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Book Review: And Death Walks with Them: Above Eight Thousand Metres with Pakistani Porters from Shimshal by Christiane Fladt Christiane Fladlt who first came to Pakistan in 2002 writes exclusively about High Altitude Porters (HAPs) of…

Bari La Deosai – Land of the Dead A hasty plan landed us in Deosai on the morning of Saturday. We planned it out on text messages and decided we will be travelling to Bari La in Deosai. ‘La’ is a Balti word for mountain pass and Bari La is…

Transliteration and translation of Torwali interview with Inam Kaka in Tab Pasture Zubair Torwali (ZT): Ji ̩   aːsəlaːmoaləikum    mʰo  mʰere   ʈeb si ba:n  mi tʰi. ʈeb si ba:n yæ tʰuda ʈeb ba:n, ʐemeʈ si ba:n tʰu. a:~ ʐemeʈʰede es ke pa:n…

Ten myths that keep us colonised Until a couple of hundred years ago, most human population lived nomadic lives. This changed for most of us when our lands were stolen and/or our elders compromised by deceit, subjugation, and physical as…

All the past losses All the past hurts All the past murders All the past lies All gone Just like that. Welcome to Independence Day! Just like that We are told we are free. What if: our losses don’t stop; Our hurts deepen; More…

Liminal State of Shaman: A Subjective Account--Part 1 It was a bright sunny day in the spring season when I experienced something totally alien to me. There were strange voices, images and feelings. Initially, I thought these were figments…

The Diamond Jug Part 1 Imagine that there is a jug made of diamonds And full of life-giving fluids sitting on a table. Now, imagine that someone comes along And says: This jug and everything in it is mine. The owners of the jug reject this…

Mito/Phanis: An Uncanny Character in Mythical Cosmology Although the mythical cosmology of Gilgit-Baltistan is populated with beautiful, good spirits and amicable creatures, it also populated by creatures and spirits that are deemed evil,…

Hargin: A Mythical Creature of Gilgit In the imaginary creatures in popular folktales of Gilgit, Hargin is quite famous. Hargin is basically a giant snake, python, or anaconda like creature. In the mythical sense it resembles to the dragon…

Book: Delusional Sates: Feeling Rule and Development in Pakistan’s Northern Frontier Author: Nosheen Ali Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2019. ISBN 978-1-108 total pages: 304 pp.   The very subtitle of book “Delusional States:…