Greetings from Lahore, Pakistan, whose high court offers an oasis for chatter and chai
A reflection on the Lahore High Court in Pakistan highlights the contrast between the colonial-era architecture and the surrounding polluted city. The piece touches on the social divide between the elite and the masses in Pakistan.
Why it matters
It provides a cultural and social commentary on urban inequality and the preservation of colonial history in modern Pakistan.
Diaa Hadid/NPR I'm always eager for an excuse to visit the Lahore High Court in the British-built quarters of Pakistan's second-largest city.
To me, the high court is a near-perfect specimen of British South Asian colonial architecture: Mughal in its curly arches that frame porticos, the Gothic detail that emerges through the red brick baked on the city's outskirts in pluming kilns.
Within, it's a sea of busy, flapping penguins: Pakistani lawyers in their uniforms of white shirts and black suits rushing between courtrooms.
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