After much media attention, US secretary Hilary Clinton and Pakistan’s foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar finally had a “dialogue” in London over Pak-US relations. From news reports, it seems that Ms. Clinton really had a lot to say, but what was our foreign minister doing the whole time? What is striking about all news reports… [Read more…]
February 25, 2012
Yesterday, another journalist was killed while covering the Syrian military operation in the city of Homs. Marie Colvin’s last broadcast, aired just hours before she died, was about the painful death of a child during the Siege of Homs. When CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper voiced some general concerns about media showing gruesome images from conflict… [Read more…]
January 28, 2012
A few weeks ago, there was a whole FHM controversy surrounding Veena Malik posing nude (read topless) for an Indian magazine. Despite the fact that it was her “personal” matter, there were arguments about morality, nationality, honour and the list goes on. Then came Maya Khan and Malik was nowhere. Television channels and newspapers started… [Read more…]
August 17, 2011
Believe it or not, you did enjoy Aamir Liaquat’s recent video that went viral over the internet on August 14. Independence Day is also about freedom of expression, right? Whether it was fake or real is secondary at this point. What’s important is that despite being removed from the original source, the video is still… [Read more…]
June 24, 2011
A month after Yaser (better known as Lieutenant Syed Yaser Abbas Shaheed) lost his wallet, he received a letter along with his identity card. It was an apology from the guy who had stolen it. He wrote that it was the dire need for money that had forced him to steal, that he was really… [Read more…]
November 24, 2010
That day we received his first letter ever since he had left Pind’dadan Khan as we, the people of subcontinent, parted our ways. For the next three weeks, our postman narrated Zeildar Sheir Singh’s letter aloud across the town. By the fourth week, Pind’dadan has already known it by heart. To Pind’dadan Khan Life… [Read more…]
August 11, 2009
In the middle of many dopatta clad women, she sat. With them sighing and consoling around her, she sniffed and wiped off her tears that never seemed to dry out. Having her eyes fixed on the Persian rug under her fair pedicured feet, her mind recounted all the childhood tragedies that were sufficient to keep… [Read more…]
August 23, 2008
Alley – A blind alley holding such a deep gloominess as if the gleam has forgotten to tread into these paths. Here in the pitch dark, I stand with my eyes craving for a ray of light and my ears sensing the silence- a deafening silence till there echoes a crackle, as if of a… [Read more…]
August 23, 2008
Prologue: Sin – the essence of human clay. (intd: txt) Chapter 1 It began much earlier than I realized it was coming. It wasn’t a conspiracy of gods. Gods had always known what I cared about most. Gods had always been oblivious. For long, it stayed uninvited behind the closed doors until that day when… [Read more…]
June 26, 2008
When the three titan Earth Gods met at the dawn with the fumes of mist ove rtheir breasts and seas running at their feet, they moaned and growled and yelled and said, ‘what immortality for death to us seems a sweet dream! Is not this immortality a curse upon us. We , the poor immortals, cannot… [Read more…]
March 17, 2012
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