I read this fantastic letter in Dawn. The writer wondered about the instinctive ability of religious parties to protest against Israeli attacks on Palestinians, but they keep mum when the Taliban attack fellow Pakistanis through suicide bombers. So true, I thought. Not only do I never see them protesting against suicide attacks, sometimes they can [...]
Only Punjab and Pluto fell to Mian Saab whose brother Shahbaz Sharif has now started to sort out the obscene mess left behind by Musharraf and his cabaret ensemble of discoing Chaudhries and their merry men and loud, obnoxious women. Recently the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said that vulgarity and obscenity in the name [...]
A colleague of mine — a funny, upbeat office joker — has this habit of cracking faith-based jokes. He’ll tell you Sikh jokes, he’ll crack Christian jokes, Hindu jokes, Jewish jokes, even some Zoroastrian and Buddhist jokes. Late last week he approached me early in the morning and said that I must hear his brand [...]
“Fashion industry.” Really, what on earth is this “fashion industry” in Pakistan? Some newspapers have gone on and on about the ins and outs, the trials and tribulations, the glory and the triumphs of “Pakistan’s fashion industry.” I’ve seen many young journalists passionately discussing and then scribbling page after page about the “politics” (read gossip), [...]
Like the Palestinian Intifada, the recent Kashmiri uprising has nothing to do with bombs, kidnappings, beheadings and assorted terrorist tactics. Instead, it is now unfolding in the streets with stones, flags, speeches and slogans confronting bullets, arrests and teargas. I’ve never been much of an enthusiast of the Kashmir issue though I’ve held an academic [...]
Just as there is a serious lack of objectivity, responsibility or sometimes simple decency in most political TV talk shows, religious shows too are riddled with a warped display of what could best be described as narcissist anarchy. It was inevitable. Former minister and host of a religious TV show, Dr Aamir Liaquat, who is [...]
Right from the beginning, the overall political character of the Pakistani bourgeois and the petty-bourgeois emerged as being conservative. On September 6 when these pages are in front of you, Asif Ali Zardari will be well on his way to becoming the next President of Pakistan. Meanwhile, it has been a most interesting exercise following [...]
Differences between Muslims and Hindus that became the basis for the Muslim League’s call for a separate state had to do with socio-political realities. It was a fantastic experience watching a bunch of twenty-somethings getting all excited about Independence Day. Of course, the cynical, jaded me couldn’t help but explain this behaviour as a means [...]
It was 1991. I’d just quit the University of Karachi and joined a weekly magazine as a feature writer. My office was on the fourth floor in a building on I. I. Chundrigarh Road. I headed down to get myself a pack of cigarettes and a saada-khushbu paan. The moment I stepped out, my way [...]
If today Karachi’s middle classes are not largely pro-Musharraf, they are neither so vehemently against him. Pakistan is at war. It is a conflict of ideas across the country and Pakistan’s bourgeoning middle-classes are at the centre of it. A class that first clearly emerged on the country’s economic and social radar in the 1980s, [...]
