Loss of innocence I on May 29, 2012Shahaan is a lovely child, innocent, roly-poly and contagiously likeable. His big, hazel, crystalline eyes, laced with long lashes, fascinate you with their clarity, sparkling intelligence and childish charm. A fair, round face, pudgy cheeks and a thick flock of jet-black hair are simply hypnotic. He was visiting Malaysia with his mother, and I am […]
Miskeen on May 15, 2012Miskeen is a spoken Saudi equal of ‘poor wretch’ used to denote mainly the Asian labour force, coloured workers and expatriates from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia, etc. For those of African and North African origins, they have different titles. More than a word, it shows a whole Saudi racial, social and national […]
Doongar Singh on May 8, 2012It was mid 1972. We had just arrived in Ranchi from Agra, badly shaken and bruised, after a fateful train journey, during which we lost a fellow officer, killed by an armed escort needlessly, and another missing. Earlier, we had been declared most dangerous PoWs after our attempt to escape from the Agra Jail had […]
Bahawalpur that was II on May 1, 2012The State came into being soon after Nadir Shah’s conquest of Dera Ghazi Khan in 1739. He bestowed a vast area between Muzaffargarh to Thatta, including Shikarpur and Larkana south of Rivers Sutlej and along the Indus, upon Amir Sadiq Mohammad Khan of Bahawalpur and knighted him as Nawab for his invaluable support during that […]
Bahawalpur that was I on April 24, 2012Like the host Cholistan desert, Bahawalpur has a very strong magnetic quality to its dusty brown, rather ascetic presence, and the Spartan but decently luxurious engaging ambience. Like a superbly rendered raga, it simply seeps into one’s senses and stays there. The majestic expanse and dignified silence of the Cholistan desert is as overwhelming as […]
Roving clowns of Punjab on April 10, 2012Punjab’s alluvial soil is fertile, materially and morally both. Its material riches were a blessing and a bane at the same time. Blessing because it enriched people, society and the state that controlled it, whether from Delhi, Lahore, Multan, Kabul or Ghazni. Bane because her riches seduced invaders and acted as grist to their greed […]
The great hoax II on April 3, 2012Lets take stock of the style of ghost governance that is so brazenly being trumpeted about as democratic rule by the elected representatives albeit through a manufactured majority where millions of votes were reportedly bogus as admitted by the Election Commission. That apart, what is ironic is that those they so comically claim to represent […]
Pakistans millennium curse on December 27, 2011Things in and around Pakistan are becoming particularly menacing at an alarming pace. The gathering clouds look ominous. I do not know what in the heavens did we do to deserve men like Osama bin Laden (OBL), Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the whole lot of their murderous band? Why men like Fazlullah, Muslim Khan, Hakeemullah Mehsud, […]
The train escape that could have been II on December 20, 2011Ours was a third class compartment with barred windows normally meant for female passengers in the subcontinent, and had a washroom at one end, with passenger doors opening on either side of the passage. The guards had planted themselves in that passage. It looked like a Sikh Para Battalion Guard and their compartment was right […]
The train escape that could have been I on December 13, 2011By January 1972, our plan to escape from the Agra Central Jail that was refitted as PoW (prisoner of war) Camp 44 had been finalised. To escape from the PoW camp is the duty of every captured soldier and to stop him the right of the captor. What happens in that little battle of wits […]