The new chapter

Liberation

This blog is a decade old now. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been reading, editing and appreciating my work. You make this process a lot more exciting and memorable.

Though this blog has helped me gather my published writings, it's original purpose was to help me assemble my thoughts and feelings, no matter how absurd or mundane they happened to be. 

Replug: An ode called Amritsar

If you live in Lahore and choose to go North-West, you will be in Gujranwala in about an hour’s time. And

if you move from Lahore to the East, on the same Grand Trunk (GT) Road which Sher Shah Suri, the Afghan Warrior-King, carved out, in about the same time you could be standing in Amritsar — except for the ordeal of crossing the Indo-Pakistan border.

Replug: My school years

My first school on the Zahoor Elahi Road in Gulberg Lahore

“School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam.” — Einstein

I changed three schools. The first one was a renowned girls’ school in Gulberg, Lahore. It was famous because of its eccentric sari-clad (quasi-feminist) owner, Victorian-style vigilantes and supplying fodder to institutes like Kinnaird. But by the time I reached it, the decay had begun and the ship was falling apart. 

#IndiaHellForJournalists was a trend…in Pakistan

A few days ago, a hashtag appeared on Twitter in Pakistan: #IndiaHellForJournalists. Yes. That happened. The trend was apparently a reaction to the murders of journalists Ranjan Rajdev and Indradev Yadav in Bihar and Jharkhand within a span of 24 hours. Now, there is indeed a report by Reporters Without Borders, which places India as the third-most dangerous place for journalists in 2015, just after Syria and Iraq and ahead of Pakistan and every other Asian country. This is because five journalists were killed in India in 2015, as compared to two in Pakistan.