Social Issues

  • Counter Narrative,  Kashmiri Traditions,  Social Issues

    Counter-Narrative | Response to “Empty Houses, Aging Parents: Kashmir’s Wealth Illusion”

    The lament of empty houses in Kashmir, while deeply evocative, is not just a social observation – it is a cultural indictment, a misdiagnosed ailment offered with the wrong medicine. What masquerades in this piece as financial wisdom is, in fact, the latest iteration of Western secular epistemology dressed up as parental care and economic prudence. The article’s message – “live for yourself, not your children; invest in savings, not structures; be financially independent, not emotionally entangled” – is a eulogy for the death of a civilization’s metaphysical backbone: the family. The core ideological assumption of the article is secular liberalism, wrapped in the soft cloak of economic rationality. The…

  • Ark-e-Gulab,  Social Issues

    Culture Bashing Cannot go Unabated

    Have you ever considered why birds, those little sages of the sky, lurch their heads in abrupt, start-stop spasms rather than simply gliding their gaze? Unlike us, they cannot swivel their eyes—they must halt their whole world, however briefly, to see anything clearly. Now, modern man, with all his digital twitchiness, has inherited the exact opposite malady: a ceaseless, unreflective motion, a scrolling of mind and soul that sees nothing at all. And so, in the marketplace of ideas—Twitter, op-eds, and pseudo-academic squawking—culture is endlessly flogged, never understood. If you wish to actually see where we are, pause! Stand still, if only for the length of a thought. Cease your…

  • Ark-e-Gulab,  Social Issues

    The Catastrophe of One Generation: A Cultural Holocaust in the Making

    The generation born in the 1980s and 1990s stands as a fragile bridge between a world lost and a world looming – a generation that did not merely encounter modernity, but was engulfed by it. They are now raising children without being raised themselves by a living tradition. These men and women, now parents, were the first to be shaped not by awraad fatiha, but by Shahrukh Khan, Honey Singh, Enrique Iglesias, and the algorithmic chaos of social media feeds. The names of their childhood are not those of saints or scholars, but of actors, influencers, and unanchored ideologues. Raised in nuclear homes away from the hearths of grandmothers whispering…

  • Counter Narrative,  Debates and Discussions,  Political Issues,  Social Issues

    Counter Narrative | Soft Feminism, Hardcore Destruction

    A reflection on a post that came to my knowledge Someone posted on facebook, in a noble and thoroughly confused moment, that feminism is a “theory for women to produce” but for men, it’s about cultivating kindness and empathy—so they may eventually be disarmed of their inner colonizer. To the casual scroll-through eye, it reads like an Instagrammable revolution. But when you slow it down, pour yourself a cup of strong qahwa, and think—really think—you start to feel the full gravity of what this line of thought entails. Spoiler alert: it isn’t gender justice. It’s civilizational evaporation. Let us begin with the smuggled premise: that man, by practicing “traditional manhood,”…

  • Ark-e-Gulab,  Religion and Philosophy,  Social Issues

    Pop Culture Mysticism

    “Popular culture” is a term we use for the broad spectrum of practices, beliefs, objects, and phenomena that are prevalent in society at a given time, particularly in Western culture since the mid-20th century. It encompasses the most immediate and contemporary aspects of our lives, often disseminated through mass media and driven by the interests, preferences, and trends of the general population. Pop culture (modern fast paced life has to have a shorter version of “popular”) is dynamic, reflecting the changing tastes, innovations, and societal norms of the day. Pop culture is marked by its accessibility to a wide audience. It includes music, television, movies, fashion, technology, and more, offering…