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.…
Abject surrender
My piece published in The Friday Times How can I remain unaffected and quiet after seeing that my country might be disfigured and my…
Brewing storms
Raza Rumi laments the tragedies of our times, and says that the state cannot be absolved of its responsibility to protect citizens against terrorism…
Civil society speaks
Zinda dilaan-e-Lahore say no to Talibanisation, reports Raza Rumi Never before have we citizens been traumatised with an uncertain future and the knocks of…
Reclaiming melody
Izzat Majeed was raised in a household where good music was an object of reverence. His late father, Mian Abdul Majeed was an avid…
Nightingale of Peshawar falls silent
My piece published in The Friday Times The bombing of Rehman Baba’s shrine is more proof that we are slipping, inch by inch, into…
Chronicles foretold
A piece that I wrote with Asad Sayeed for The Friday Times. This piece was written before the long March and the subsequent developments…
Capitulating Rajas: why Taliban might not be resisted
My new piece for The Friday Times South Asian history is a tale of capitulation of local elites before external invaders. Be it the…
Casteism is alive and well in Pakistan
What do you expect of a country where the aboriginals are known as janglis, asks Raza Rumi It is a cliche now to say…
Lost Imaginations
Sixty one years have gone by but the creation of Pakistan is still a heated debate: contested, fractured and bitter. That history has been…
Rediscovering Zahoor ul Akhlaq (1941-1999)
Raza Rumi asks if Pakistani state and society are ready to reclaim the great artist on his tenth death anniversary Ten years ago, on…
Imagined homeland
It irks me when I hear simplistic platitudes on Pakistani society, state or people. The heterogeneity of Pakistan is by itself an anthropologist’s dream,…
Remembering Benazir Bhutto
I am reposting my piece that was written a year ago. It seems that not much has changed in these twelve months It was…
Unfullfiled Civic Longing
Written for The Friday Times, Pakistan After Mumbai, I have stopped watching television. I will not participate in the senseless jingoism of the Indo-Pak…
Data Ganj Baksh: Lahore’s oldest guide
Perhaps the greatest of the experiences at Data Darbar is to find oneself connected to a stream of humanity, shoulder to shoulder, with a…
Islamabad: This too shall pass
Bemoaning Islamabad’s fall from grace Not long ago, Delhi and Lahore were vulnerable to hordes of foreign invaders. The Mongol fear was overwhelming and…
The words of others
My piece published in the Friday Times last week For decades, Pakistan’s poets and writers have defied conventions and the almighty establishment. Rooted in…
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…