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Movie Review: 47 Ronin
A scene from movie, "47 Ronin". - Courtesy PhotoOnce upon a time, in Japan, a land of mysteries and legends (or so we’re told), a company of masterless warriors and a middle-aged man of mix-cultures,...
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Pray step gently, lest the thin shell of my loneliness crack
They brought flowers to him. He smiled and asked the nurse to place the daffodils on the little table where they kept his medicines. Roses were placed on his left and tulips on the right, so that he...
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Sanwal, come back
On one drizzly London evening in early August, a fellow countryman disembarked from the tube at the Russell Square Underground station. Looking here and there like a stranger, the man exited the...
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The girl bomber
A blown up girl minimises losses, leaves behind the boys for other things. -Photo by AFPShe said she is the sister of a local Taliban commander. Spozhmai, a young girl said to be about 10 or...
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The feminine way
Ela Bhatt has to be one of India’s most influential change-makers. She founded and led self-help group SEWA– or the Self-Employed Women’s Association – that has transformed the lives of nearly two...
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Food Stories: Gajar ka halwa
A little girl stood in the corner of her home terrace, devouring a plate of Gajar ka halwa, unaware of the peeping auntie from the house next door. Yes, I was a chubby little kid always ready to sneak...
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A dialogue with mass murderers
Imran Khan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif want to hold talks with the Taliban. They may do so. And while they are at it, they should ask the Taliban why they assassinated my neighbour, Syed Alim...
View ArticleMr. Strachan and Maulana Wafaai
There were many people who played their part in the development of Karachi, but among them a name that stands out is Mr James Strachan. When it comes to political and journalistic terms, Maulana Deen...
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Great Pakistan cricket captains (and then some)
Cricket is perhaps the only sport in which a captain actually does more than just play the game or wear an armband. Apart from having good, consistent cricketing abilities, he has to also exhibit a...
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Tales of ordinary terror
We can all rattle off the list of losses, and it’s a long list. The bomb on the bus in Mastung, the bodies lying on Alamdar road, the funeral processions of dead polio workers, the flag covered coffins...
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Movie Review: The Wolf of Wall Street
A scene from movie, "The Wolf of Wall Street". - Courtesy PhotoAccording to Jordan Belfort, a man’s best friend isn’t greed, sex or drugs: it’s cold, hard excessiveness.For the longest time, make it...
View Article“This is the editor logging out…”
“I do many, many things. I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher, but, above all, I am a man. A hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.” Musadiq did not say this....
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An ordinary man’s story: Fetch your ball, wag your tail, bark
This is part 2 of a two-part series. Read part 1 here.As Aam Aadmi or Ordinary Man’s left ear grew, he noticed another curious change: he could hear voices from the past, both immediate and distant. It...
View ArticleHopelessness vs helplessness
After Interior Minster Chaudhary Nisar’s visit to Alamdar road and a successful negotiation with the community leaders, the Hazaras finally agreed to lay to rest the bodies of their loved ones after a...
View ArticleDon’t fritter it away
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), on which so many have pinned so much hope, has disappointed many of its supporters after its Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti took the law into his own hands.Women’s groups...
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The legend of Rohi – I
For whom the bell tollsThe 16th day of April in 1853 is special in the Indian history. The day was a public holiday. At 3:30 pm, as the 21 guns roared together, the first train carrying Lady Falkland,...
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Afghans and Pakistanis; friends turned foes?
‘Man mekhahum dar aidna raees-e daulat-e Afghanistan Shawam [I want to be the president of Afghanistan in the future]’, says Nogreh in front of her class at a girl’s school built of mud walls in Kabul,...
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From Geneva to nowhere...
As on every Monday, I headed to visit my neighbour Um Nour, a Syrian housewife from the industrial city of Homs, now lying besieged in ruins. It is hard forget your alienation in Turkey. Watching...
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Movie Review: Jai Ho
A scene from movie, "Jai Ho". - Courtesy PhotoPay it forward – or get out of the wayIn “Jai Ho”, the new action-drama-cum human message movie starring Salman Khan, no good deed goes unpaid, and no...
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Moving masses
A professionally managed and efficiently delivered public transit service has been a dream of urban residents in Pakistan. The dream though came true for 140,000-plus Lahoris who enjoy an efficient,...
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