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US and Pakistan: More alike than you think
The US and Pakistan have been closely allied since the signing of the first mutual defense treaty in May 1954.There was a brief interruption during the left leaning government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto,...
View ArticleJimmy nay socha: Eye 2 Eye
In the everyday festival of negativity that we live in, dear Shah has been a beautiful light of positivity and patience. If you have been following the status updates and the story of the man, you'll...
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Another lament for Pakistan
It was a time of destruction and devastation. When novelist James Michener published his essay “A Lament for Pakistan” in the New York Times in January of 1972, the country had been hacked in half....
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Movie Review: Captain Phillips
A still from movie, 'Captain Phillips' - Courtesy PhotoTom Hanks plays Captain Richard Phillips, a very real man in the adaptation of a very real-life crisis, in a film that stays away from the black...
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Meeting a man from the Raj under an autumn sky
This was an autumn sky; ablaze with colours of grief and joy. But the 87-year old police officer, Ell Enn, was not looking at the sky. He was not even in the room. He was in Amritsar but not in today’s...
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There’s a rule book, Modi Saheb
Investigations by two websites, who accessed conversations between a senior Gujarat police official and Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s close aide Amit Shah, have again emphasised that the man who wants...
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The famous Four – Part III
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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Movie Review: Ram-Leela
'Ramleela' movie poster. - Courtesy PhotoA bloody, grand, color-splashed spin on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet features Romeo in the adult film retail business and Juliet prepared to jump him...
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The reluctant viewer
I recently finally got around to watching Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist based on Mohsin Hamid’s novella of the same name. And after a long time I felt I should write something down, not as a...
View ArticleShia-Sunni schism: A challenge to world peace
The recent violence in Rawalpindi or the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Beirut are not the only manifestations of the intra-Muslim sectarian discord. The inability of Muslims to settle a 7th century...
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The 1974 ouster of the ‘heretics’: What really happened?
The sole culprit?The legacy of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, is a mixed bag of praise, platitudes and panning.Where, on the one hand, he is hailed as being perhaps the sharpest...
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In search of the Victoria Museum – Part II
Akhtar Balouch, also known as the Kiranchi Wala, ventures out to bring back to Dawn.com’s readers the long forgotten heritage of Karachi. Stay tuned to this space for his weekly fascinating...
View ArticleJimmy nay socha: Teez
While everyone’s trying to be smart in this land of the smartest, perhaps we need to look into what is smart and what is not so smart. Given the current scenario, I’d like to encourage stupidity more...
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Movie Review: Thor: The Dark World
A scene from movie, "Thor: The Dark World". - Courtesy PhotoNeglecting Kenneth Branagh’s Shakespearean turn from the last “Thor”, “The Dark World” settles for tourist spots, alien locales and a lot of...
View ArticleIs Pakistan suffering from 'observer effect'?
“You know, there was a Pakistani cricket team with five county captains, one of a kind in international cricket history. Asif Iqbal was captain at Kent, Zaheer Abbas at Gloucestershire, Intikhab Alam...
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Iqbal’s love: Iqbal’s life
In the late 19th century, the worn tapestries of Mughal glories still told their tales to the subcontinent’s Muslims. There existed then such a thing as a Secretariat of Poetry, run by Nawab Mirza Khan...
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Dollars do not grow on trees: Deaths, murders and suicides
State police investigate near a vehicle in a supermarket parking lot in Pleasant Valley, NY., where 49-year-old pharmacist Abbas Lodhi and one of sons were found shot dead. –Photo by AP“The moon is...
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Be the standard you want from others
It’s probably the first time ever that a leading Indian editor has been named and shamed in public for allegedly raping a young woman colleague. In my 25-odd years as a journalist, there have been...
View ArticleOde to Karachi: “Separation”
This blog is part 1 of a three-part series.How do you separate yourself from the place you were born and grew up? You are inexplicably linked to that place. Good or bad, bitter or sweet, it becomes a...
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Degrees without education
Pakistan’s poor performance in education is well-documented in terms of statistics. What is, however, not so well-described is the learning level of those who are counted as educated. I recently...
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