Fields of disillusionment

"Nit naye naqsh banatay ho, mita daitay ho, Jaanay kis jurm-e-tamanna ki saza detay ho. Kabhi kankar ko bana detay ho heeray ki kani, Kabhi heeron ko...

13.12.2025 40

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Reductive commitment traps

By the time these lines reach you, Russia's President Putin must have concluded his two-day visit to India. Some analysts are viewing it as one of...

07.12.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Indian malice

It is customary to claim that the Indian mind has been influenced by Modi's Hindutva, explaining why the average Indian views Pakistan as the enemy....

30.11.2025 30

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

The Pichai panic

What do you call a CEO who throws out the bathwater and ensures the baby goes down the drain with it? You call him Sundar Pichai. The timing and...

23.11.2025 30

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

AI: bubble, rubble and trouble

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the trolley problem as follows: The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics that presents a fictional...

16.11.2025 100

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

This moment, Zohran!

By this time you must have encountered countless commentaries on the irrepressible victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York's mayoral race, ranging from...

08.11.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

A republic if you can keep it

On October 30, India launched its ten-day-long tri-service exercise called 'Trishul'. Trishul means the tri-pointed spear of the Hindu deity Lord...

01.11.2025 40

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Notes on alignment issues

There are clear lessons to be learned from our national experience with alignments and misalignments in this era of dramatic emergent reality. This...

26.10.2025 50

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Valley of shadow of death

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your power to protect and your presence to...

19.10.2025 30

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Mind games

In 1999, I was given a cassette tape containing an audio documentary by a friend in uniform. It was called The Shadows and was a Muslim version of...

11.10.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Taken

When, last week, President Trump met eight Muslim leaders on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly session, it was clear that something...

05.10.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Moral leadership

To a student of history growing up in Pakistan, France's outsized role on the world stage often felt like a historical enigma. Its permanent seat on...

27.09.2025 40

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Karma and do-overs

This week, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia forged a defence pact that redraws the region's security map, and it was triggered by a stunning miscalculation....

21.09.2025 50

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Edge of dusk

Charlie Kirk was thirty-one when he was shot and killed at a university campus in Utah. You can disagree with his worldview or legacy, but he never...

14.09.2025 30

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Shanghai by heart

We live in spite of history, not because of it. Nothing at birth can equip us for a past so full of suffering and in which we had no agency. When we...

07.09.2025 100

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Tariffied

Just when I thought I was out... they pulled me back in. Or, as they say, it is in the nature of bizarre things that you cannot look away. When I...

31.08.2025 50

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Modi's giant black box

India's Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, set himself on fire to distract media attention from Rahul Gandhi's protest campaign launch...

24.08.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

India's tipping point

It was a unique disruption. For a nation whose birth witnessed the displacement of 10-12 million on religious lines and the broad-day murder of 1- 2...

17.08.2025 60

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Fifty shades of saffron

Speaking to YouTuber Samdish Bhatia, Indian road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari made an illuminating statement on 15 December 2024....

10.08.2025 60

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

The wish guru

India today is not ruled by a prime minister but by a wish guru. A leader fuelled less by policy than by image, less by competence than by dominance....

03.08.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Monsoon red wedding

The monsoon session of the Indian parliament has just begun. And so far, it is shaping up to be an event reminiscent of the Red Wedding from the Game...

26.07.2025 30

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Hope.exe: critical error

Just let the weight of this moment sink in. We are on the cusp of total human transformation. In one generation, we have gone from fixed,...

20.07.2025 50

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Cut it

There is a macabre sense of satisfaction in holding a mirror up to a society that has let itself go. When closely guarded orthodoxies of piety and...

13.07.2025 60

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Cruel to be kind

As with any old animosity, the 'Tom & Jerry' show between Pakistan and India has continued since independence. Call it competition, identity clash or...

05.07.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Order out of chaos

Master disclaimer: If I manage to cover all disclaimers in this piece, I will get to the core of my argument today. Otherwise, perhaps I will rename...

29.06.2025 70

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Death wish or stress test?

In the past three years, humanity has seemed to teeter on the brink of extinction. When the war in Ukraine began, many of us struggled to visualise...

22.06.2025 50

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Optical delusions

Within the past thirty days, we have witnessed two wars waged to consolidate power and for optics. India tried to invade Pakistan for all the worst...

15.06.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Apple of discord

When Jon Stewart does a segment on international politics or economics, you pay attention. My apologies for the double negative in the next sentence,...

08.06.2025 100

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Stupidistan

This piece seeks to expose a key contradiction between form and substance — between aspiration, machinations, desperation, incompetence, and...

01.06.2025 40

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

The prompt theory

Are we living in the most oppressive timeline or the most fascinating one? It is hard to tell. One minute, technological breakthroughs take your...

25.05.2025 50

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

New normals

In his long-awaited speech, the Indian Prime Minister claimed to have established a new normal — on the lines of a forever war — through the...

18.05.2025 90

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Hallucinations

What is the difference between AI hallucinations, synthetic data, and emergent misalignment? AI hallucinations: The generation of incorrect,...

11.05.2025 70

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Short fuse

Writing last week, I wondered if my imagination had the escape velocity to leave behind the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan. It turns out...

04.05.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Conscious or unconscious?

Will it surprise you to know that this piece is not about the ongoing India-Pakistan tensions? It will? Well, for an average Pakistani, this should...

27.04.2025 40

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Point of no return

Why do nations fight? Land, honour, glory, God, revenge or grievances? You can give me a million excuses, but I will always posit that it is...

20.04.2025 40

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Rumours of American decline

12.04.2025 50

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Red alert!

04.04.2025 10

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Future loss

28.03.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Sociology of dissonance

22.03.2025 60

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Canary trap

15.03.2025 40

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Trump, Musk – and system latency

07.03.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Passive-aggressive World Order

01.03.2025 50

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Working into extinction?

22.02.2025 30

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Breaking news – theirs and ours

15.02.2025 30

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Happy are we now?

08.02.2025 70

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Deeply sought

31.01.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Trump 2 Pro Max

24.01.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Survival guide for the populist age

10.01.2025 20

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Grand national dialogue

A new year brings new hopes and fears. I must confess that since childhood, on every New Year's Eve, my pulse would quicken at midnight, and my...

03.01.2025 6

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

The year of future invasion

This is the time for the yearender. 2024 should be remembered as the year when the future invaded our lives and when we were too busy to care or...

28.12.2024 8

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Fields of disillusionment

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Reductive commitment traps

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Indian malice

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

The Pichai panic

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

AI: bubble, rubble and trouble

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

This moment, Zohran!

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

A republic if you can keep it

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Notes on alignment issues

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Valley of shadow of death

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Mind games

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Taken

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Moral leadership

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Karma and do-overs

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Edge of dusk

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Shanghai by heart

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Tariffied

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Modi's giant black box

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

India's tipping point

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Fifty shades of saffron

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

The wish guru

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Monsoon red wedding

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Hope.exe: critical error

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Cut it

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Cruel to be kind

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Order out of chaos

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Death wish or stress test?

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Optical delusions

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Apple of discord

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Stupidistan

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

The prompt theory

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

New normals

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Hallucinations

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Short fuse

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Conscious or unconscious?

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Point of no return

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Rumours of American decline

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Red alert!

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Future loss

Farrukh Khan Pitafi

Sociology of dissonance