London’s Hour of Reckoning
Ozer

Your previous poetry was non-political and had more meaning. When you try to politicise your writings you get into trouble. You have dug yourself into a right old mess...Ozer you are increasingly losing the plot.

You have a way with words, but alas this time your words will take you to no yellow brick road. You are just a vile and stupid idiot trying to defend terrorists. I hope Chowk boycotts mullahs like you. You are disgusting !!!

Who thinks that this parasite should be banished from Chowk once and for all ?

A Moment of Silence Ozer

You are normally the ``voice of moderation`` but here you have gone down the slippery slope of conservatism. You are talking about the plight of people around the world and cozily pointing the finger at the ``West``. That is too easy a route to tread, and you, like many others before you have this irritating habit of blaming the West and Uncle Sam for everything.

Be more rational and pragmatic in your reasoning, stop resorting to melodrama, one-sidedness and crocodile tear-jerking. Eastern regimes are no more benevolent. Rulers, wherever they may be are guilty of similar attrocities. Your geographical anachronisms are stale and dated. Your political short-sightedness is vapid.

Rape Does Not Alter the Victim’s Status! Vijendra Rao

You are a polished writer. Nonetheless our patriarchal society has more to blame than e-technology on why women are continuously crucifixed on the altar of gender discrimination. The onslaught of reality TV shows such as Big Brother, Jerry Springer, Oprah, Sally Jessy Raphael et al ..do accentuate that women or even children are the victims in a society saddled with discrimination.

Witness the Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson and R kelly trials of recent times, and how they project to the world that not only women, but tender children are quite often the victims of a patriarchal testosterone-driven madness.

So whilst ackowledging your point I do contest your views by highlighting that media and technology often act as an instrument to expose the truth embellish women with more human rights and expose the wrong-doers. Unfortunately, as philosophers such as Max Weber and Antonio Gramsci suggest the media itself is very manipulated and therefore needs to be taken with ounces of salt.

Blood and Virtue Dear Amrita

You are gifted !! Reading your story made me reminiscent of the obscurantist slant of writing often evidenced in Dostoyevsky. This was like reading an abridged version of Crime and Punishment and/or Karamazov Brothers.

This piece is your venom unleashed on the chattering classes, the patriarchal societal structure and the abyss of post-modernity we live in.

Power in Writing Re: # 2

okaab

As I understand it, Phoolan Devi was a reverential matriarchal freedom fighter in a patriarchal society. Men suffocated her with injustice yet she struggled to vindicate a noble cause.

Boom-Box Mentality ``unlike Pakistan, the Government in India moved to overhaul the overall system by liberalizing its closed-door economy to open up its markets``

Asim Raza, your above mentioned comments are true, but only to an extent. Bear in mind that Pakistan too is steadily liberalizing its markets, the recent spate of privatisations, de-monopolizing the telecoms/electricity sector, and anti-monopoly regulations are but a few examples.

O’ Karachi Part III Shahzad Kazi

Harking back to reminiscene: oh those Lollywood days of 1970`s with Babra Shareef and Nadeem crumpling the grass in her wet sari, a jeolous on-looking mother-in-law and a moustach walla dare-devil.

Running around trees.

Rain falls.

Rolling on grass.

Hay hay !!

Dusk The author leaves an audience opaquely captivated: is ``Dusk`` about an intriguing love affair about to explode into oblivion ? Or a society mandated with norms that ostracize morality. my opinion would incline: Ozerkhalid is interestingly trying to herald both dimensions into one caption: a micro element (entanglement with the lady) and macro element ( affliction with environment).

the constant flux between micro and macro is like a Tarantino plot, forwarding and rewinding. heralding both dimensions brilliantly is this piece`s chief signature.almost cinematic !

Dusk Husna you say ``It reveals a soul trapped in the confines of modernity trying to emerge out of its flames``. But surely modernity is not under fire in this article ? Rather it is stoking the flames... Is it not ?

Dusk ozerkhalid a very profound and polished piece, yet there is one discrepancy:

``You are earnestly drinking and fair-mindedly chewing on Davidoffs. Spraining to invoke the illusion of permanence. There is NONE. ``

Above you revoke the presence of ``permanence`` like an article of faith. Yet in another sentence your article reads `` You long for some certainty yet remain consumed by the transient``.

Here you critique the ``transient``.

So by revoking ``permanence`` on the one hand and ``transience`` on the other what do you believe in ? Is this not a contradiction ?