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From Sado Mazo to Peeplasar – A road less travelled
Dadu is a treacherous, arid district. The weather can be unforgiving and water is hard to find. The landscape is vast, and the settlements sporadic. However, in this very landscape, many civilisations...
View ArticleI’m a certified Grammar Nazi, and I couldn’t pass IELTS
Nothing wrecks an English writer’s pride – his “unfaltering” confidence in his own pen – like being made to repeat an internationally acclaimed English language test due to an insufficient score.IELTS,...
View ArticleAs a minority, it is the everyday discrimination that hurts me most
It’s National Minorities Day again and the government will undoubtedly cite its 'achievements' in this area. I don't claim to be an expert on the subject of minority rights but I do have the experience...
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HONY: The deleted images from Pakistan
Quite a few pictures from Pakistan on the popular photoblog Humans of New York’s (HONY) have recently been recovered. According to sources, Brandon Stanton, who was recently in Pakistan publishing...
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Food Stories: Tandoori Chicken
Cooking is not about exact measurements or exact techniques, instead it is an ‘art with heart’ of somewhat following a recipe, going with approximates and tweaking if required. If tomatoes are not...
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Letters from India: The 22-year-wait for a Pakistani fisherman's wife
5:10pmIt was 10 minutes past five at the Sachal Hall at Ibrahim Hyderi. Sakina anxiously waited for her husband’s arrival. She will see his face today after a long 22 years. Hussain Walarhi Mallah left...
View ArticleAugust 15 — Pakistan's Independence Day
Syed Shamsuddin, a friend of mine, often gets irritated when people fail to show up on time for meetings; some of them are late by a day. For quite some time now, he has been asking the latecomers to...
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August 14 preparations: The sea of green at Pakistan Chowk
Flags, T-shirts, hats, bangles, badges, wrist bands ... it's all here, and it's all green.This is the Paper Market at Pakistan Chowk, where hundreds of vendors have set up stalls, selling special...
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Shaping histories: The most influential books in Pakistan
The books listed and reviewed below, all authored by Pakistanis, went on to construct socio-political narratives of large sections of Pakistan’s polity, and also abetted in the shaping of policies of...
View ArticleThe seven long years when Pakistan did not sing its national anthem
For seven long years after the inception of their country, the people of Pakistan could not sing their national anthem. The reason? They simply didn’t have one. During this period, they got on by...
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Pakistan, you're beautiful
This is a compilation of some of the country's well known – and lesser known – landmarks, where Pakistan is looking its best. Here is to our cherished country on its 69th Independence Day. Happy...
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Stories from an attic: A childhood spent in the libraries of Quetta
Unlike the densely populated and highly volatile Quetta of today, the city in the '60s was a happy, lively, and safe place, where just a hundred thousand people from vastly different ethnic and social...
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India’s first talkie ‘Alam Ara’ and Jinnah’s role in it
It was somewhere around 1930 when the idea of Alam Ara took root. Having seen Universal Pictures’ Show Boat (1929) (a “40 per cent talkie” in his words), at the Excelsior Theatre in Bombay, Imperial...
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Putting railways back on track in Pakistan
Thinking fast and slow is what Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Laureate in Economics, thinks humans do. Planning fast and moving slow is what Pakistan Railways does.With cumulative liabilities reaching 74...
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Just reborn, our film industry already needs a rescue
If you have drudged through the recent string of inarticulate mazes that are modern movie plots featuring meaningless song and dance, then perhaps your faith in the revival of this industry runs the...
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Gwalerai — The little village behind Swat's famous apples
Located just 38 kilometres away from Mingora, the central city of district Swat, Gwalerai is one of those few villages which produces 18 varieties of apples, thanks to its temperate climate in summer....
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Downtown Karachi: A street called love
Marred by years of political and sectarian violence, Karachi does not have the best reputation; judging by news headlines over the past few years, many would think of it as being a highly intolerant...
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Digital preservation to the rescue of Pakistan's crumbling monuments
Our heritage sites are key to safeguarding a shared national identity and cultural legacy, but they are withering away.Cultural heritage sites in Pakistan tell a poetic tale of the history of this...
View ArticleOf sexism and unflushed toilets: The Pakistani travelling experience
Travelling domestic is perhaps the worst experience one could have in Pakistan. It beats threading nose hair and trying to find a good tax lawyer. And it’s not just because you have to fly PIA, with...
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How we made Pakistan proud at the World Schools Debating Championships
This is the story of how a debater from Islamabad managed to find himself competing in the World Schools Debating Championships.I got into debating in a pretty normal way. Islamabad has a developed MUN...
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