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Rising without uprising WHY is man still as brutal, selfish and greedy as he was in his primitive existence? Has he not learnt from history that fruits of tyranny and oppression are short lived? Why should the strong nations be allowed to rob the weak and get stronger...		Freudian fallacies FREUD as a psychologist is well known, but his psychoanalytical ideas and his symbolic dream interpretations are not without fallacies. However, it is necessary to know first about Freud and his ideas. Freud was a doctor....
Twisted humour THE scene is set at the famous Aunty Park of Clifton, Karachi where an informal meeting of a ‘Hi-Fi’ ladies club is in progress with representation from the elitist creme-de-la-creme. The...		Bear baiting A DEFENCELESS bear, often with claws and teeth removed, is tethered to a stake while one or two trained pit bull terriers attack the helpless beast. What follows is a gruesome bloody battle between the two animals cheered by excited onlookers apparently enjoying the horrifying scene....
An Urdu-speaking Italian ambassador THE number of Urdu-speaking foreign ambassadors in Pakistan is increasing. If we had so far the Chinese and the French ambassadors among them, we have now the Italian ambassador as well...		Neither stunned nor alarmed, just tired WHEN General Ayub Khan became the Defence Minister in the federal cabinet in 1954, while still in uniform, it had become clear that the armed forces had become an added player...
Separate lives WE live in the same world, yet each of our worlds is completely unique and exclusive- almost elusive in its own kind. We use the same words, yet each of us...		The third referendum WHILE political activities have bogged down between permissions and restrictions, they seem to be on the brink of revival, now that General Musharraf is to officially enter the fray. He would...
Religious tolerance in an island paradise IMAGINE a place where Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists share each others religious festivals, where children, despite class, colour or creed, attend the same educational institutes, play together, grow up together...		Buddha relics in Swat THE Mahapairinirvana (the great decease) or the physical death of Buddha took place at Kusinara in about 483 BC. The site has been identified with Kasia in the Gorakhpur district of...
From Isloo police to Pope’s Mea Culpa! MINE was a room with a view. For hours I saw the cops on the rooftop lout about, gamble, soak in power against the beauteous Margallas. The Diplomatic Enclave police station...		Burgeoning artificial fish ponds in Sindh IN the wake of Aqua Culture Development Programme in Sindh, the artificial fish ponds are burgeoning throughout the province. It is particularly so in upper-Sindh where abadgars have made use of...
Love thy Neighbours TWENTY years ago when I came to reside in this neighbourhood, it indeed was a place worth living. A very well-planned locality in all respects. There were a number of parks and play grounds. The main arteries and bye-lanes had no pot-holes. There was no dearth....		Calling out our children’s literature ANY nation will bemoan being overlooked in international anthologies of children’s stories. They provide most favourable opportunities to understand and appreciate one another’s culture, aspirations and hopes, even sentiments and sensibilities....
The killing instinct WHEN life surfaced on this planet, it was not without the instinct to kill. Germs and worms, fleas and fish, bees and birds, animals and men are all imbued with this...		Iqbal’s Persian works IT’S rather well known that Ghalib (1797-1869) and Iqbal (1877-1938) were the greatest Urdu poets in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but what is not so well known is that “the...
Of business & Kohinoor WHILE going through F.S. Aijazuddin’s book, The Bark of a Pen I discovered to my benefit that books are of two kinds - those which are coercive and uncompromising and those which are accommodative and are ever ready to compromise. Books devoted to an in-depth study of a problem or a subject belong in general to the first category....		They chose to see the world by sea MOST of us dream of travelling to faraway places. But the ceaseless struggle of life keeps us chained to a job. Soon before we know it age catches up and we...
Not a script to follow again THERE is much happening in the world of cricket these days both on and off the field, with England touring New Zealand, Australia hitting it out against South Africa, the Sharjah...		Feeble efforts to curb doping in Pakistani sports DESPITE a number of players testing positive for banned substances in the international and domestic sports events, Pakistani authorities have still not taking the matter seriously. Those caught using banned substances...
Stray remarks DRIVING leisurely along the tree-lined road in Islamabad, I caught sight of a taxicab going ahead of me. A doggerel inscribed on the hind side of that cab, unknowingly engaged my attention, ‘mat karo piyar daulat se, kaffan ki jaib nahin hoti’...		The Afghan war and us “HOW is it that every person at a senior position is a ‘mohajir’?” asked a businessman, sounding clearly disgusted. He expressed his surprise over the presence of this community in Armed...
Small is beautiful THE population of Pakistan stands at 140.5 million as of the figures for the year 2001 with an growth rate of 2.1 percent. With this record, Pakistan is ranked as the sixth most populous country in the world and the second largest Muslim nation. But where numbers are concerned, all big numbers are not beautiful....		From Cordoba to Kabul I FOUND my reason no more reasoning, my vision no longer visualizing, hearing capability no more hearing; no more the soothing voices that should make my heart a comfortable place where...
MOSAIC: Scanning the mind of a murderer A RECENT documentary shown on BBC2, The Mind of a Murderer, reflected the problems of diagnosis and treatment faced every day by psychiatrists, social workers, the police and the courts when...		Newsmaker WHAT propels human beings to kill themselves? Or, more pointedly, what brought this 16-year-old girl (shown in the photo), with a whole life ahead of her, to strap bombs onto her body and detonate them in the middle of a crowd?...