khwaab marte nahiiN... Faraz is gone. And this may be a good time to salute that gang of Pakistani troublemakers who shaped its progressive Urdu aesthetic, and who continued to sing and write poems about the commoners in their distinctive met

BY Mir Ali Raza 10 September 2008

The second piece in our irregular series on progressive Urdu poets looks at Urdu poetry's flirtation with modernity, with examples from Sahir, Kaifi and Majaaz

BY Mir Ali Raza 25 November 2004

For one, Ayatollah Khomeini would probably never have seen a televised protest which prompted him to issue that infamous fatwa proscribing a book he had himself never read....

BY Mir Ali Raza 15 August 2004

Beginning a new series on progressive Urdu poets with this appreciation - Sahir Ludhianvi's Aesthetic Experiment - that the author plans to follow with similar profiles of Faiz, Makhdoom, Kaifi Azmi and others.

BY Mir Ali Raza 28 July 2004

"What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?" So asked CLR James in 1963. Yet again, in this World Cup, cricket became the theater to enact a complex moral position vis-a-vis nationalism.

BY Mir Ali Raza 30 March 2003

It is certainly possible for all Muslims to issue their own fatwa. To Imam Bukhari and his recommendation that every Muslim follow the Taliban in jihad, I simply say no.

BY Mir Ali Raza 4 October 2001