SHIFTING IMAGES
Post-Covid musings: After the deluge
Now that we have stepped into a new year, it may be time to take a brief pause from our hectic schedule.
Begum Sufia Kamal: A moral hero
Today, after a period of hiatus, I have once again taken up my pen (metaphorically) to remember and celebrate a hero—a woman of courage and integrity who changed the world, not with fire and fury but with her soft touch.
Isolation and solitude: Life in the time of corona
It has only been a month of isolation, yet it feels like “One hundred years of solitude”.
SHIFTING IMAGES / When will America be ready?
As my daughter and I drove to the polling booth last week to vote at the Democratic Primaries in the United States, I asked: “So,
The shift of ‘soft power’
Over the past three months, I have lost many nights of sleep, abandoned my favourite political TV programmes, and ignored household chores.
Happy 20/20
I am sitting at my desk, with a hot cup of tea, peering out at the foggy winter morning enveloping the placid Gulshan Lake.
Passage to freedom
Forty-eight years have elapsed since we overthrew the yoke of exploitation and oppression and gained our Independence, through blood, sweat, and tears.
The Age of Alternate Reality
Common sense tells us that life’s experiences should help us acquire a degree of certainty about most issues. However, I seem to be the exception to this conventional wisdom.
The ‘seditious heart’
I often wonder about the psyche and motivation of people who choose to resist unfairness, inequity and tyranny at a great personal cost. And I don’t mean luminaries like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr., but the unsung heroes who feel it their bounden duty to act in the public interest and ensure that future generations benefit from their selfless acts of moral valour.
Revisiting our social structures
In the midst of all the political chaos and confusion reigning in our world today, we are perhaps overlooking an important issue—the basic fibre of our social structure is going through a tectonic shift. One would have thought that, over time, class barriers would be
Seeing life anew
As some of you may have noticed, I have been absent from the writing scene for about six months. No, I haven’t retired from column writing—rather it has been a forced hiatus. Forced by an eye condition that struck without any prior warning. The affliction that stole part of my right eyesight came stealthily and silently—a white fog refusing to be dislodged obstructed my vision.
When being wrong can feel right
I never imagined that most of the values and precepts I learned while growing up would become dated and rendered almost irrelevant during my lifetime. In particular, the lessons in humility that our parents and teachers taught us seem to have simply gone out of the window.
The Rise of Hate
In the “long 18th century” (1685-1815), European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment.
America's moment of self-reckoning?
The past week has been tumultuous and agonising for most Americans. A week of speculation, media hype, and political and personal
A champion in triumph or defeat
Years ago, when I first migrated to the United States, I was asked to read Robert Ringer's Winning through Intimidation as part of my acculturation process.
Something to reflect upon
Today, I choose to address an issue that has generated years of soul-searching resulting in an inner struggle to draw the line between right and wrong.
Nationalistic competition or cosmopolitan carnival?
While I cannot claim to be an avid football fan, the World Cup bug does attack me every four years. I write this column on a sleepless night, disturbed and disenchanted after watching the rather physical and hostile match between England and Colombia, fighting for a place in the quarterfinals.
Social laws of upward motion
Of late, I have been reflecting on an interesting aspect of our social discourse.
