating too
hard. They have a The other thing: the figures in the lower half of a miniature often look like they are going to fall out of the painting, as if their feet or backsides do not rest securely on the painted ground. Is this just the perspective again, or is it something else? Anyway, as I made my way out, I saw -- in the first gallery that branches off to the left, I don't remember what it's called... a glass case with a stack of folded-up pashmina shawls in it. It reminded me of those other houses of curiosities, the baras and Aurigas of the world. There was no one here to bargain with, only objects left in dimness and disorder, subjected to a baffled, dutiful watchfulness but not much interference, to assume whatever suggestiveness they could.
Helsinki's collective heating system keeps the environment
pure, and also the pristine natural beauty intact By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed Finland is a fantastic place to visit and has many
features that attract an ever-increasing number of tourists every year. To
mention a few, it is one of the few countries in the world that are still
growing. Geologists attribute this expansion to the 'isostatic uplift' that
has been taking place since the last ice age. Due to this phenomenon, the
area of the country is growing by about 7 square A visitor to this part of the world can be stunned for days after seeing the picturesque landscape and experiencing the novel phenomenon. But this does not mean that all that Finland can boast of has been bestowed on it by nature. The way the country transformed from an agrarian economy to a highly industrialised and technologically advanced one in a matter of decades is nothing less than a wonder. Today, the country can boast of having one of the most efficient energy management systems; along with clean environment in the cities. The district heating system adopted by many cities of the country is worth studying and emulating in places having similar climatic conditions. It was amazing to see how efficiently the whole heating plan had been devised by planners, and environmental concerns addressed without compromising on the quality of service provided to citizens. Under this system, the heating network in the city is designed so that heat produced by power plants can be distributed to the customers via several routes. Mostly steel pipes are used to carry heat generated during electric power production to different parts of the city. Areas thus heated can be houses, schools, colleges, commercial buildings, shopping malls, railway stations and so on. The tourist guide accompanying us on city tour told us
that Helsinki Energy is the largest energy Helsinki's quest to excel in this respect shows how determined the city has been in meeting the air quality standards set up by WHO and several environmental bodies. The start of district heating in Helsinki dates back to mid-1950s. It is no secret that centralised heat production and the diminished number of individually heated buildings have significantly improved the air quality in Helsinki. The operation of power plants is strictly monitored, and their effective emission control techniques keep the emission levels low. Another important aspect is that most of the heating energy in Helsinki is produced with natural gas. Natural gas is commonly used for the reason that there are hardly any particle or sulphur emissions. Besides, the carbon dioxide emissions in this case are considerably lower than those emitted by burning other fossil fuels. District heating has also affected the architecture of individual buildings. In fact, it has necessitated replacement of chimneys of individual buildings with higher tall chimneys of heating plants where the emissions can be more easily controlled. In addition to tall chimneys, the coal-fired power stations in Helsinki have desulphurisation plants that go a long way in reducing the sulphur and nitrogen dioxide content in the air to levels below WHO air quality guidelines. Though the system is in vogue in many European countries, Finland can claim to be the world pioneer in district heating. Many wood processing companies realised decades ago that they could earn extra income by selling waste heat from their onsite electricity generation to community heating networks serving the surrounding areas. Today, there are well above 1,000 kilometers of district heating pipeline in Helsinki. The government also provides subsidies for proper insulation of the pipeline. But things do not end here. Helsinki also has a district cooling system that works on almost similar principles to district heating. District cooling delivers chilled water to buildings like offices and factories that need to be cooled. Tidbits Glide on In 1985, Jamshed Qazi flew over the suburbs of Peshawar for the first time in his invention: a micro-light glider made from aluminium pipes, a piece of cloth and a motorbike engine. Today, the nephews of (the late) Jamshed Qazi, Qazi Tufail and Qazi Sajjad, have put up a case before the Production Division in Islamabad for provision of funds to assemble a one seat helicopter. Based in Landi Arbab,a village on the outskirts of Peshawar both the brothers are secondary school qualified and have no education in engineering or flying. Despite financial constraints, the brothers keep
investing whatever they have into their hobby. "My passion forces me to
keep doing more to improve our glider," Qazi Tufail tells The News on
Sunday, The glider that was made by Qazi Jamshed was constructed from 100 per cent locally available material. The one that the Qazi brothers are flying now is made of imported material. A German Rotax Bombardier engine has been installed, which takes the two seater to a height of 7000 feet. The estimated cost of a single engine glider is Rs 400,000, and the price goes up in accordance with the power of the engine. "We are planning to fit another engine in our glider in order to realise our ambition of flying from Peshawar to Dubai via Karachi and Tehran in August next year." This, though, "will be possible only if we get a sponsor," Qazi Tufail informed about his future plans. For now, they can be seen with their glider taking off before hundreds of spectators in the fields of Naguman village, every Sunday. By Javed Aziz Khan |
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therefore hopeful young men, goras and police. Not being a member of any of
these classes, you might feel, perhaps even imagine, yourself out of place.
Just looking, you soon discover, repels something in the spirit of the place.
Now if you just wanted to lark around, that would be a different matter.
Boredom is seemly. Inquisitiveness or even hostility towards the objects
displayed is frequently observed. But looking... with a sense of sustained
attention -- that doesn't do.
fleeting,
half-conscious character. I did not have one there in any case, but I did
pore over the benighted miniatures harder than I have done before. Naturally,
I've heard the usual things about the lack of perspective in miniatures, the
European influence, the Persian influence, and so on, and most of it has, as
they say, gone out of the other ear. This time I noticed two things, which
probably seem very obvious to others who have given miniatures any thought.
One was pervasive and rather comical theatricality of the figures in the
miniature. The people in them, mostly Royals, looked like they were being
photographed by the eye of eternity. My favourite is one of the Princes
Zebunissa, who was a 'poetess'. She sits Odile-like, all draped in black, a
scroll in her hand instead of a flower, very dolorous and severe. Very unlike
the others, ladies in leisure or at their toilette. Another one, a pictorial
depiction of Raag Malkauns, has an embracing couple in it, and two maids with
faces turned away but clearly peeping -- all very coy together. The note of
explanation tells us that the raag is about 'tanhai'.
kilometres per year. Secondly, Finland has thousands of lakes and islands.
Precisely, there are 187,888 lakes which are larger than 500 square metres in
area and around 179,584 islands. Winter temperatures are as extreme as -30 C
in winter but settle at around 15 C in June. The country also has a
considerably thick forest cover. With 75 per cent of the country's land area
covered by trees and vegetation, the country is Europe's most densely
forested. At Finland's northernmost point, the sun does not set for 73 days
during summer, and does not rise at all for 51days in winter.
company
in Finland producing, distributing and selling district heat. The customer
base of this company comprises 12,000 premises, most of which are residential
buildings. District heating is also known as teleheating.
working along with his brother Qazi Sajjad at their workshop, close to their
residence in Tango Chowk. "If government gives me 500,000 rupees I can
assemble a single seat helicopter in six months." Tufail was not allowed
to fly without a proper license by the Civil Aviation Authority, so he got an
Ultra Light Pilot Licence from Austria and local Micro Light Licence