Owais Mughal
hota tha pehlay ishq lifafay ki maarfat
ab kaam chal raha hai faqat ‘dot com’ se
Khalid Irfan is a New York based Urdu language poet. His poetry encompasses issues of Pakistan and Pakistani community abroad in a humorous style.
He is not new to ATP. Six months ago Shahran Asim of Urdu Talk Radio fame had an introductory post on him. Few days ago, he sent me the link to Khalid Irfan’s official website and that has prompted me to share more of his poetry with you.
(1) First qataa is titled as ‘Keeping a Distance’ and it talks in a lighter sense about the ditance that has creeped between different communities in the past few years.
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Owais Mughal
Following photo is taken from MB‘s blog here.
The image is a cloth banner wishing ‘Happy Indpendence Day to all Pakistanis except those who habitually change their political loyalties (lotay) and those who have regularly plundered national wealth (luteray).’ As you can see the banner message is issued by the PML(N) leader Shahbaz Sharif‘s secretariat. I guess Pakistani streets are always a great place to find political commentary!
Adil Najam
All major newspapers prominently reported the decision from the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordering “the arrest of the members of a jirga, including PPP MNA Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, that decided to hand over five minor girls for marriage to a family to compensate for a murder in Jacobabad. Three of the 14 jirga members are already in police custody and the court ordered the arrest of the other 11″ (Daily Times).
The decision is, indeed, good news and continues the minor trend over the last number of years of increasing activism by the courts and government on this issue. But let us be clear. While this is good news and while there is a perceptible but minor trend, the trend is far from sufficient and it is not only the courts and the government that need to put their foot down more forcefully but society at large also needs to show its outrage more forcefully than it has.
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