Hina Hafeezullah Ishaq

He is white, with shocks of reddish-brown ‘hair’. Well-groomed, well dressed and certainly well-fed, he weighs in at an astounding 160 kilograms, which for most of us, ordinarily, would be a fit case for gastric banding, but not so for ‘him’! ‘He’ gets to feast on five litres of milk, two kilograms of fruit, almonds, […]

Recently, an Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) in Delhi acquitted a 22-year-old man of kidnapping and raping a 15-year-old, whom he later married, observing, “Where a physical relationship that is not in the nature of an assault takes place with the minor girl’s consent and where the consent has not been obtained unlawfully, no offence can […]

“Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly Before they’re forever banned? Yes, how many years can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free? Yes, how many times can a man turn his head Pretending he just doesn’t see? Yes, how many times must a man look up Before he can see […]

Despite the heat, a chill ran down my spine. My heart, gripped in a vice, sank. As I watched them, barely three feet tall, laughing and jostling each other, school bags, flasks and lunch boxes hanging from their tiny shoulders, their gleeful shrieks filling the air, as they hugged and kissed their parents and equally […]

In January this year in my article “Another one bites the dust” (Daily Times, January 11, 2013) , I wrote about the host of a television programme having said that he “had set up a poll on the internet in which he had asked the public to give their opinion as to whether Shahzeb Khan […]

She died. But did she die in vain? 23 years old and her life nipped in the bud by six monsters. Yes, monsters they were, monsters they are and monsters they will remain. Battling the severe trauma, serious injuries to her body and brain and severe organ failure, she could fight no more. ‘Damini’ as […]

It was Thursday last week. A friend called me at around 6:30 pm, and asked me to watch the news. Intrigued, I grabbed the remote control, and was in for a treat. Channel after channel reporting a ‘hostage’ situation with frenzied reporters, untrained anchors, flashing tickers. It was a soap opera better than any I […]

It is not every day that one runs into a quote that is tailor-made for a particular situation or incident. I hit the jackpot when I came across a quote that says: “Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way”. A befitting example of this maybe a televangelist ‘doctor’ […]

As I made plans to revamp my filing system at home, I sat in my study — with an extremely heavy heart and considerably dampened spirit at the Herculean task that loomed ahead during my ‘vacation time’ — weighing my options. My eyes came to rest on the photograph-laden wall. Strategically and proudly placed there […]

Mostly black and long, plain and drab, or glittery and heavily embellished, or shaped like a shuttlecock with a net for vision, or flowing and shapeless, or tight-fitted and figure-hugging, it can simply be a part of a cultural dress code, or as many view it, a symbol of oppression or as some claim, one […]