12 Awesome pictures from Old Pakistan
Famous American mystic, Samuel Lewis, seen here with the keepers of the Sufi saint, Data Ganj Baksh’s shrine in Lahore (1962).
A Pakistani family waiting for transport after attending a function at Karachi’s Beach Luxury Hotel in 1973.
A European tourist family outside a rest house in Murree, 1974.
A 1972 picture showing European visitors and local Christians seen during a passing out ceremony at a Catholic school in Rawalpindi. –Picture courtesy John Meacham.
A 1974 photograph showing the inside of a ‘hashish house’ in Quetta.
Girls taking part in a swimming competition at a sports complex in Karachi in 1970..
A serene image of Peshawar’s famous ‘Kisa Kahani Bazaar’ (Storytellers’ Market) in 1972. A culturally rich and ancient marketplace, the area has continuously come under terrorist attacks by Islamist militants ever since the early 2000s
Students belonging to the left-wing National Students Federation campaign during a student union elections at the Karachi University in 1969. –Picture courtesy: Tarek Fateh.
A poster of 1973 film ‘Operation Pakistan.’ A B-grade film made by a Greek director, the film was released in Pakistan in 1973. It is about the adventures of an FBI agent who tracks down hashish smugglers in Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. The characters of Pakistanis (seen below left) were all played by amateur Pakistani actors. The film was a box-office flop
Marriot, 1977: This is a 1977 photograph showing Islamabad’s Marriot Hotel (then called Holiday Inn) being constructed. Almost three decades later this famous hotel was blown up by suicide bombers and/or psychotics who were in a hurry to reach the rooms their handlers had booked for them in paradise.
Two hippie tourists at a tea shop in Sibi, Balochistan, in 1972. .
Today, traveling to a Baloch town like the one in the picture has become a no-go area even for Pakistanis! (Photo courtesy Rory McLane)
A shelf in a shop displaying Scotch whiskey brands in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s ‘Bara market’ (smugglers’ market) in 1977.
The market was popular with both foreign tourists as well as Pakistanis coming from Karachi and Lahore to buy imported and/or smuggled cloth, clothes, shoes, electronic good and foreign whiskey brands.
The Bara area began to come under the influence of Islamist groups from the late 1980s and today the area has no such market and is in the grip of a violent and bloody conflict between armed fundamentalist outfits and the state of Pakistan.
