Cherry on the top on June 16, 2011“A country tainted by corrupted bureaucrats, army officers, and politicians, by governments rotten to the core, by protected mafias, and by the bloated profits of the heroin industry and the arms trade. Add to this the brutal hypocrisy of the Islamist parties, which exploit the state religion, and the picture is complete” — Tariq Ali, […]
Three things, Mr Akbar on March 29, 2011As he sat there, the greying man’s presence was quite imposing. I for one was in complete awe, waiting with bated breath for the words to come out of his mouth. Surely there was something new we could learn from him as his intellect and wisdom are quite renowned. But as he started speaking I […]
Shahbaz Bhatti and after on March 7, 2011I was busy writing a piece on the sordid affair of Raymond Davis when a ‘breaking news’ flashed on the muted television’s screen. Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti had come under attack from armed gunmen and was critically injured said the news. By critically injured I surmised that his life had already been lost […]
Hind yatra on February 3, 2011India, I was forewarned, is highly addictive. Of course I should have learned more from the example of this paper’s Op-Ed Editor, but I did not. Here was I landing at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at Delhi. Why was I there? As I have not written any book or novel thus far, you can […]
Failure to write on January 14, 2011Of late I have been finding it impossible to write. What do you do when you realise that your brain has gone absolutely limp? Instinctively, the first blame was put on the prolonged and really taxing flu I had. Maybe it was the new scourge of the land, the swine flu. But later these doubts […]