There was a newspaper cartoon that depicted a woman in a burkah in the driver's seat, except that the car she was in was remote-operated. The remote control was firmly in a snarky man’s hands. Muslim majority countries run by men, fueled by a toxic...
Justice Nasira Javaid is now retired as an icon of women rebels. She had a mother who was a legendary philanthropist and a force in the Pakistan independence movement. It was going to be unlikely that a woman with a women role model like her...
The 'One size fits all' model doesn’t always lead to happiness, success, economic progress or even environmental sustainability. Yet it is proposed, enforced and demanded over and over. Lately, this has been a focus on the defense of the good old values and our culture....
1976 film actress Shubnum Ghosh’s house was broken and entered into and a “dacoity” took place. This is a euphemism for rape. In that pre #metoo era this popular Bangladeshi film actress who made Lahore her home and Lollywood her profession lived on in Lahore....
What would it take for a modern Sufi to lose his optimism? A lot, it seems. Raza Rumi has published yet another book called, Being Pakistani, and it has three things that will come in handy this post-election season: the effortlessness and readability with which...
Review of Red Birds Author: Mohammad Hanif Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2018 Red Birds is about the destruction that inevitably follows love. Many say this Mohammad Hanif novel is an anatomy of the wars men wage and the carcasses of pain women and their children must sweep up, each with...
What is it about a woman that makes her jeer worthy? I wonder because the Chief Justice of Pakistan decided to open his speech last week with a statement that compared the length of an ideal speech to that of a woman’s skirt length. Winston...
Tharparker is a forgotten speck in southern Pakistan. It is defined by grass thatched roofs and a dysfunctional feudal-electoral system that has always undermined 1.6 million of its residents. Then, of course, there is the fact that half of its population is Hindu in Muslim...
Camels replaced cars, but in Saudi Arabia, women who once rode these animals ended up getting pushed into the seclusion of their homes. The region in 7th century was somewhat matriarchal. Rich women led caravans at that time and yet today in 2018, it is...
It’s hard to believe, but there is actually something worse than being a woman in Pakistan. Being a woman in The Federally Administered Tribal Areas is worse - The abysmal rock bottom. FATA is the notorious tribal belt designed to be outside the fold of legal...
