I procrastinated for months over this blog post. I couldn’t begin to put into words what Manto’s stories can stir up without sounding like an incoherent babbler. Yet, it is not like this was my first exposure to Manto. I have seen film adaptations of some of his short stories. The first of these was Mantostaan (an anthology of four of his partition ( Read more... )

Having grown up in a family that was crazy about classic Hindi film songs, Kaifi Azmi’s poetry was no stranger to me. I may not always have known whom to credit for the touching lines I came across in the songs I grew up hearing, but they are as familiar to me and as capable of evoking nostalgia as my childhood home.

As I grew older and began to ( Read more... )

My first introduction to the Urdu writer and film-maker, Ismat Chugtai, was through an anthology of short stories by Indian writers. She described the experience of a young muslim girl who upon entering her teenage years suddenly finds herself separated from the familiar world around her by the folds of her burkha. She described her thoughts and ( Read more... )

1. True Love lasts forever ("And They Lived Happily Ever After")
Boy meets girl, they fall in love, overcome all obstacles and objections to get married and their job is done. Right? Wrong! A lot of my married friends would have me believe that maintaining a long-term relationship, even when the couple is deeply in love, demands their continuing ( Read more... )