Fatal obsession
It is a matter of public record that the founder of Pakistan had stated that Indo-Pakistan relationship will resemble that of the USA and…
Divide or perish: creating new provinces in Pakistan
My piece published in TFT Since 1947, two characteristics of the Pakistani state have continued to haunt its legitimacy and survival. The first relates…
Karachi Literary Festival: Spring in the land of suicide bombers and charlatans
Who says Pakistani literature was a relic of the past? If anything, Pakistani authors have a global audience today, and our writers are now…
Institutions, accountability and the UN Report
The Pakistani citizenry has a right to know and live in a rule-based, just society where political assassinations are not the norm. If the…
Who’s afraid of Dara Shikoh’s ghost?
It is now a given that the Pakistani state is a playground for Islamism and extremism under various guises and forms. Since the passage…
Whither civilian governance?
My new piece published by The Friday Times While the gurus of security and international affairs continue to unpack and make sense of the…
In memoriam – Asim Butt (1978-2010)
But it was Asim’s venture into public art and his subsequent adoption of the Stuckist creed that turned him into a major figure at…
No priests needed – search of a Pakistani identity
With a demographic revolution in the making, a depressed and cynical youth is a time bomb that we are living with. Things will have…
In Memory Of The Inimitable Madam Nur Jehan
A common Punjabi aphorism, loosely translated, states that there never was and never will be anyone like Nur Jehan. With her incredible talent, fiercely…
Let the cynics froth and fume
This is the magic of Lahore and its deep-rooted cultural mores. No other city can boast of such individuals, movements and trends. Hopefully, the…
Folklore sans frontiers
I was part of a delegation from Pakistan that was driving to Chandigarh to attend the SAARC folklore festival organized by Punjab’s legendary writer…
Anchorless rambling
We did it again. A hallmark of Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan was her meeting with the stars of the Pakistani media – the…
Remembering Parveen Shakir (1952-1994)
Parveen Shakir (1952-1994) has defined the sensibilities of several generations and beyond. At the relatively young age of 42 years, Parveen Shakir died on…
The Romance of Raja Rasalu
Story telling has been a primordial urge, never quite expressed in its fullest measure, but always lingering and floating like life. There was a…
‘I belong to Ranjha’ – the syncreticism of Lahore’s Shah Hussain
Lahore, the ancient city of Loh, the age-old halt for invaders, is also the home to eclectic Sufis. Men and women who shed conventions…
Muslimness – shifting boundaries
Muslimness is an elusive state of being. There are watertight strictures of the theological identity defined by men, interpreted as the Sharia, on the…
My Travels to Delhi
Finally, I wrote a piece on Delhi …… Delhi’s present day chaos cannot belittle its grand past, which created a civilisation and shaped the…
Book review: Challenging martial histories
This book review was published in The Friday Times (June 19-25 2009 issue) This was a hot May afternoon when I found myself at…
Sufi hearts in Delhi
This was published in The Friday Times in the May 22-29, 2009 issue Getting a visa to India is a nightmare for ordinary mortals.…
Fahmida Riaz – “Her dreams of the future”
Barricaded Islamabad enveloped by the ghosts of national gloom has one little corner of hope. The Pakistan Academy of Letters, under its dynamic and…