An easy ride for everyone to enjoy, it’s on the road so all kinds of bicycles can join...and since spring is in the air, for flower lovers this is a special oppoprtunity for you !

The Rose and Jasmine Garden is a public garden located within the recreational area of Shakarparian near Sports Complex Aabpara, on Kashmir Highway in Islamabad.

The park contains numerous kinds of roses, over 10 kinds of Jasmine, and an array of other flowers. Every year, the garden hosts many festivals and flower shows!

Join us for a presentation on the art of the Kashmir shawls and experience why generations later people around the world are still so enthralled by these handwoven works of art. The shawl has become a symbol of prosperity and luxury in the contemporary world, often passed from one generation to another as a family heirloom!

It is said that the first ever Kashmiri shawl was made in the 1500s during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. So enamoured was Akbar with this luxurious textile that, he established imperial workshops to encourage the growth of the Kashmiri shawl. The earliest Kashmiri shawls had a plain background with borders featuring large floral sprays, flower vases, and pinecones. The buti (flower in Urdu) is one of the most popular motifs found in Kashmiri shawls. This teardrop-shaped motif is a fusion of a stylised floral spray and a cedar tree: a Zoroastrian symbol of life and eternity. The cedar represents strength and resistance, but also modesty!

You will get to see the 'buti' and other motifs that make up the vibrant shawl patinas during the presentation/demonstration...an opportunity not to be missed!

Join us on one of our favourite hiking routes just before the Ramadan!

We will start from the foothill village of Noorpur to Pir Sohawa via the caves of Loh Dandi. We are meeting at Trail 3 parking from where we will go together on our own cars to the starting point.

This is an old route developed & used by local villagers. It offers a fascinating experience of walking past the old villages in the hills, besides offering views of the valleys below.

Car pool to go to the actual starting point of the hike: the parking of Loh Dandi.

The hike is around 8-9Km long. We will climb up a track made for the shrine and caves of Loh Dandi, and go all the way to the top. From there we will descend back to the parking through a beautiful track through the valley.

Hike rating is Hard. Wear sturdy shoes and bring refreshments. This is an opportunity for you to take some awesome photos for the next ASG Calendar!

Demonstrations and a taste of the delicious 'Iranian' cuisine, along with with its cultural history ...an opportunity not to be missed!

Iranian cooking is heir to no less than two and a half thousand years of saffron and rosewater-scented history. In many ways, Persian food is considered one of the world's most important and influential cuisines- the original mother cuisine!

The foods of the courts of ancient Persia (as Iran was called until the 1930s) included perfumed stews flavored with cinnamon, mint, and pomegranates; elaborate stuffed fruits and vegetables; and tender roasted meats — dishes that have influenced the cooking of countries as far-flung as India and Morocco...

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Day Trip/ Self Drive

Waterfowl migration from extremely cold Siberian Winters to the wildlife sanctuaries of Chashma Barrage, Mianwali Wetland Game Reserve, and Marala Headworks near Sialkot display their annual diversity of around 5 million birds of 46 waterfowl species from December till March.

Many of these species are under the threat of extinction due to excessive illegal hunting, duck netting, and shrinking water basins due to the cultivation of wheat on the sandy patches disturbing the natural habitat of the area’s avifauna.

For amateur/professional photographers and ordinary camera buffs, it is a great opportunity to capture images of these beautiful migratory waterfowls like Siberian Pied Wagtails and Cranes, Grebes, Egrets, Teels, and Tefted Ducks at Chashma Barrage, among various local species.

• Chashma Barrage on the River Indus was declared a wildlife sanctuary on January 31, 1974, for five years under the Punjab Wildlife Act, 1974. Since then, it has continuously existed as a wildlife sanctuary. It is a wetland of international importance and is also a RAMSAR Site. The sanctuary is 25 km southwest of Mianwali town on the Mianwali–Kundian–Dera Ismail Khan Road and comprises 0.327 million hectares. We will travel to Chashma Barrage on the newly constructed new Motorway . The three-hours drive will also give participants an opportunity to capture landscapes enroute !

