The story of Siachen

With the tragic news of 150 Pakistani soldiers  buried alive in an avalanche in the Pakistan base camp at Siachen, it brings back to  memory the bitter truths about this conflict. The glacier: Siachen means ‘the place of wild roses’. Siachen glacier is the great Himalayan watershed that demarcates central Asia from the Indian sub-continent, [...]

When hate or peace become a business

In my last trip to India, I was strolling for window shopping, in one of my favourite spots in New Delhi, when I heard some loud speaker announcements nearby. I saw a Yogi on a big screen, speaking with utmost tranquility. Some of the words I could recall are: “Want is always hanging on to [...]

O’ the wandering mind ~Kabir

Kabir has hardly spared any animate and inanimate examples to ridicule the bigots who have great illusions about their self image and through their beliefs repeatedly,  make a fool of themselves. In the same spirit, I came across yet another simple yet interest verses. Poem 1:  Apanpo aap hi bisaro. Says Kabir, they  fall prey [...]

Who the hell are we to empathize with the ordinary?

Shams Ul Anwar’s statement of ‘waiting to receive the body parts of my daughter’ moved me. It really moved everyone. Rarely do I take more than  a few seconds to figure out what status to write, but this time I wrote and rewrote at least 5 times before posting on Twitter and Facebook : “He [...]

Let’s make Health our Commonwealth

First published in AmanKiAsha in TheNews:  http://amankiasha.com/detail_news.asp?id=594 The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) some time back recommended promoting economic cooperation between India and Pakistan by focusing on information technology (IT), entertainment and healthcare. Yes, “Healthcare”, I shout. After all the other two are thriving and will take care of themselves. I remember in the mid-nineties, [...]

Continuation of a joint heritage

Published in Aman Ki Asha , in TheNews on December 14, 2011. http://amankiasha.com/detail_news.asp?id=584 Ilmana Fasih recounts some examples of the ‘Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb’ and centuries’ old, peaceful coexistence beyond religious divides An otherwise sane looking person I met at a party recently started to spew venom laced with conspiracy theories about “Hindu Muslim animosity”. To top [...]

Aalu Anday etc.

If you churn the ingredients-adversity, endurance, sense of humour,  imagination and hope into a machine at one end, you will receive Pakistani youth at the other end. Hammered with adverse circumstances one after the other, the hardy rocks of youngsters are  carving themselves into idols of the future. Endurance is not just the ability to [...]

Let the baby survive and grow

Published in AmanKiAsha The News on Oct 5, 2011. Nirupama Rao, now Indian ambassador to Washington, reportedly said of the Agra Summit at which Vajpayee and Musharraf met: “Though there were midwives, a still-born child was born in Agra”. A healthy baby was born that night, but was replaced by a “still-born”, reportedly retorted a [...]

What is politics ?

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, “What is politics?” Dad says, “Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I’m the breadwinner of the family, so let’s call me capitalism. Your Mom, she’s the administrator of the money, so we’ll call her the Government. We’re here to take care of [...]

When hatred reigns.

It was with helplessness that I read an article in one of the newspapers about how school kids in certain areas of Karachi were not able to attend their school safely because of the ethnic differences. A kid claimed he was friends with the school mates form the other ethnic community and they even played [...]