Mast Qalandar
When I wrote the post on Ashoka’s Rock Edicts I had made a suggestion at the end of the post to the department concerned, which was to put up a proper and readable translation of the edicts at the site — both in English and Urdu.
To my pleasant surprise, I discovered the other day, […]

Mast Qalandar
If you think it was the MMA who tried to introduce the “law of morality” in the Frontier province of Pakistan (NWFP), think again!
A “law of morality” was first introduced in the region much, much before the MMA or the Taliban appeared on the scene. Even before Pakistan, before the British and before the […]

Mast Qalandar
Geo News is back on cable TV in Pakistan! It was banned along with two other popular TV channels on November 3 last year when Emergency was imposed in the country.
We don’t know on what conditions the channel has been allowed to operate again. We also don’t know how much dent the 77-day ban […]

Mast Qalandar
Of all the folk tales of Punjab, Waris Shah’s Heer is the most widely read, recited (actually, sung), commented upon and quoted love story. People have even done Ph.Ds on it. It is a very long poem, written in the Punjabi baint meter, comprising of 630 odd stanzas of 6 to 12 or more […]

Mast Qalandar
Proliferation of private TV channels in Pakistan has, among other things, brought the politicians to our living rooms. We often see them and hear them in talk shows. And we judge them, not only on what they have to say but how they say it — and also on how they look. The following […]

Mast Qalandar
This post was inspired by my recent trip to Istanbul — my first ever to Turkey. Turkey is probably the only country left where Pakistanis are still received warmly. Pakistanis know Turkey not only as another Muslim country but a country that was home of the caliphate (Khilafat-e-Osmania) for several centuries. They also know […]