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 […]

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 […]

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. […]