If you ask me the biggest issue with Pakistan’s foreign policy throughout its history has been and still is that it is too eager. Yes, too keen. Explanations abound. Is it not…
Category: Farrukh writes
Spiritual economics
This piece could have easily been called “voodoo economics”. But the term does not do justice to what we are about to discuss. As per the Oxford dictionary, voodoo economics means “an…
The rich man’s failed revolution
Actions have consequences. The problem with our habit of offering ball-by-ball commentary is that we often miss forests for trees. But when the penny drops, as it must, we are stuck in…
Checks and balances
Media reports recently revealed information about the salaries of the top office holders of the country as it was submitted to the Public Accounts Committee. It was inevitable that the media would…
Blight of nations
A man dies and goes to heaven. At Pearly Gates, he is accosted by Saint Peter. After quick introductions and seeing everything checks out, the Saint asks our man to show his…
India Pakistan: secret career of a dream
The mutual hostility between India and Pakistan has been around for so long that berating each other has become second nature to every pundit, journalist, analyst and talking head. You must have…
Entropy in history
The way we are taught history in schools is enough to put a whole class to sleep in a heartbeat. Don’t get me wrong. You may find many interactive classes, but teachers…
Winged-horses of doom
They say when television was invented, many sales reps and marketing executives refused to take it seriously. Out of the 360 degrees surrounding you, why would anyone want to keep looking at…
Wages of ideology
Bear with me as I first identify a few abstract thoughts and then seek to operationalise them. You will see they all come together in the end. Devil’s bargains don’t come cheap….
Opportunity costs
Call it a legacy of loss or the curse of Sisyphus, Pakistan’s history is replete with counterfactuals — the coulda-woulda-shoulda of our past. There is something genuinely bitter about knowing that you…
Age of acceleration is upon us
While we were destroying our brain cells in noble political battles involving questions like whether the faithful should break their eggs at the big end or the little end, The Future of…
What’s the point?
Farrukh Khan PitafiMarch 25, 2023 The writer is an Islamabad-based TV journalist. He tweets @FarrukhKPitafi and can be reached at contact@farrukh.net How many times must we ask the same question? Why bother,…
On conspiracy theories
“You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage. You just have to raise enough questions, spread enough dirt, plant enough conspiracy theorizing that citizens no longer know…
Pakistan’s liberty deficit
Recently, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority announced that it was degrading Wikipedia services in the country on account of it not blocking some offensive content online. Later this throttling turned into a blanket…
The last workforce
In the dystopian sci-fi TV series, Revolution, where an unknown phenomenon causes the permanent shutdown of electricity worldwide (implausible, bordering on stupid, I know), there is a scene which merits mentioning here. The…
An interview with ChatGPT
While we remain embroiled in the minutiae of our political and economic mediocrities, the world keeps progressing at a breathtaking speed. As we interact, the AI wars are heating up. Please do…
Redundant Overton window
Zia Mohyeddin and Amjad Islam Amjad died this month. So did General Pervez Musharraf. But except for some peripheral controversies, tributes and discussions, the country had little time to spare for the…
Stop horsing around!
For obvious reasons, this is a watered-down version of the joke. And I think I have mentioned it before. Two saints are playing golf. One dearer to God than the other. Let’s…
Smell the coffee!
As a nation of tea drinkers, this country does not truly appreciate the gift that is coffee. This piece is not about coffee per se. It is about the need to wake…
The generational thing
There is no hard and fast rule about the sociology of contemporaries. But it goes without saying that despite your individuality you share a lot of influences with your age fellows. That…
Histrionics as policy
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 seen many examples of people walking around…
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 at the start of the new year….
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 Afghan Taliban and the TTP. The other,…
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? Yes, they all went viral on social…
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 chronology or publicly accepted superficial accounts of…
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 quite. In my pantheon of modern writers,…
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 vanquished. A Waterloo of sorts. But can…
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 of the missile being of Russian make….