When bureaucrats and the media can never be friends
Prior to the devolution of the Ministry of Health to the provinces under the Eighteenth Amendment, it was easy as a reporter to cover the health sector at the federal level. This was because all departments were working under one ministry and had assigned officials to coordinate with media-persons. However, after the devolution, things have changed considerably. The health sector at the federal level has split into eight divisions. Even after two years of devolution, it is still difficult to figure out which department is functioning under which ministry or division. Most of them do not even have spokespersons or media ...
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Writing for minorities isn’t easy
Journalism as a whole needs courage, and more often than not, a journalist has to face pressure from the field for rendering his professional duties. But sometimes, a reporter comes across a situation which he never expects to be in. You may think attack, threatening phone calls or encountering indecent attitude from people are unusual but, in fact, they are routine for a journalist in this country. However, I want to share an unusual experience, which had an everlasting effect on me. It was October 2012, when my family and I went to my would-be in-laws with a proposal of marriage. ...
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I waited for Cowasjee to say “saala” but he never did
I was just another reader who looked up to him. After his last submission in November 2011, it became clear that Mr Cowasjee saw an end to life imminent on the horizon; well at least that is how I interpreted it. By July 2012, I finally mustered the courage to type out a mail of candid praise, and in that I mentioned my desire to meet him. A reply followed and to my surprise, it included an invitation to his residence. The lady on the phone explained that I had to find a certain Mary Road in Bath Island and ...
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I’m rich, I’m privileged, I’m informed – am I safe?
I guess you could call me one of the 1%. No one ever disputes that Pakistan is an extremely polarised society, but I think we often forget how polarised it is, because we all live in, well, bubbles. These bubbles are made up of all the assumptions we hold dear, from the mundane “I am a good husband and brother” all the way to the abstract “My world view is the correct world view”. Most of the time, I live happily in my bubble, bouncing off other people and life events with the comforting certainty a bubble brings. But then sometimes, very ...
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Ardeshir Cowasjee, you were truly one in a million
Much has been said and read regarding Ardeshir Cowasjee since last night and I too want to remember him by a few anecdotes that have stuck with me since I first met him. As an aspiring journalist, I longed to meet the great man; I wanted to pick his brains on his writing and just be in the company of this remarkable man. What started as research interactions overtime became a beautiful friendship. In him I did not discover a journalist but to use the term very loosely, Cowasjee was a ‘citizen journalist’. He wrote what many of us were ...
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If you jump off, you will fly, I promise!
Two years ago, I made the first most life-altering, high risk, and extremely indulgent decision of my adult life. For most of my life, all my life-decisions were sort of handed over to me and I had no choice but to follow their trajectory. But regardless of following all the right decisions and a path full of perfect daisies, I was still lost as lost can be. After a breakdown of Lindsay Lohan proportions, my drug of choice was chocolate ice-cream, I decided to actually do something about my situation. My decision was take up writing as a full time ...
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A protest through the eyes of a journalist
Nothing is more dangerous than a mob that gets carried away by religious fervour and frustration. It can be equally threatening to report about such a mob as a journalist. On September 21, the day the whole country shut down to condemn an anti-Islam video, there were mad men out on the streets bent upon destroying public and private property. They seemed to be having fun — raising slogans and cursing the US. For a reporter, it is easy to be swept away by the sheer energy displayed by boys wielding sticks and bricks. Karachi offers a lot of action in ...
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Dear parents, can I plan my own life please?
“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.” -Anne Frank Being seventeen-years-old and looking forward to university next year, I currently face the enigma of making one of the most difficult decisions of my life — choosing a career. Although I would love to pursue a career in English and perhaps work towards a Masters or a PhD in Literature, my parents aren’t too fond of the idea. Their plan for me includes a good medical school, a professional degree, a job in a clinic or hospital, being married before I turn 30 and inevitably, ...
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Husain Haqqani’s story
Perhaps no individual in Pakistan has had a rise as steep as Husain Haqqani. As an ordinary journalist, he climbed the ladder of success to become first a respected academic and then Pakistan’s envoy to the United States within a couple of decades. Before becoming an ambassador, he was a staunch critic of the Pakistan Army and its US support. His books, opinion pieces and articles in various newspapers are ample evidence of his pro-democratic mindset. The notorious Memogate scandal, accusing Haqqani of seeking US help against the Pakistan military unfolded in a very strange and unbelievable way. As a ...
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Subliminal mockery and the devils advocate
A recent encounter with a firangi journalist made me realise that I have proudly joined the cult of perverse Pakistanis. Anyone who bears an accent and worships another deity must face the ‘us’ and ‘them’ complex. We will, at all times, find or literally pluck out a thread of sublime mockery from well-structured declarations of a love for Pakistan and every time these foreigners show us the positive side of Americano, we want to throw a brick at their Cau-caustic face. The jingoistic journalist started off the session just fine but then started chanting ‘bombs’, ‘bullets’ and ‘rape cases’ in ...
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