Lahore: A Memoir

Description

This book is not an historical dissertation. It is simply a collection of various episodes from the days the author spent in Lahore. He first came into contact with the city in 1927. Since then, he has witnessed its growth and, in certain areas, its deterioration. There may not be a logical sequence in the narration of events, for they represent diverse impressions and experiences. Yet they make a whole, as scattered landmarks in a city – some even miles apart – do. In no way were these essays designed to reflect only the elite life of a metropolis, for the author himself is a commoner, nor was the book designed to bring back the past, for Lahore is a city of the future as well. LAHORE: A MEMOIR is about the ‘half-century’ of a city that greatly contributed to all political and cultural movements in the sub-continent during the most momentous years of its history. There is more to the book than this: it describes the glory and the demise of the Raj; the Independence struggle, the travails of Partition and, above all, the undying spirit that pervades the streets of Lahore and propels it through the process of decay, self-repair and rebirth.

Author Biography

Muhammad Saeed, b. 1911, at Kalaswala, Sialkot district, was educated at Islamia College Lahore and Aligarh Muslim University. He is a journalist who has worked with daily Slzahbaz, Dawn, The Times of Karachi, The Civil & Military Gazette. and The Pakistan Times, which paper he edited in 1979. He is the author of Ahang-i-Bazgasht an autobiography that describes the sub-continent’s independence struggle and Bahazrat-i-Dost, a collection of speeches at various forums.