Writing on the Wall

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird is a favorite book of pretty much everyone. The protagonist is a young girl named Scout and except for her father, all the main characters in the book are marginalized by the power structure of their town — a structure that still exists nearly everywhere — where wealthy white men control the lives of everyone else, and even the members of that group who want to use their status for something honorable, like Scout's father Atticus, cannot win against the flattening wave of that power.  Until something about that structure really changes, this book will remain required reading for every person around the world. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Nabokov’s astonishingly skillful and controversial work of fiction introduces us to literary professor and self-confessed hebephile Humbert Humbert, the perhaps unreliable narrator of the novel. Cloaking his abuse in the allusive language of ideali

The corona virus has caused ample damage around the world leaving almost every country distraught economically and socially. Ironically, the health sector was on the front line facing brunt of the situation. With all its worrying effects, the virus has steered the governments around the world to commence damage-assessment in various circles. Taking stock of the situation, Unicef has pointed out the alarming number of missed vaccination targets as a result of the lockdowns. In Pakistan, an already suffering vaccination campaign against the polio disease has been further debilitated. Unicef has reported sporadic outbreaks of preventable diseases such as measles and diphtheria in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Pakistan is a large country with high childhood mortality and low immunization coverage rates as every year, more than one million children miss out a full course of the most basic vaccines here hinting that it is difficult to find children missing out during the anti-

Meetings of clerics on two different occasions have announced that they will resist the imposition of further restrictions on prayer congregations, the statement came following clear instructions by the government to observe the lockdown in mosques. The government has already vowed to bring clerics and all religious groups on-board before reaching a final decision on April 18 and after that such a decision looks quite confusing. The scholars have promised to take necessary measures for congregations, it is difficult to perceive how they will manage mandatory distancing at each and every mosque at all times, with the rising number of people wanting to participate in congregational prayer. It is duty of the citizens, religious scholars to abide by rules laid down by the government against the corona virus pandemic. The government is responsible for protecting all citizens, which includes clerics. Through their unilateral decision-making, the clerics are putting themselves an

Compose for Red a proper verse; Adhere to foot and strict iamb; Control the burst of angry words Or they might boil and break the dam. Or they might boil and overflow And drench me, drown me, drive me mad. So swear no oath, so shed no tear, And sing no song blue Baptist sad. Evoke no image, stir no flame, And spin no yarn across the air. Make empty anglo tea lace words— Make them dead white and dry bone bare. Compose a verse for Malcolm man, And make it rime and make it prim. The verse will die—as all men do— but not the memory of him! Death might come singing sweet like C, Or knocking like the old folk say, The moon and stars may pass away, But not the anger of that day.   About The Poet:   ETHERIDGE KNIGHT was an African American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. The book recalls in poetry his eight-year-long sentence after his arrest for robbery in 1960. By the time he left prison, Knight had

Between my finger and my thumb    The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound    When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:    My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds    Bends low, comes up twenty years away    Stooping in rhythm through potato drills    Where he was digging. The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft    Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade.    Just like his old man. My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Di