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Politicizing the Gentleman's Game

Ever since its inception more than a century ago, cricket has been frequently referred to as the Gentleman’s game. A major reason behind this moniker is that it has always been played in good nature with the utmost importance being given to ‘the spirit of the game’. In the past, it even helped bridge off-field conflicts between nations. Zia-ul-Haq famously attended a cricket match in Jaipur, India when many posited that the two volatile nations were on the brink of war yet again in 1987. The reciprocal tours between Pakistan and India from 2004 onwards helped bring the two nations together again post the 1998 Kargil war. Both countries have consistently viewed each others’ cricketers in high regard both as sportspersons and also personalities. Shoaib Akhtar has an enduring fan following in India ever since his exploits on that fateful day in Kolkata back in 1999. Virat Kohli is a fan favourite of a lot of Pakistanis, myself included, no matter how “painful” his brilliant batting perfor...
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Project Hail Mary : Review

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   A high stakes space adventure story about friendship, camaraderie and overcoming the odds, definitely worth experiencing on the big screen. The latest Ryan Gosling starrer, Project Hail Mary, spends most of its time aboard a spaceship thousands of miles from Earth. Based on the 2021 novel of the same name, it follows an under achieving high school teacher and biologist Ryland Grace as he wakes aboard the spaceship from a coma alone and without any memory of how he got there and more importantly, why. The audience (and Grace) learn about his mission titled Project Hail Mary in numerous flashbacks as the aim of his journey is revealed - the Sun and all other stars except one, Tau Ceti, are dying due to astrophage, an alien microorganism that is literally feeding on them. Grace and a few select others are part of a team that is investigating Tau Ceti to learn why it is seemingly unaffected by astrophage. Grace finds that his other crew members are dead and he spends most of hi...
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AI’s Ugly Face

  This past year has seen a lot of growth in and emphasis on AI. Global giants like Google and NVIDIA continue to pump billions of dollars into this juggernaut. There seems to be a race to develop the most advanced AI chatbots and other tools based on Large Language Models (LLM) such as ChatGPT. These models have improved massively and have turned several laborious tasks into quite simple ones. But like every technology, there can be some unwanted pitfalls. There was previously a lot of concern with models that ‘hallucinated’ or generated information such as scientific research papers that did not exist, leading to factual inaccuracies. But another major concern has now arisen: the modification of the images of women and girls in inappropriate ways. This problem appears to primarily be centred around the xAI chatbot Grok, which some have reportedly used to ‘digitally undress’ images of women and girls. This is extremely unsafe and inappropriate, especially considering that many wom...
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Addressing the Ethnic Divide in Karachi

  Pakistan is no stranger to ethnic strife. This is not entirely surprising considering the fact that it is home to so many diverse ethnic groups and so there are bound to be differences over both trivial and non-trivial matters. Sindh Culture Day last month should have been an occasion of provincial unity and celebration. Instead, it turned into an ugly diatribe and blame game on social media regarding the current state of Karachi and other parts of Sindh. The two major ethnic groups of the metropolitan city were seemingly at loggerheads over who is responsible for the state of Karachi. The major trade and industrial hub does lag behind the likes of Lahore and Islamabad, especially in terms of infrastructure, but this does not mean that a single ethnic community should be blamed for it. Karachi has been failed by many different stakeholders and leaders over years. Reducing this complex history to racial hate speech and the mocking of each other’s’ rich culture is not the solution....
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The Death of ‘Bazball’

  As the final wicket of the English team fell on the last day of the third Test of the Ashes in Adelaide, cricket fans, especially in England, were confronted with an all too familiar sight: another tour of Australia without an Ashes victory. A contest famed for its history, dating back to the 19th century, carries the myth that a cricket bail was burnt to signify the “death” of English cricket after defeat. That symbolism now seems to represent the death of Bazball. England have failed to win a single Test in Australia in their last 18 attempts and have managed only drawn series at home in recent years. A revolutionary, almost avant-garde approach to batting had promised much, with victory in Australia seen as the ultimate vindication. Yet, in the scorching heat of South Australia, that promise faded away. The story began in 2022 when former New Zealand cricketer Brendon McCullum, widely known as Baz, became head coach of the England Test team. He introduced a more aggressive, at...
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