Fawad
In the post-Iqbal era of Urdu poetry there are few greater poets than Majeed Amjad (this is a link to a short bio of him in Wikipedia that I wrote and I would love readers familiar with his work to add to it).
Yet, he may also be amongst the most under-recognized and under-appreciated of our [...]

Fawad
The music of Khan Sahib Mehdi Hassan Khan has been the backdrop to my own life as well as of so many music enthusiasts in Pakistan. Cliche as it might sound, there is no one - and i mean no one - who is in the same league as Mehdi Hassan. Just as Noor Jahan [...]

Fawad
Every year, The Economist magazine prints a delightful ‘special holiday double issue” around Christmas. It is filled with unfailingly interesting essays on an amazingly wide array of subjects. This year’s piece de resistance is the essay on South Asian Sufi Islam titled “Of Saints and Sinners”.

The essay is a wonderfully reported depiction of popular Islam [...]

Fawad
It was in my teens, almost 25 years ago, when I first heard Tufail Niazi singing “MeiN naiN jaaNa Kherian de naal” from Heer Waris Shah in that uniquely rustic and melodious but exceptionally virtuosic voice that has brought tears to my eyes many times over the years. (Picture shows Tufail Niazi singing at the [...]

Fawad
Having grown up in Lahore in the 70’s and 80’s, the strains of lilting Punjabi melodies were always a warm and familiar presence.
Even though in middle class upwardly mobile urban families Punjabi had sadly come to be associated with rural backwardness, Punjabi music with its deep cultural roots continued to exert an influence. Even in [...]

Guest Post by Fawad
The details emerging out of Pakistan are still somewhat sketchy but some facts are clear; more than 30 people are dead and over 115 injured. The Chief Justice of Pakistan was unable to address the Sindh Bar Association and was forced to go back to Islamabad and the private television station Aaj [...]