In the age of gadgets and hyper-connectivity, where people spend more time with screens than themselves, mindfulness exercises and meditations make sense. You must have …
Look, another year
D’où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous? (Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?). Important, existential questions. Apt to ask them …
Between a rock and a hard place, again
It is believed that during Imran Khan’s final year in office, two strong opposing pulls emerged within the ruling dispensation. One exceptionally placatory towards the …
Algorithmic cauldron
What do you think these three clips, ‘pawry ho rahi hai’, ‘mera dil ye pukare aaja’ and ‘Lahore da pawa, Akhtar Lawa’ have in common? …
Reading is forbidden
A big problem with Pakistani history is that huge chunks of it are missing from the public record. By this, I do not mean that …
Management style of supreme commanders
Almost the entire title of this piece is lifted from Tom Holt’s book, The Management Style of the Supreme Beings. Almost but for self-explanatory reasons, not …
Playing defence
Forgive me if I do not mince my words today. We all like to believe that the forces of chaos and degeneracy have finally been …
Future cancelled
On November 15, Przewodów, a village on the outskirts of Poland neighbouring Ukraine, was reportedly struck by a missile. Early reports hinted at the possibility …
Nation building in a fugue state
Every crisis presents an opportunity. It is a test of your wisdom to spot it in time. A few days ago, a corps commanders meeting …
Imran Khan — signal and noise
How do you write a piece on the reasons behind Imran Khan’s meteoric rise when he has been pushed out of power, launched an agitational …
The Hindutva consolidation
Rome was not burnt in a day. Many thought they could stop it. But not our Nero. His fiddle is a metaphor for an unparalleled …
What’s eating Gwadar
‘Dream big. But keep it simple,’ instructed Art Williams’ aspirational audio back in the 1990s. For those who don’t know, Arthur L Williams Jr is …
Nightmares never end
Something needs to be said about one specific aspect of the human condition. A fear that refuses to go away no matter what you try. …
Leaking
The priorities of a nation define its future. Let’s consider ours. The country’s poor people are telling you they are sunk, and if the flood …
Put mud?
Back in school, a classmate asked a substitute teacher to translate the Punjabi phrase, mitti pao. If you are really interested in the expression, idiomatically, it …
The happiness ceiling
It is not the first time I have asked you to pay some attention to the metaphor of man’s expulsion from heaven. Nor will it …
The empathy bridge
The question was chiefly about the west’s moral imperative to take responsibility for climate change and freak disasters like the flash floods that have inundated …
Circle of abuse
One step forward, three hundred yards back. Notice even in these desolate times, I have not lost my sense of proportion. For instance, I could …
Dogma and policy
To the reading world, Karen Armstrong needs no introduction. She is best known for her seminal works in the field of comparative religions like ‘A …
Don’t look down!
The title of this article is a play on the name of a famous apocalyptic Hollywood black comedy and political satire called Don’t Look Up. I …
The problem with narratives
Power trips of political triumphalism can be more potent than any intoxicant. You do not want to stop when you think you are winning. Notice …
UnSTEMmed
Many video streaming services have invested heavily in original South Asian content. Consequently, it is hard to open such an app and not find it …
A word to the gatekeepers
They say divine providence granted a man two wishes as a reward for an act of selfless heroism. He wished for a tour of paradise, …
Ancient sky, death spirals and pyrrhic victories
What is common between James Webb Space Telescope and former Trump NSA John Bolton? Nothing, to be honest. The first unlocks ancient mysteries without drawing …
Talking to the Taliban
A week before the fall of Kabul, my piece titled ‘Behold the wooden horse’ appeared in this space on August 7, 2021. Bear with me …
Kobayashi Maru
As the tale goes, once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away there lived two unemployed brothers called Modified and Modied. One day …
Proof of synthetic sentience
Since AlphaGo defeated a human player some eleven years ago, the field of Artificial Intelligence or synthetic sentience development has covered the evolution of centuries. …
Seduced by the right
Conjure the image of Oscar Wilde’s Happy Prince in your mind with a few amendments. Our version of the statue is privileged, unpopular, high-strung, feckless, …
Between 2 Bushes
Two fundamental observations at the start. Human beings by nature are basically a decent bunch. That is to say that if there is no earth …
Slow cancellation of the future
At the outset, you will have to forgive this writer for a few underlying assumptions. The first assumption is that you are equally shocked by …