Let them eat dust on November 28, 2011The BMW X5 Jeep is a big powerful machine. When its engine guns into life, it growls like a lion. When you step on its pedal, the X5 lunges like a lion too. It has got the name, and the game, which is why it can set you back a few million rupees. The little […]
Liar, liar on November 21, 2011Something here stinks. As the gate to the memo begins to creak open, wafts of lies are floating out and polluting the air around Pakistan. There is a faint rumbling of heavy engines gunning to life and the claptrap of shuffling feet as worried politicos with furrowed brows scurry around the corridors of power wondering […]
Shah Mehmood pulls the trigger on November 14, 2011Shah Mehmood Qureshi has done it. In Raymond Davis-style, he has gunned down the PPP in broad daylight and surrendered himself to another party. The political plot thickens. Qureshi is now planning to join his fellow Aitchisonian Imran Khan. He will not be alone. It is expected that some PPP MPAs from South Punjab will […]
I, Pakistan on November 1, 2011You just had to be there.I was. And I stood there, on top of the 16 foot container, and looked at the sea of people shouting, clapping, laughing, dancing and waving flags. It was mesmerising. It was electrifying. They came in waves, and kept on coming. Men, women, teenagers, children, families, almost every demographic one […]
Doctor goes where no man has gone before on August 29, 2011The doctor just killed his patient, and sued the government for political malpractice. Welcome to the land of confusion. If you are shaking your head and saying, “What the…!” you are not alone. Ever since Dr Zulfiqar Mirza detonated a dirty bomb on the premises of the Karachi Press Club, the radiation has contaminated areas […]
The Caesar option on August 22, 2011In the end, there is always the army. And so it starts all over again. The civilians oust the army, step into government, start bickering amongst themselves, peddle personal and political agendas above national ones, earn the wrath of the people, lose credibility and control, thereby forcing the people to clamour for the army yet […]
Not our daddys Pakistan on August 15, 2011If after 64 years I am still asking who I am, then I am a certified nutjob. But come the month of August, that is the debate that Pakistanis kick-start once again. Jinnah’s famous speech about the business of the state is dusted off and placed at the centre of the public discourse. Definitions of […]
Narrative of the gun on August 8, 2011Nero would have been proud. As Karachi burns, politicians continue to play the harp. The grotesque dance of death over the remains of Karachi’s dead seems the final insult to their memory. They died for nothing more than the political brinkmanship of those they voted into power. I am not sure which is worse: the […]
Ugly American on August 5, 2011They came, they saw, they bombed. The ugly American just got uglier. At the Bonn Conference underway as these lines are being written, this hideous American visage will not be on display. Instead, blush-on and mascara-wearing Yanks will strut across the hallways selling a post-2014 Afghanistan to a bevy of stakeholders who want nothing more […]