Stories by Suleman Akhtar

Damadam mast Qalandar is a cry of rebellion against established orders

Sehwan is everything that contemporary Pakistan is not. It is tolerant. It is inclusive. It does not impose religion.

Updated 21 Feb, 2017 02:34pm

Salman Haider’s disappearance won’t silence our voices

When violence is tolerated and dissent is crushed, it’s not the pen but the gun that would write the future.

Updated 10 Jan, 2017 12:24pm

The myth of 'martyrdom': How our state glorifies death

An uninvited death is always a tragedy, not a sacrifice.

Published 29 Aug, 2016 01:49pm

Heartache of the subcontinent — An ode to Qawwali

The Sabri brothers smiled watching their audience enraptured, they knew their legacy was fantastically familiar to them.

Published 25 Jun, 2016 11:53am

7 trials of being a Muslim in our times

"How do you guys celebrate new year in Pakistan in line with Islamic principles?" a German friend asked me...

Updated 24 May, 2016 04:18pm

Khurram Zaki: The voice that spoke for the dead

When the living refuse to speak, the dead talk. Are you listening?

Published 09 May, 2016 12:47pm

For Lahore: A lament with love

It was when the windows of my dorm shook with the sound of a suicide blast in 2008 that I fell in love with Lahore.

Updated 28 Mar, 2016 01:55pm

When 'their' children gun down 'our' children

Our children are the new front of the war — all our children. Those who die and those who kill.

Updated 25 Jan, 2016 04:25pm

The war on terror and the terror of war

We live in a world where the battlefield is not a place anymore, but a condition.

Updated 27 Nov, 2015 03:17pm

From mystics to Marxists: Karbala in South Asian culture

When it comes to tragedy, the memory can overshadow the event itself. Memory is human, all too human. History is not.

Updated 30 Sep, 2017 08:17pm

'No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land'

The figure of the displaced is enough to put a question mark over the claim that the world is a safer place today.

Updated 09 May, 2016 05:42pm

RIP statuses and what they say about us

If there is a single abbreviation that defines the nature of new media discourse, it is 'RIP'.

Published 17 Jul, 2015 01:31pm

To save real Pakistan, our unreal world must perish

No so-called paradigm shift in the state's policy can take away the scars and stigmas of this 'otherness'.

Updated 14 May, 2015 05:48pm

Is more information making us more wise?

We 'opine' without knowing and compensate for what we don't know by manipulating what little we do.

Updated 11 Apr, 2015 07:45pm

Yemen crisis: Don't bring the war to my home

This is not a war between Sunnis and Shias or between Ajam and Arab. It is simply an act of dynastic self-preservation.

Updated 31 Mar, 2015 11:03pm

Can Sufism save Sindh?

Sufism is an inseparable part of life in Sindh. In Pakistan however, even day-to-day living is now an act of resistance.

Updated 16 Feb, 2017 08:24pm

Look to Ibb to understand what happened in Paris

This is not the West vs Islam. It never was.

Updated 11 Jan, 2015 04:53pm

Stuck in 1947 — Pakistan's 68 years of solitude

Gods of the past must be questioned if the goddess of present is to smile. Pakistan, however, is still stuck in 1947.

Published 24 Dec, 2014 07:32pm

On talks, terror and the people’s truth

Beyond the cosmetic eloquence of the talkers, truth, however, persists no matter how unwanted; soaked in crimson.

Published 28 Feb, 2014 04:28pm

The othering of the others

If there's anything more concerning than the Rawalpindi incident, its the nature of the discourse that stemmed from it.

Published 19 Nov, 2013 05:15pm