Although absent from Oxford's English and Ferozson's Urdu dictionaries the word Chowk is becoming omni-present in the weave of the world wide web. Common usage indicates that Chowk represents an intersection; a meeting place, a town square, a crossover point for 4 or even more avenues. And this is precisely what Chowk is for the numerous visitors who enter Chowk.

A rendezvous with Chowk begins on the sketch of Main Chowk. As you move your mouse cursor on the image the various sections and subsections of Chowk beckon each visitor with appealing names. Among the sections, there is 14 University Avenue for the academic minded, 8 market Street for the business types, 47 Civic Center Drive for the sociologists within us, Leafy Glade Inn for the literature inclined, Gymkhana for the sports fans, and Dilpasand Chaathouse for all to spice up their nerve cells. Besides these 6 sections there is Tour Guide for the less adventurous and a Salvation Army Store for information on Chowk and the Chowkwalas who look after the site.

Under most sections there are several sub-sections. There are places with names like Galli Qasim in Leafy Glade Inn; a take on the street where Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib resided. Laplacian Outhouse, again in Leafy Glade Inn; a take on a famous mathematician who developed the Laplace Transform. Shifa Clinic, a virtual clinic with a real Doctor, who apparently has both a medical and an engineering degree! This is not all, there are numerous other nooks in Chowk and each one of them is a metaphor.

Chowk was born on August 14, 1997 in Silicon Valley, California. In the 150 days of 1997 Chowk has seen an exponential growth in its readership and content base. In the latest count there were over 110 essays, articles and poems that had been published on Chowk. This number does not include the numerous replies that each article has received. Yes, all articles on Chowk can be replied online. And the replies cleverly accumulated in a chronological fashion along with each article. This unique InterAct feature makes Chowk more like a Virtual, i.e. Internet Community than a passive website - a current trend in the Internet World and a feature that makes reading each article much more interesting. The writers on Chowk are mostly Pakistani professionals residing in various parts of the world. A majority of the writers are working women and men of Pakistani origin. There are a few articles from writers of other ethnic origin.

In comparison with other sites, not limited to just India and Pakistan, Chowk is an extremely creative and superior effort. The quality of articles and the overall concept is undoubtedly extraordinary. Since Chowk has an "unedited" feedback section it is very easy to see how readers have rated the magazine. There are a number of comments about Chowk being the greatest site they have ever visited.

In case you feel overwhelmed with the amount of choice avail able, there is conventional keyword search engine and an unconventional i nteractivity search called "Current Temperature at Chowk". The latter is an innovative method via which a Chowk visitor can actually track the article and estimate the reaction it has received from the readers in a moment. In a nutshell, initiative and innovativeness are the catch words for the site.