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Since yesterday we are seeing pictures of Malala lying motionless in an intensive care unit in a Peshawar hospital while military doctors are standing around her with concern evident on their serious faces. National and international media, government officials, civilians, politicians, human rights activists have all condemned these acts in the strongest of words. But is this enough? Isn't she the one who became the face of a forward looking, moderate, progressive Swat and ultimately Pakistan during the Swat operation? And now, though she is out of danger (and may she out-live all the evil that put her there) she is the one in pain. Why should she suffer even for a day? Her suffering is a reminder of our own suffering? We have become used to this suffering, it has become a habit and now we have ceased to even be conscious of the pain. Why should we suffer? Why should some crazy, ill informed, ignorant group impose their twisted thinking on the rest of the population? It is an atta...

'Hindu, Hindu, Hindu', one of my class fellows was yelling at the top of her voice and I was cringing for my friend who was being screamed at in this manner. It meant that she was a caste-ist, she had a 'baghal mein churi and moon mein raam raam', in short, she was a liar, a kafir and it was better to be called for a duel than to be called a Hindu. And this was only primary school. Fast forward almost a decade and a half: We were invited by some of my husband's Indian colleagues to a dinner at their place after returning from Pakistan after getting married. I was getting ready and was terribly anxious. The slur that was associated with being called a 'Hindu' still ringing in my ears. And this is someone who has lived in the West, by that time, for almost 4 years but though I had come across many Muslim and Christian Indians, I had never come across a Hindu Indian. My husband was a student of South Asian studies and had very good knowledge of Hinduism and ...