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Arab News
22-07-2025
- General
- Arab News
‘Tradition that should go on': Delhi's kulfi craft served cold and sweet on Karachi's streets
KARACHI: As Karachi's scorching sun dips below the horizon, a familiar figure appears on Sir Shah Muhammad Suleman Road in the bustling Liaquatabad neighborhood, also known as Lalukhet. Sixty-year-old Muhammad Abid arrives at his small, elevated wooden kiosk, carrying something special: kulfi, a dense, frozen South Asian dessert whose creamy richness once graced royal tables. Kulfi is widely believed to date back to the Mughal Empire in the 16th century, where it was considered a royal delicacy, according to commonly available online sources. The name is thought to originate from the Persian word kulfa or kulf, loosely meaning 'covered cup' — likely a reference to the sealed metal molds traditionally used to freeze the dessert. Unlike modern ice cream, kulfi is not churned, which results in a denser, creamier texture. 'This used to be royal kulfi,' Abid said. 'It was made during the times of kings. Now it's being sold on the streets.' Asked how the product is prepared, he said traditionally, full-fat milk is slow-cooked until it thickens and reduces significantly, which is then sweetened, flavored with almond, sugar and another thing, which is his 'secret.'. 'I told you about the almonds, I told you about the sugar, but that third ingredient is a secret,'he said, smiling while refusing to share the secret he claims was passed on to him through previous generations. Abid said his family's tradition of making kulfis dates back to pre-Partition India. As a child, he would accompany his father and grandfather to their cart, until both passed away and he took over. 'We've been selling kulfi for quite a long time,' he said, adding that his grandfather who took the tradition from India's Delhi, where his family had been making kulfi for centuries, to set up shop in Karachi's Liaquatabad area in 1968. Before moving to Liaquatabad, they would sell Kulfi at a roadside corner at the city's famous Jama cloth market under a peepal tree. Much like him, other kulfi sellers in the vicinity claim to have similar roots. While these oral histories are not easy to independently verify, the richness of their technique and the taste of their product speaks for itself. Most of them have also remained associated with the business for decades in the same neighborhood. Abid takes pride in preserving the authenticity of his craft. 'The kind we make, with almonds, butter, and cream that you won't find anywhere else,' he said with a sense of pride. A few stalls down, 62-year-old Abdul Rasheed, who also identifies as a fifth-generation kulfiwala, shares a similar story, saying his family migrated from India where it practiced the same craft. 'My father set up a stall inside the Jamia Masjid [in Karachi], and then in 1976, we came to Lalukhet,' he said. 'Since then, we've been selling here.' Like Abid, Rasheed emphasizes the purity of his offering. 'This is pure milk kulfi, real milk,' he said. 'We cook the milk, make rabri, make khoya from it and add sugar. That's all. Our kulfi is pure. We don't use market-bought khoya or anything like that.' But with kulfi now widely available in shops across Karachi, these traditional makers say the demand for their product has declined. 'Now every sweet shop, every mithai shop has kulfi,' Rasheed said. 'Earlier, they used to buy from us. Now they make their own.' Still, loyal customers return for the taste and tradition. 'I don't pass by here often, but whenever I do, I always stop to eat this kulfi,' Majid Ali, a 40-year-old property worker and catering center owner, said. 'It brings back old memories.' 'We eat a lot of different kulfis, new ice creams with new names,' he added. 'But this is a part of old culture, a landmark of this road.' Farhana Niazi, another customer, said she only recently discovered Lalukhet's kulfi. ''Let me finally have you try this today,'' she quoted her husband as saying while they were passing through the area this week. Previously, she would ignore such offers, thinking the taste might not be good. 'When I tasted it, I realized it was actually very delicious,' she said. 'It has a very different flavor. The taste of khoya really comes through. It was excellent, very different. I truly enjoyed it.' Niazi believes more people should come and try the royal kulfi. 'It's a tradition that should go on,' she said. But for Rasheed, the golden era feels like a distant memory. 'Back in the day, we had a huge rush,' he said, recalling when 15 to 20 cars lined up at once in front of his kiosk, Madina Kulfi. 'Now, that's no longer the case.'
