Happy Diwali – on light and triumph

Indians and Hindus in Pakistan are celebrating Diwali today – I wish them a very happy Diwali. There will be fireworks and festivities signifying…

Ajoka Theatre and the Caucasian Chalk Circle

  Who is entitled to keep the child – one who is a better, nurturing mother, or the one who may be the natural…

Poverty and Inequality – the brewing storm

My op-ed first published here As I sipped the tenderly brewed coffee facing the lush green golf course of a relatively new Lahore Country…

Confronting militancy

The unedited version of my op-ed published in the NEWS today: It is time that the vocabulary introduced by the global imperial projects is…

Ode to Benaras – Ghalib’s grand vision

The cancer of communalism and bigotry in South Asia continues to haunt us. These days, the Muslims are once again a subject of intense,…

Lahore blasts fail to terrorise Lahoris

Having lived two days in Lahore as a ‘resident’, the three low intensity blasts are a rude reminder that there is a war all…

The pampered Islamabadites

My piece published by Himal Southasian Islamabad is a very peculiar urban space. Though no longer a town, it is still struggling to become…

Living Lohawarana – a Lahori rambling

My piece for Himal Magazine’s October issue There was a Lahore that I grew up in, and then there is the Lahore that I…