Dear friends, The Diamer Campus of Karakoram International University (KIU) held a seminar on “Love for the Country” (Patriotism) and invited me to speak on the topic. Many students from different schools and colleges in Chilas participated in the seminar. They shared their views through speeches, Patriotic songs, and other activities. The Campus Director, Dr...
Category: Blogs
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Race for a Job: Are We Testing the Right Things?
“There was still one and a half minutes left when they stopped me.” Imagine preparing for months for a government job, running every morning, carrying your family’s hopes—and then being told your chance is over before the announced time is finished. This is what one young candidate reportedly said after the recent Gilgit-Baltistan Police recruitment...
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She Wanted to Become a Doctor. Then School Became a Place of Fear
The question sounded simple: Would she go back to school? For Mawish, a fifth-grade girl in Balochistan, the answer has become no. Her father has tried to persuade her to return to the classroom. But according to her family, Mawish remains afraid of the teacher who allegedly hurt her at school. During the incident, she...
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Does education really create equal opportunities?
For a long time, we have been told one simple thing: school is the equalizer. This idea suggests that no matter who your parents are or where you grew up, hard work and good grades can help anyone succeed. But if two students work equally hard while starting from completely different positions, can we really...
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The Illusion of Emancipation
We often talk about progress as if it is a straight line moving upward, bringing ease and light into our lives. But whenever I look back at the relentless march of industrialization, I see something very different. To me, it feels like we traded our birthright of peace and community for a pair of heavy,...
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Seventeen Years Between Two Open Doors
I still remember the weight of that night in Lahore the way some people remember the first time they realized the world could turn on them without warning. I was in my second year of bachelor’s studies, living in a girls’ hostel, young enough to believe that ordinary plans stayed ordinary. My friend and I...
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The Inner Reflection : The Water War: Pakistan’s Next Existential Crisis
It is said that life itself was drawn from water, yet if one looks closely at the current stream of our existence, we appear to be drifting toward a desert where thirst will scorch not merely our throats, but our very future. In Pakistan, we have witnessed political rivalries, power struggles, and the turbulence of...
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The Kitchen of Necessity: Reflections on the Truest Flavor of Life
There is a quiet honesty that settles over a table when the plates are modest and the day has asked too much of your hands. We live in an age that worships abundance. Shelves groan under imported spices, restaurant menus read like encyclopedias of excess, and we spend a great deal of our lives trying...
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Grief makes most men weep, Dashrath Manjhi moved a whole mountain
In the dry, sun-scorched expanse of Gehlaur village near Gaya, a towering ridge of solid quartzite, part of the rugged Rajgir Hills, stood like an unbreakable wall between life and death. While geologists call it a hill ridge, to the locals it was an imposing mountain of razor-sharp, ancient stone. For generations, this massive wall...
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A Survival Guide with Decent Eyeliner
I never thought I’d be the person who drags herself out of bed every morning, pops a couple of painkillers, and spends a solid ten minutes mentally negotiating with the day ahead. For years I listened to Amma do exactly that. Poor thing would say it almost every morning while she was still in service:...