The Standard
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Standard
Hong Kong Palace Museum to showcase Mughal Empire's artistic splendor
This exhibition features an immersive digital installation titled 'Taj Mahal: A Love Story in a Majestic Monument', offering a captivating exploration of the historical and artistic significance of this iconic world heritage monument.
France 24
09-07-2025
- General
- France 24
Dutch art sleuth recovers stolen trove of UNESCO-listed documents
Arthur Brand, nicknamed the "Indiana Jones of the Art World" for his high-profile recovery of stolen masterpieces, said the latest discovery was among his most significant. "In my career, I have been able to return fantastic stolen art, from Picassos to a Van Gogh... yet this find is one of the highlights of my career," Brand told AFP. Many of the documents recount the early days of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), whose globetrotting trading and military operations contributed to the Dutch "Golden Age", when the Netherlands was a global superpower. The 17th century VOC documents contain a "fascinating glimpse into the events of that time in places like Europe, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Latin America," said Brand. One document from 1602 recounts the first meeting of the VOC, during which its famous logo -- considered the world's first corporate logo -- was designed. VOC merchants criss-crossed the globe, catapulting the Netherlands to a world trading power but also exploiting and oppressing the colonies it conquered. The company was also a leading diplomatic power and one document relates a visit in 1700 by top VOC officials to the court of the Mughal emperor in India. "Since the Netherlands was one of the most powerful players in the world at that time in terms of military, trade, shipping, and colonies, these documents are part of world history," said Brand. UNESCO agrees, designating the VOC archives as part of its "Memory of the World" documentary heritage collection. "The VOC archives make up the most complete and extensive source on early modern world history anywhere," says UNESCO on its website. The trove also featured early ships logs from one of the world's most famous admirals, Michiel de Ruyter, whose exploits are studied in naval academies even today. De Ruyter gained fame for his daring 1667 raid to attack the English fleet in the River Medway, one of the greatest humiliations in world naval history. The ship's logs, written in his own hand, relate the admiral's first experience of naval warfare, the 1641 Battle of St Vincent against the Spanish fleet. 'An extraordinary treasure' No less enthralling is the "who-dunnit" of how Brand came by the documents. Brand received an email from someone who had stumbled across a box of seemingly ancient manuscripts while clearing out the attic of an incapacitated family member. This family member occasionally lent money to a friend, who would leave something as collateral -- in this case the box of documents. "I received some photos and couldn't believe my eyes. This was indeed an extraordinary treasure," Brand told AFP. Brand investigated with Dutch police and concluded the documents had been stolen in 2015 from the vast National Archives in The Hague. The main suspect -- an employee at the archives who had indeed left the box as collateral but never picked it up -- has since died. Brand compared the theft to a daring heist by a curator at the British Museum, who spirited away some 1,800 objects, selling some of them on eBay. The art detective said he spent many an evening sifting through the documents, transported back in time. "Wars at sea, negotiations at imperial courts, distant journeys to barely explored regions, and knights," he told AFP.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How did Kashmir end up largely under Indian control?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Nestling at the point where the borders of India and Pakistan meet in the Himalayas, Jammu and Kashmir is the only Muslim-majority state or territory in Hindu-majority India (excepting the tiny Lakshadweep archipelago). It has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan since Partition in 1947, partly because of its geo-strategic importance. The glacial waters flowing through Kashmir provide water and electricity to tens of millions of people in India; Pakistan's biggest river, the Indus, also passes through it. But to both sides it is also a symbol of pride, a land famed for its beauty. "If there is a heaven on Earth," the Mughal emperor Jahangir once remarked, "it's here, it's here, it's here." Its mountainous landscape appears often in Bollywood films and on restaurant walls across the subcontinent. There are also significant Muslim and Hindu shrines in Kashmir. In the mid-19th century, Kashmir's Sikh rulers ceded the Valley of Kashmir to the British, who in turn sold it to the Hindu rajah of neighbouring Jammu. Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, became a holiday resort for the British. Upon independence a century later, the princely states in theory had the right to choose whether to join India or Pakistan, but the decision was largely determined by religious demographics and geographical location. Kashmir's playboy maharaja, Hari Singh, could not decide, as his state adjoined both nations; he pondered turning it into an independent "Switzerland of Asia". But his hand was forced when, after Partition, Muslims in northwest Kashmir, backed by a Pakistani tribal army, rose up against the Hindu population and massacred them. Independent India's new PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, a Kashmiri Hindu by descent, sent in troops to quash the revolt – in return, Singh ceded Kashmir to India, in October 1947. Pakistan has (like India) always claimed the whole of Kashmir, and its regular forces entered the conflict soon after. The resulting First Indo-Pakistani War ended in 1949, with a UN-brokered ceasefire. Most of the region was left under Indian control, except the northwestern third, including Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad ("Free") Kashmir, which is controlled by Pakistan. In 1948, the UN called for both sides to withdraw troops and let the people of Kashmir vote on their future status. This referendum never took place, essentially because Nehru realised that it would not be decided in India's favour. Instead, the countries went to war over Kashmir again, first in 1965 and then in 1971. The ceasefire line agreed in the Simla Agreement in 1972 became the de facto border, known as the "Line of Control". From the 1950s on, popular movements emerged in Kashmir demanding either independence or a merger with Pakistan. India responded with repression, while Pakistan provided support for militant groups. In the late 1980s, growing opposition to Indian rule was fuelled by a rigged election and the killing of peaceful protesters. The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, a pro-independence group backed by Pakistan, launched an insurgency against the Indian authorities. India responded with a massive counterinsurgency operation, flooding the region with troops, and making Kashmir one of the most highly militarised areas in the world. About 41,000 people were killed over the following 27 years. Extrajudicial military killings were rife; at least 8,000 Kashmiris "disappeared". Nearly all the Hindus in the Valley of Kashmir, known as the Pandits – about 100,000 – left following a series of terrorist killings. The insurgency was largely brought under control by the early 2000s, but there have been regular eruptions of violence since. Pakistan's military intelligence service, the ISI, has encouraged the growth of radical Islamist groups that focus on the Kashmir issue, though their members are often not Kashmiris. The usual pattern is that an atrocity takes place (the killing of 40 paramilitary police by a car bomb in 2019, for example); India then holds Pakistan responsible, and attacks alleged terrorist camps in Pakistan, which denies responsibility and counter-attacks. But the latest atrocity was different, since it hit tourists, not a military target. All Indian governments since 1947 have taken a hard line on Kashmir, but Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP has been particularly unyielding. In 2019, it revoked Article 370 of India's Constitution, dating from 1949, which had guaranteed Kashmir a degree of autonomy, and restricted property rights to "permanent residents". Instead, Jammu and Kashmir is now ruled directly from Delhi. His government had also claimed that militancy in the region was in check, and encouraged the resumption of tourism. This is hotly contested, and there is no simple answer. An authoritative poll, conducted by Chatham House and Mori in 2010, found that in India-administered Jammu and Kashmir, 43% said they would vote for independence, while 28% would vote to stay with India, and only 2% to join Pakistan. However, this varied strongly by region: of some 13 million people in the state, eight million live in the Kashmir Valley, which is now over 95% Muslim; upwards of 74% there supported independence. But in Jammu, where five million people live, 68% of them Hindu, support for independence was only 1%. In Azad (Pakistani) Kashmir, 50% thought Kashmir as a whole should be part of Pakistan, and 45% thought it should be independent. Robert Bradnock, who ran the poll, concluded that the referendum envisaged by the UN would now fail to resolve the conflict.
