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Archive for February, 2008

Stuff Pakistanis like

I thought I’d do what I thought might be a “witty” take on Stuff White People Like and adapt it to what Pakistani Americans like. With the many caveats that are necessary - these are stereotypes, they are not universally applicable, they have a class bias (I don’t fit them either - well, okay, not [...]

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Academic interviews

Tis the season for academic interviews! From my personal experience, allow me to offer a bit of advice on what to do when invited for a campus interview:

Read carefully your brand new “free” business cards ordered off the internet. Do so especially before you hand one to a head of department and to all the [...]

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Divorcee

This is a poem that I’ve had hidden away for seven years. It tells the story of my own sister’s divorce in Pakistan, and the response from many on-lookers. There were sympathetic words too, but they were mostly muted - because no one wants to be on a losing side.
________
DIVORCEE
Hi there.
What happened to you?
He broke [...]

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I was nervous when I waited that cold morning in 1983 for Sister Rose. At 15, I was a senior student at school, at the Convent school in Lahore, established over 100 years ago by Catholic missionaries from abroad. Later that year, I would be taking my O-levels, sent over from Cambridge University, so [...]

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The Religion Dispatches website has launched today. My story, “A square yard of fabric makes a boring, foreign SAHM” has also been published. “How not to rescue Muslim women” is the most popular post so far!

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