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Lahore comes alive in Delhi!
Indo-Asian News Service

New Delhi, Oct 23 (IANS) Lahore, often termed the city of poets, of love, longing, sin and splendour, was the talk of the town as novelist Bapsi Sidhwa's anthology - "City of Sin and Splendour: Writings about Lahore" - was launched here.

The anthology, which brings together verse, prose, essays, stories, chronicles and profiles by people who have shared a relationship with Lahore, was released by Aziz Ahmed Khan, Pakistan's high commissioner to India, Saturday evening. 

From the mystical poems of Madho Lal Hussain and Bulleh Shah to Iqbal's ode and Faiz's lament, from Maclagan and Aijazuddin's historical treatises and Kipling's 'chronicles' to Samina Quraeshi's intricate portraits of the Old City and Irfan Husain's delightful account of Lahori cuisine, "City of Sin and Splendour" is a marriage of the sacred and profane. 

While Pran Nevile paints a vivid sketch of Lahore's Hira Mandi, Shahnaz Kureshy brings alive the legend of Anarkali and Khalid Hasan pays tribute to the late 'melody queen' Nur Jehan. 

Mohsin Hamid's essay on exile, Bina Shah's account of the Karachi versus Lahore debate and Emma Duncan's piece on elections are essential to the understanding of modern-day Lahore. 

But the book is also about Lahore remembered. Ved Mehta and Krishen Khanna write about 'going back' as Khushwant Singh writes about his pre-partition years in Lahore. 

Sara Suleri's memories of her hometown, the landscapes of Bapsi Sidhwa's fiction, Khaled Ahmed's homage to Intezar Hussain and Urvashi Butalia's Ranamama are as much tributes to memory as they are to remarkable lives and unforgettable places. 

Including fiction old and new-from Manto and Chughtai to Ashfaq Ahmed and Zulfikar Ghose; Saad Ashraf and Sorayya Khan to Mohsin Hamid and Rukhsana Ahmad, "City of Sin and Splendour" is a sumptuous collection that reflects the city it celebrates. 

Sidhwa is noted for her novels like "The Crow Eaters", "The Pakistani Bride", "The Ice-Candy-Man" and "The American Brat". 

The anthology also includes excerpts from "The Crow Eaters" and "The Ice-Candy-Man" (which was adapted into the film "1947: Earth" by Deepa Mehta). 

Sidhwa was born in Karachi and came to Lahore as a three-year-old, where she grew up.