Rhetoric & reality
14 September 2018
Between April and October 2016, I was conducting a study on Chashma Right Bank Canal that runs through Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It was during the height of the frenzied and much-hyped ‘billion-tree tsunami’ by the ruling party of the province.
In May, I witnessed men planting hundreds of conocarpus and eucalyptus trees along the canal. I also saw thousands of eucalyptus trees in the stream bed of the Gambila river somewhere in the vicinity of Lakki Marwat.
Read more »Labels: Ecology
posted by Salman Rashid @ 12:36,
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OBITUARY: THE NAIPAUL I KNEW
09 September 2018
It was September 1995 when Nadira (then Alvi) phoned me and said V.S. Naipaul was in town and that I should see him. I refused. Why, he was an abrasive, disagreeable old man who had destroyed journalist Nusrat Nusrullah in his book Among the Believers. I didn’t want the same done to myself.
No, said Nadi. I had to be myself and since I always was, I would hit it off with him. It was after much coaxing that I agreed. In fact, I took a couple of days telling her I was busy with something or the other. And then I said I couldn’t because I was going away to Islamabad. Good, said Nadi because he was already there and since we were going to be in the same hotel it would be easy.
Read more »Labels: About, People, Sir Vidya Naipaul, Travel Literature, Travel Writer, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:56,
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