Punjab Notes: Identity crises: sense of worthlessness creates rootlessness (Part 2)
Foreign Muslim rulers kept tight control over non-Muslims to the advantage of Muslims, not for love of converts but...
Mushtaq Soofi
Punjab Notes: Identity crisis: sense of worthlessness creates rootlessness (Part-1)
“The Indians believe that there is no country like theirs, no nation like theirs, no king like theirs, no religion...
Punjab Notes: History versus nationalism: manufacturing the heroes!
It’s not that societies have histories that are devoid of heroes. Some individuals may be exceptional but what...
Punjab Notes: Everyday violence: tradition, law and social regulation
One was at loss to make sense of a news last week which reported that two boys in separate incidents were subjected...
Punjab Notes: Poetry and fiction: Ravinder Sehra and Tipu Salman
A process of literary interaction between the East and West Punjab has been slow in the backdrop of Indo-Pak ...
Punjab Notes: Sages: experience of dying before one’s death
There is a recurring theme in the classical Punjabi poetry that may look odd, somber, and even weird to some of us:...
Punjab Notes: After the deluge: something new or more of the same?
What would happen when the current coronavirus pandemic, which has upended the world with its visibly invisible...
Punjab notes: What does afflict the earth: greed or disease?
“Earth has a disease called man”, says Friedrich Nietzsche in his book ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ in ...
Punjab Notes: Crisis: redefining the relationship between people and state
In human society the best and the worst comes out when it’s faced with a crisis. The best in the sense that ...
Punjab notes: From Lahore to Sahiwal: a highway to hell
Seeing is believing. And what you really see is unbelievable. The stretch from Lahore to Sahiwal is 100 miles. It...
Punjab Notes: Division of Punjab: no method to the madness
A painful fact of our life is that policies made by power wielders in the country are generally marked by illogic ...
Punjab Notes: Lack of saving, ostentation and social prestige
We cannot save because we don’t want to. This is especially true of us, Muslim Punjabis, living this side of the...
Punjab Notes: Language: development at the cost of cultural destruction
Man is an animal, dreaded and dreadful. Why? Despite all the cultural wrappings he is imperceptibly driven by his...
Punjab Notes: Loneliness: life in quarantine for indefinite future
“Three giants live in Scandinavia far from one another like great mountains. After thousands of years of silence,...
Punjab Notes: Dissent: power of logic or logic of power
Difference of opinion is fundamentally born of thinking. It’s not just thinking, but an ability to think beyond...
Punjab Notes: Post-colonial decay: neglecting the cornucopia of colonial practices
Our post-colonial society despite its apparent independence shows unmistakable signs of unstoppable deterioration...
Punjab Notes: Magazines: what’s new on literary horizon?
Among humans there are innumerable ways of looking at the world and experiencing it. There is a way all adults are...
Punjab Notes: Dr. Manzur Ejaz: a new narrative of Punjab
One can’t be sure whether history is a whore or not but one can aver that historians especially the ones ...
Punjab Notes: Language: alive and dead metaphors
What is it that we use most, not only in our moments of wakefulness but also when we are asleep, dreaming? It’s...
Punjab Notes: Books: Khwaja Farid in English and Azra’s autobiography
Khwaja Ghulam Farid, as we all know, is one of the towering poets of the 19th century who along with Mian Muhammad...