Chronicles from FATA: Your story or your life?
Two powerful stakeholders of Fata, the armed forces and the militants, are not happy with the work of tribal journalists. They are constantly warring with each other and each wants the media on its side. In the end, a journalist can report either a factual account and get killed, or craft a vague story and save his skin. In situations like these, tribal journalists undergo immense pressure. They fear the potential wrath of one party but win support from the other. Usually, their writings miss the main ‘who’ and ‘why’ without which a story cannot be complete, accurate or fair. It is ...
Read Full Post
A journalist in Peshawar: My encounter with a militant
Six armed men surrounded my vehicle and asked me to get out of my car. Two of them seemed like people from the locality. The rest were shorter, had sharper features and Mongolian faces and spoke a language I couldn’t decipher. One of them, who spoke Pashto in a coarse voice, roughly ordered me to get out of the car Shaken, I replied: “Walay? Sa chal shaway de? Za sahafi yema.” (Why? What happened? I am a journalist.) He looked at me and asked: “Aren’t you an American?” I don’t know why he assumed so – I am as Pakistani as it gets. My guess is ...
Read Full Post
Waiting for the moon to shine
Last year, sometime after Ramazan, I was at the Jinnah International Airport, on my way to Lahore. In the boarding lounge, I saw a bearded gentleman with a soft stance, waiting to board his flight too. He looked familiar and he also looked apologetic. I suddenly realized that this was the most popular face of Pakistan’s Ruet-e-Hilal (Moon sighting) Committee. People sitting and standing around me also recognized this religio-celeb, and nudged each other, commenting on him. “Yahee to hai jis kee wajha se Eid ka chaand raat ke gyara bej nazar aate ha.” (He is the one because of whom ...
Read Full Post
The clean shaven, liberal Taliban
A few days ago, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government formed a committee, headed by a female legislator, to probe the matter of university teachers “harassing and physically abusing” their female students. Abuse of female students by teachers is not a new phenomenon. At least those who study or teach on campuses know this fact. It is somewhat an open secret. However, the scale to which this crime has grown , no longer allows it to remain hushed up. The issue has, in fact, become the talk of the town in Peshawar. While there is no official confirmation as to who was involved the ...
Read Full Post
Saeed Book Bank: Another casualty in KP
It’s not that I never anticipated the closure of one of Peshawar’s largest and oldest bookstores, Saeed Book Bank, yet that news still broke my heart. I can’t exactly recall my first visit to the store but I do know it was the best book store in the province. Saeed Book Bank has been regarded as a site worth mentioning to tourists in Peshawar. It has served the literary and educational needs of the people of KP for over five decades. Saeed Book Bank was established in 1955 by Saeed Jan Qureshi. His sons took over the family business in 1985. ...
Read Full Post
Suicide – an easy practice in Pakistan?
Being privileged enough to have access to a number of wire services, I stumbled upon a rather disturbing figure: There were at least 10 suicides this week across Pakistan according to these sources alone. The reasons for suicide were varied. A 22-year-old swallowed poisonous pills due to a domestic dispute, a young man took his life after killing two women and injuring four others over a matrimonial dispute, a security guard shooting himself within the limits of Bahadurabad police station because he wanted to marry someone, and a youth committing suicide after being reprimanded by his parents in Sahiwal. The reason ...
Read Full Post
Darra Adam Khel, the ghost town
My first experience out of Punjab as a journalist was to Dera Ismail Khan where I had gone to witness the destruction caused by the floods. Travelling on the Indus Highway, I stopped over at Darra Adam Khel and the experience has left a lasting impression. Accompanying me on this trip was one of Pakistan’s leading frontier reporters from Peshawar. During the car ride, he told me countless stories ranging from the Taliban occupation in the area to the military operation code-named Eagle Swoop. Darra Adam Khel is merely 25 kilometres away from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa capital, Peshawar. On both sides of ...
Read Full Post1-7 of 7
