I had a free day, so I decided to try the new Lahore Metro Bus to get across town. The bus was full, but in a normal way, rather than the clown car stuffing that goes on in other buses and vans. For 20 rupees, I hopped on and the bus took me far across town. I hopped off at Qalma Chowk and walked around for a bit, then hopped back on and went back a stop to Qaddafi Stadium. I checked out the Punjab Art Museum, which had some beautiful Punjabi arts and handicrafts. From there, I stopped by a book store, then walked over to Hafeez Center, a huge building devoted to computer and cell phone shops. This place has grown a lot over the years.
From there, I crossed the street, and checked out a small, dusty book shop. I said hello to the ancient owner, and asked how he was doing. He said, terrible. I sit here all day with nothing to do. Business was obviously pretty rough. He offered to help me find anything I might be looking for, but I didn’t have anything in mind. I just looked through the books. Eventually, I found a couple of books of poetry that had some good things, such as meanings of difficult words at the end of each piece. That is very helpful to me and I was glad to find something I could lend a bit of support to the shop with. I wished him well and he smiled a bit as I left. The life of a book store owner is pretty rough.A friend from my high school days in Lahore; Usman, picked me up from there and we had a delicious meal courtesy of his wife. It was fun to catch up and see him in a good place. His wife shared some really interesting things about Urdu literature, as that is her passion and was her major in college. Her Uncle has an Urdu literary magazine, I look forward to checking out.Afterwards, my friend dropped me off at the hostel. A short while later, my friend Imran called to see if I wanted to grab a bite to eat. I wasn’t really hungry, but we met up at a little spot across the street from me. The food was good. I had an aloo paratha and finally had a lassi. I felt like I had been in Lahore for too long without having a lassi. One thing that struck me about the place, was that it was decorated in large images of Las Vegas. The funniest part was the Casino with Quranic passages added on top. You could even see the word casino in a little sign in the photo.
