Adil Ahmad

Dawn, Tuesday Review, January 25-31, 1994                                     THE LONE RANGER By Adil Ahmad To me bachelorhood implies a state of mind. Free, independent, and totally gungho! Being single, naturally, has everything to do with it. The element of privacy. The option to exercise one's options without let or hindrance. Bachelorhood, for some obscure reason, has come to symbolise a finite period of self-expression which, at some point during the male's mortality, should come to an end. This being the point at which the female (dreaded?!) enters his scheme of things. But why should a female enter the male's scheme of things so comprehensively that he surrenders the very distinction which attracted her to him in the first place. His freedom of self-expression. His option to exercise his options without let or hindrance. The very quality within man which sets him apart fr...

Dawn Magazine Friday, June  8, 1990 THERE'S A RUSH ON CLIFTON BRIDGE By Adil Ahmad When Karachi Weeps, Pakistan Weeps, for Karachi is Pakistan . This proud city of a proud Nation plays host to all and sundry - Sindhi, Punjabi, Pathan and Balochi, all flock here to gain their livelihood. Karachi extends its hospitality to beyond national frontiers. Afghans, Iranians, Bengalis, even Sri Lankans and Filipinos. Karachi is indeed truly Blessed. It is God's chosen place for food and shelter of so many millions of people. And yet there are those who would spurn Karachi 's hospitality. Kick it in the teeth, as it were. For these ungrateful wretches, Karachi has no time. The panic mongers and subversives have tried their damndest, but cut little ice. Even Karachi 's children refuse to scare anymore. There is a rush on Clifton Bridge every morning at nine. And thank God for it. For in that rush lies the silent majority’s vote of confidence in their adop...

Dawn Magazine, Friday, November 19, 1993 THE INCREDIBLE SQUASH BALL By Adil Ahmad "If music be the food of love, play on ....... Patak! Patak! Patak! Patak! ......" But then music, a bit like beauty, lies in the ears of the beholder. For some the sound of a squash ball hitting the front wall resembles more the booming of small artillery at close range. But for the warriors from Nuakilli in Pakistan it was, and still remains, the sort of music legendary love affairs are built upon. Hashim, Azam, Roshan, Mohibullah Senior, Qamar, Jahangir and Jansher played the squash ball's love song as only inspired lovers could, each bringing his own creative genius to enthrall and hold captive an ever-increasing following. They mixed and matched their melodies with some equally inspired genius from distant lands. From Read and Butcher, to Amr Bey and Abdoul Karim, to Jonah Barrington and Geoff Hunt, to Chris Dittmar and Rodney Martin. Together they tangoed  and walt...

Dawn Magazine, Friday, April 16, 1993 HOWWZZZAAATTT!? We Teach Them, They Beat us By Adil Ahmad Cricket What a strange game! Long leg. Short leg. Leg break. Stumps! All manner of mutilated folk. Sillies at mid-on, and sillies at mid-off. All slightly off. Blazing noonday sun with temperatures in the forties. Fifteen on ground.  Fifty  thousand struggling to get on ground. Nation on strike. Yield per man hour zilch.  An inexplicable madness. Talk about suntan. That's how it started, actually. Those devious, ingenious Englishmen, all lords and ladies. The winter season left them a little pale and pouting. So come summertime and they had a legitimate excuse to just stand around in the sun all day long being polite to each other. So why did the West Indies take up Cricket? They got talked into it. Talk about deep tanned! Not content with just standing around and making polite applause for a well-struck ball, this lucratively unemployed elite built st...

Dawn Magazine, Sunday, January 18, 1998 INNOCENT TILL PROVEN GUILTY By Adil Ahmad The 'great conspiracy' has reared its ugly head again with the ruthless trashing of yet another Pakistani role model. Wasim Akram, mythical hurler of demon missiles, crusading 'kapitan' of our men-in-white (sadly not any more), has been given out on a no-ball. Wasim has been 'tried', found 'guilty', and crucified by a gullible media fed and fattened on rumours, half-truths, and outright lies. In an age in which an anti-state conspiracy is feared to lurk behind every bush in the land, the members of our revered cricket team, the role models of so many millions of young, impressionable minds, should be the recipients and beneficiaries of every conceivable benefit of the doubt. Match-fixing and betting against one's own team are very serious matters, and at the national level would equate with high treason, for which the punishment is the same in most count...

Dawn Magazine, Friday, March 29, 1996 THE DRAVIDIAN RAJ By Adil Ahmad Well folks, if you thought you had heard the last of the sixth World Cup 1996, think again. If wishes were horses beggars would ride and the poor of this world would preen with pride. The Lankan 'Lion' who had been out begging the 'Aussie Kangaroo' and the Windie 'Kingfisher' to play on his soil, went back to his island jungle riding a high horse as high could be. It proved to be an outrageous action-packed affair full of suspense and sound and fury and raw emotion. The World Cup 1996 came with a warning sign for the faint-hearted and a promise of untold fame and fortune for those who would dare to defy the odds for an ecstatic island population desperately in search of some good news. As the Tamil Tiger licked his wounds and made common cause with the Lankan 'Lion', there was dancing in the streets of Sri Lanka . Arjuna Ranatunga (Raging Rana, Tubby Tunga, a...

Dawn Magazine, Friday, September 30, 1994 KHAN-i-KHANAN FINDS HIS JAN-i-JANAN By Adil Ahmad It is a solemn moment. The joining together in sacred matrimony of two larger-than-life people. Imran, the warrior Khan from the refreshingly mysterious land of the Indus that is Pakistan , has taken a 'prisoner'. Jemima, beautiful, fiery Jemima, a princess amongst princesses from Great Britain . Adding a further mystique to an already fairy tale setting is the bonding together in the eyes of Almighty Allah of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths as the Christian-Jew in Jemima relents to the Muslim in Haqqa. The world watches spellbound this practical, exhilarating expression of truce. Jemima is intelligent, very upper curst, and educated in the finest schools in the West. She has observed Islam, and studied it, and found solace in it for her tortured Western soul. The schoolboy from Aitchison College , painfully shy and tongue-tied in the presence ...