Day trip/ hike

Tilla Jogian is the highest peak in the Salt Range 3200 feet above sea level. It offers a panoramic view of the Potohar plateau and splendid scenic beauty! Alberuni in his travelogue 'Kitab ul Hind' has mentioned the legendary ‘Tilla Jogian’ (Peak of Jogis) near Jhelum as the center of Jogis (Ascetics). This centuries old monastery of Jogis was in existence when Alexander fought the famous battle with Raja Porus near this ‘Tilla’ in 326 BC. It has also been known as ‘Tilla Gorakh Nath’ and ‘Tilla Bal Nath’ at different times. The remnants of the monastery and shrine still exist eg. a big pond with balconies, masonry tombs, places for meditation, and banyan trees among others.

We will travel on the G T road and then about 35km off-G T road to reach (via Domaili & Gattat villages) the village ‘Bheet’ located at the base of the 'Tilla Jogian' mountain. One-way travel time is about one and a half hour or slightly more. The hill is quite steep and after a maximum one & half hour’s moderate to strenuous hike, we will reach at the top of hill.

Wear sturdy shoes; bring refreshments.

Off-road cycling to Kot Jandaan...a test of the rider's endurance and perseverance-so bring out your MTB and stake your claim in the hills!

An easy part to Chauntra Village is followed by a tough part that will take us all the way up to the village Kot Jandaan!

Tough climbs, breathtaking views, exciting and thrilling downhills... not many have been here,and not many can... challenge yourselves, this is your chance to add to your list of accomplishments!

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'Silk' painting developed from Indonesian traditional 'batik' art makes a fun and relaxing hobby ! Hand painting scarves can create beautiful, wearable works of art and thoughtful gifts for friends and family. It can also be used to create focal elements in card making, wall hangings, pillowcases, bags, pocket squares, and other decorative projects.

In this beginner's guide to silk painting, we will show you how to make your own piece for wall-hanging or a square scarve. You will learn how to use 'gutta' to draw your outlines, and paint your own creative design using silk paint!

'EVEN WHEN WE LEAVE THEM, OUR CITIES NEVER LEAVE US ...'

After her Dutch mother’s death, Sorayya Khan confronts her grief by revisiting their relationship, her parents’ lives, and her own Pakistani-Dutch heritage in a multicultural memoir that unfolds over seven cities and three continents.

We Take Our Cities with Us ushers us from Khan’s childhood independence forged at her grandparents’ home in Lahore; to her adolescence in Pakistan’s new capital, Islamabad; to Syracuse and Ithaca, New York, where Khan finds her footing as the mother of young, brown sons in post-9/11 America; to her birthplace, Vienna, where her parents die; and finally to Amsterdam and Maastricht, the cities of her mother’s conflicted youth.

In Khan’s gripping telling of her immigrant experience, she shows us what it is to raise children and lose parents in worlds other than your own. Drawing on family history, geopolitics, and art in this stunning story of loss, identity, and rediscovery, Khan beautifully illuminates the complexities of our evolving global world and its most important constant: love...

·With grace and power, this mesmerizing memoir swirls from continent to continent, decade to decade, through a journey of identity, memory, loyalty, and loss. Part map, part family tree, We Take Our Cities with Us provides an intimate glimpse into what it means to make a home in the global modern age. Sorayya Khan is an exquisite storyteller—Eleanor Henderson

·We Take Our Cities with Us is a memoir of uncommon delicacy and emotional force: Sorayya Khan illuminates her hybrid legacy and international upbringing, braiding the multiple threads of her complex identity. This is an intimate, beautiful, and lasting book—Claire Messud

·This is a rich, wise, deeply moving reflection on cities that are both home to migrants and themselves migrants, having morphed into barely recognizable versions of their former selves. The ghosts of other times and places haunt the characters in this memoir. Sometimes that haunting is a reminder of what has been lost forever, but sometimes it can also be a consolation: even as our passports root us in one place, our curiosities, loves, and longings can make unexpected connections across supposedly insurmountable borders.—Jonathan Gil Harris

The programme will include short readings of We Take Our Cities with Us, and Sorayya will join us with pre-recorded remarks on her journey from novelist to memoirist and will offer us a glimpse into a writer's research process.

• Sorayya Khan is the author of We Take Our Cities with Us: A Memoir and three novels: Noor, Five Queen's Road, and City of Spies, which won the Best International Fiction Book Award at the Sharjah International Book Fair.

An opportunity to explore and celebrate the diversity of history and culture!

A group of Sikh physicians from the United States are visiting Pakistan for a Sikh Heritage Tour of Northwest Punjab. It includes individuals whose parents migrated from present day Pakistan in the events leading to partition. The participants will indulge in a 'culinary' activity where the restaurant's chefs will help them prepare everyday Pakistani cuisine!