SHIFTING IMAGES

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.

1y ago

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.

4y ago

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”.

4y ago

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,

4y ago

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.

4y ago

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.

4y ago

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.

4y ago

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.

4y ago

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.

5y ago

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

5y ago

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.

5y ago

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.

5y ago

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.

5y ago

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

6y ago

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.

6y ago

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.

6y ago

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.

6y ago

Social laws of upward motion

Of late, I have been reflecting on an interesting aspect of our social discourse.

6y ago