Salman Tarik Kureshi

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent — Isaac Asimov. In happier times, when this writer used to travel in the Northern Areas (now Gilgit-Baltistan), it was not only the spectacular mountain scenery that was inspiring, it was also the easy friendliness of the people and the immense sense of peace and harmony that […]

This piece is not about the 33-year long war in Afghanistan. Nor is it about the so-called war against terror, which some Islamists, ironically echoing Huntington, see as a war between Islam and the west. The war I am talking about is the Cold War, which ended in 1989, with the economic and political collapse […]

On Sunday, we attended a wedding lunch at a five-star hotel here in this City by the Sea. The large crowd of guests was très chic, with that brittle sophistication that only the Karachi haut-bourgeoisie can carry off. We heard one sweet young thing ask another stunning exemplar of the dress-designer’s craft, “Are you going […]

The focus of much of the media, both print and electronic, is the future of Imran Khan’s party and who is or is not joining it. Or it is about the latest misdoings or non-doings of the incumbent government and its elected opposition. In all the noise of talking heads shouting at each other and […]

The political phenomenon dominating both the media and drawing room discussions is the Lahore jalsa of the party led by Imran Khan. Resonant with the uplifting warblings of Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood and the defiant baritone of Shehzad Roy, punctuated by canned music every time a speaker paused for a glass of water, this […]

Where does one begin to grieve? Sarfraz Shah, Saleem Shahzad, Shahbaz Bhatti, Salmaan Taseer, Benazir Bhutto, Akbar Bugti? The daily toll of the dead and the missing in Balochistan? In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa? The unending ‘targeted’ bloodletting of my fellow Karachiites? Another 35,000 Pakistani men, women and children murdered? Where will the grieving end? But, it […]

Many years back, this author was in the UK on a business trip. Among various meetings held and establishments visited was a large security printing organisation, to explore a possible joint venture in Pakistan that did not, as it happens, develop. At their sprawling establishment in Surrey, this company printed currency notes, stocks and bonds, […]

“Yes, but if I don’t attend this meeting, it has to be through principle, not because I’m scared,” said Turgut Bey…“The question is…what should I put first – the enlightenment or the will of the people? If I believe first and foremost in…enlightenment, then I am obliged to see the Islamists as my enemies and […]

The evening breeze off the Creek began to turn chilly. But the guests in the lawns behind the Carlton Hotel were still in a state of exhilaration after two days of the just concluded Karachi Literature Festival. Their excitement was now brought to a crescendo by Taimur Rahman and the Laal Band, whose crashing chords […]

“Finished, it’s finished, nearly finished, It must be nearly finished… I can’t be punished any more” — Endgame by Samuel Beckett.   If my readers think the above ode is about the demise of this peculiarly hapless government, I must disappoint them. That denouement is not at issue any more; the question is not whether […]