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Thari culture, palla fish, Bombay bakery and my meethi journey through rural...
Quiet recently, I joined a small group of close friends on a trip to Tharparkar, Sindh. The three of us reached Karachi by air and went to Hyderabad by road, where two other group members joined us....
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If Hindi is a threat to our national and regional languages, what about English?
Doraemon (a Japanese manga anime dubbed in Hindi) is blamed for the corruption of our children’s own language as we continue to speak a mish-mash of Urdu, English and our respective regional languages....
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Pakistan, I am of you, from you, and no matter where I am, inseparable from you
Once when I was six years old I sneaked out of my grandmother’s house in Lahore’s old Mozang neighbourhood and headed for the nearby Mozang Bazaar, a large market of red-brick shops over a hundred...
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I am Pakistani, just like you. Except we’re not the same
Edmonton like many other metropolitan cities is an interesting blend of people of various nationalities, race, religion and creed. Walk around in the neighbourhood or enjoy the lazy summer sunshine in...
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The invasion of the Lahori relatives
There are times when one must write. The alternative is to burst – which would be messy. Because they came today, the rellies (relatives), while I was playing Scrabble on Facebook in a pleasant state...
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Why is Sindhi considered an inferior language to English or Urdu?
It was Friday afternoon and I was holed up in my room, surfing through the internet when my nine-year-old sister entered. She had just gotten back home from school so she was still wearing her school...
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If you think Trump is racist, come to Pakistan
Muslims in the US and across the globe are condemning, in the strongest possible words, the US President-Elect Trump, for his anti-Islam rhetoric during the election campaign. And now that the British...
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Why have we forgotten the long lost glory of the Punjabi language?
The thorny issue of “Pakistan’s regional languages face looming extinction” has been projected to the forefront in an AFP report carried, among others, by The Express Tribune and Dawn. ‘“There is not a...
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I think, pray and speak in English, so why should I speak to my children in...
My twins are almost three-years-old and they can’t speak Urdu, my ‘mother tongue’. They hear it being spoken around the house, and occasionally I may try to converse with them in Urdu but truth be...
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A Sindhi living in Sindh, yet ashamed of their own “tacky” language
I am one of those lucky few who got to spend her childhood with her grandparents. My grandfather would tell me stories of the days of Partition. He was quite young at the time, but seemed to remember...
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Mohammad Khalid Akhtar’s witty, pithy advice for the New Year
Mohammad Khalid Akhtar (1920-2002) was one of the greatest, albeit marginalised and neglected, Urdu satirists of the 20th century. Despite hailing from Bahawalpur, he broke the monopoly of the...
View ArticleWith Zidane back on the sidelines, will Real Madrid make the most of the...
For much of the 2018-19 season, Real Madrid’s campaign has been driven by pessimism and trepidation. From mediocre performances on the field to a lack of purpose off it, the Los Blancos found...
View ArticleWhy is the US making a mountain out of the Masood Azhar molehill?
The United States has introduced a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution to blacklist Masood Azhar as an international terrorist. Azhar is the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed (banned in Pakistan...
View ArticleKnock knock! Annabelle is coming home and things are about to get real scary
Following the Marvel path, The Conjuring universe has grown steadily over the last six years through both, the increasing returns that most films in the franchise have delivered and in stature through...
View ArticleIndia’s ‘Operation Isolation’ and the soft power of sports
“Our message is stronger than ever. Please stop the fighting. Please stop the killing. Please drop your guns.” Juan Antonio Samaranch, President International Olympic Committee speaking at the Winter...
View ArticleWhen khudkushi became her only freedom
The sky was a pool of black ink, dusted with stars at midnight. Arsh looked out from the window — she saw many little streets sprawled out below. She had only known these streets from inside the walls...
View ArticleIran and Iraq may not be tourist hot spots, but they offer a spiritual...
I was recently invited to a trip to Iran and Iraq by a group of close friends from Lahore, and as I had never been to these states before, I decided to take the opportunity to visit the shrines...
View ArticleRawalpindi: A chaotic labyrinth, caught between heritage and heresy
In the post-modern world, the topography of the city has undergone a drastic shift. Rapid urbanisation and growing job opportunities have resulted in many cities in the developing world being swamped...
View ArticleRaw and poignant, A Place for Us beautifully sheds light on familial love
It had been some time since I cried while reading a book. And A Place for Us changed that. Fatima Farheen Mirza’s dazzling debut novel tells the story of a South Asian Muslim family living in America....
View ArticleSea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini: A father’s lament of the barbarity we call...
“My dear Marwan, I look at your profile, In the glow of this three-quarter moon, my boy, Your eyelashes like calligraphy, Closed in guileless sleep. I said to you, ‘Hold my hand. Nothing bad will...
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