Syed Rizwan Mehboob

Nearly bewildered by Pakistan’s ascent up the global population ladder after latest census, I hurriedly looked at my jungle friends — to see if the wild have something to teach on matters related to population. Loads of wisdom on population control and population welfare, just as I anticipated. How to manage numbers in the wild? […]

“Truth isn’t quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl” – a magical line from the great Oscar Wilde, that came to my mind, the moment I heard proclamation of victory by KP Government on Billion Tree Tsunami. Promise of a “change”, something totally fresh and away from the stale, […]

If anything, the mind-boggling reference to the un-mentionable ‘other’ of the two-nation theory, has freshened up hazy memories of Cheena Ram aka Cheenai of Jacombad. Cheenai was a quintessential Sindhi Hindu, steeped in so many typicals; unassumingly down to earth, gregariously hospitable, punctilious money-lender, given to sprees of revelries on slightest pretext and faithful to […]

Blisses of not being a political analyst in these debilitating times were hardly known to me until I sat about writing this piece. I had originally wanted to shed light on a totally apolitical and lesser known dimension of the person who has been at center stage (for good or bad, depending upon your political […]

In Lahore of 70s and early 80s, some sights used to register on people’s consciousness almost unconsciously. Take for an example the visit to fabled Anarkali Bazaar. Back then, it used to be the Vatican of shoppers from all socio-economic backgrounds — the rich, the not-so-rich middles classes as well as the poor and less-privileged […]

A few days back, Lahore saw the passing of Suzi — the mighty, magnificent elephant which had been the heartthrob of hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Lahore Zoo for well over four decades. Although Suzi lived for only half as long as her now-forgotten predecessor at the Lahore Zoo — Lakhi Rani — […]

Clad in shaggy clothes and draped in a typically decrepit blanket, a middle aged man would toil up a steep hilly track with sharp hairpin bends as the morning sun flooded pine-covered Murree valleys. He would be holding a poultry egg — his only worldly belonging — till such time that he climbed the last […]

Rarely a day passes in our daily lives, when we do not hear reference to “law of jungle”. Prime TV talk shows; debates on geo-political issues; newspaper pages recounting heart wrenching stories — you name it and all manner of absurdities, atrocities or anomalies are lumped together under abysmally misinformed banner of jungle law. To […]

The city of Mardan has never failed to surprise — especially in matters pertaining to heart and soul and in affairs related to the quest for lasting emancipation. Such has been its defining feature for well over two millennia now. In all likelihood, this all started over two thousand years ago when a Parthian Monastery […]

Our collective proclivity to quote jargons of all sorts, without truly grasping their attendant permutations, is limitless. From search for a counter militancy discourse to technology incubation and benefiting from youth bulge — there is always a sense of urgency for hurried adoption of alien notions without first having recourse to some soul searching. Lost […]