No child’s play: Artist Waqas Khan’s mystical scripture on July 20, 2018Aicon Gallery in New York is currently showing an exhibition of contemporary artists from the sub-continent. In the past decade, several Pakistani artists have achieved wide notice on the international art-scene. Most worked in the area of miniature or figurative work; some in the area of resistance and protest to the violence in Pakistan. Among […]
Pakistani clinicians in America come together to discuss social, professional issues on July 11, 2018Last week, along with 4000 others, I attended the annual convention of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) in Dallas, Texas. While this was a large group, APPNA, according to its website, represents over 15,000 clinicians of Pakistani descent in North America. At the annual meeting those physicians and their […]
A visit to India that changed a Lahori’s perception about the country on May 2, 2018I grew up in Pakistan in the house of a veteran of two Indo-Pak wars and learned from my schooling and reading to hate India in general and Hindus in particular. I never questioned my beliefs; they were held by everybody around me. But a decade ago, a visit to India changed my perception of […]
Play about day-to-day struggle of a Muslim family in the US on March 26, 2018‘An Ordinary Muslim’, a moving and powerful play about Pakistani-British Bhatti family living in London, is currently playing at the Off Broadway Theatre Workshop in New York City. In the play, Debutant playwright, Hammad Chaudry, explores the day-to- day struggles of the Bhatti family in the broader context of Islamophobia and nativism in the foreign […]
A complex but well-written narrative of personal stories on September 14, 2017Pakistani-born Kamila Shamsie’s new novel is a modern interpretation of Sophocles’ Antigone, with possibly a more shocking ending. The novel starts on a worrying note, familiar to all Pakistanis traveling abroad, “Isma was going to miss her flight.” Isma Pasha is a British Muslim who is on her way to Amherst, Massachusetts, USA to enroll […]
Denial of J-1 visas to Pakistani physicians on May 31, 2017Physicians of Pakistani origin have contributed extensively to healthcare services in the United Sates in the last few decades. Although Pakistan is not among the six countries mentioned in President Donald Trump’s travel ban, it appears that obtaining a work visa for has become difficult for Pakistani physicians in recent weeks. According to the Association […]
When Lahore came to New York City on May 7, 2017When I learned an offshoot of the festival was coming to NYC I could not miss the opportunity of seeing and hearing about the best art, literature and political thought of Pakistan. And after a long and cold winter in New York, the weather has changed — the whole city is now decorated with many […]
Mohsin Hamids Exit West on March 21, 2017Migration, mobility between social classes, Islamic fundamentalism, and the relationship between East and the West are the terrain Mohsin Hamid expertly explores in his novels and essays. His new novel Exit West is a powerful and moving account of a young couple, from an unnamed besieged country, fleeing to the West. The story barely touches […]