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How I questioned the dictator whose atrocious actions still haunt Pakistan
Can you debate with a dictator in public on his home turf? Imagine someone challenging Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi without becoming breakfast for the pet crocodiles the next morning. The debater would have to have their...July 5, 2019 1485 1 -
The poem beginning with the clap of thunder
Votive Peregrination The clap of thunder and jagged silence riding high in a momentary calm of synthetic awe. To witness emotions drilled in Time and fossilized like the luminous eyes of the loved ones now gone...June 27, 2019 1064 0 -
‘The Dragonfly and Other Poems’ reflects on Mashal Khan, blinded Kashmiris and much more
There is something about the old Frontier Province which lifts the heart when crossing the Attock into the land of the Pukhtun; the poet awakens. That is what Sir Evelyn Howell, the outstanding Pukhtunphile, wrote; or...June 16, 2019 1393 0 -
A poet’s anguish: ‘They are taking them away’
sullen shine the stars the moon in agony aloof so still stand the palm trees the seasons are bearing my dreams away sanity suspended while all the dark horrors of the mind uncoil slowly snakely settle...June 2, 2019 707 0 -
A poet’s reflections on twilight days and Delhi nights
Leave us here in our women’s chambers leave us here so secure chewing the lotus with lotus maiden amidst the fumes of a suspended past that waft away an uncertain future space so marble-cooled illusions so...April 7, 2019 1119 0 -
A poet’s tribute to NZ PM Jacinda Ardern
A Pakistani poet has beautifully expressed sentiments of many in the Muslim community with a thought-provoking tribute to the brave and honest leadership of New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern in the aftermath of massacres in...March 26, 2019 2043 1 -
A poet’s reflections on the Khyber Pass
At the Khyber Pass There is nothing spectacular or even dramatic in the climb or the mountains but the air is almost tense in its silence so insolently indifferent to me and my times here:...March 20, 2019 1002 0 -
Ibn Khaldun and Weber – Differences and similarities between the two sociological inquiries
The ideas of Max Weber, a German sociologist living in the university towns of Bismarckian Germany, and Ibn Khaldun, a sociologist of tribal societies born almost half a millennium earlier on the edge of the Sahara...December 15, 2018 1841 0 -
Why states fail to understand the tribes
A woman is traveling with her camel in Baluchistan , Pakistan, Image Credit: Tariqsulemani//Wikimedia Commons I have been fascinated by the relationship between Muslim tribal societies living on the peripheries of modern states and central governments....November 10, 2018 1671 1 -
Claire Chambers – Making British-Pakistani connections through literary pursuits
In her intellectual curiosity that has taken her to lands and peoples far from her home, Dr Claire Chambers reflects the spirit of the British scholar-adventurer in the last century that drove the likes of Gertrude...October 28, 2018 1418 0
