Protests and smog reports are what the wire services cover. The Lahore people actually live in is breakfast at Phajja Paye, calligraphy on the Wazir Khan tile, and Iqbal quoted at dinner.
The news, if it has shown you Lahore at all, has shown you protests, smog reports, the occasional politically-charged shrine. What it has not shown you is the breakfast at Phajja Paye on a Sunday morning — the slow-cooked trotter stew that Lahoris line up for, in fifty-year-old shops that have not changed their walls since partition. What it has not shown you is the calligraphy on the Wazir Khan Mosque, finished in 1635, the most beautifully tiled building in South Asia. The Lahore I want to write about is the city that fed you everywhere you went and quoted Iqbal at the dinner table.
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