Where we are heading, asks Kishwar Naheed in her poem

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is 70. As these words resound across the country, questions are being asked where Pakistan stands today in the polity of nations after a journey of seven decades.

Celebrated poet Kishwar Naheed who returned to Islamabad after a long stay abroad tells The News that on her return she was so struck with events in the country, that she could not but help put pen to paper. She questioned herself and asked “Where are we heading?”

As she recited her as yet unpublished poem, Disgrace, it was difficult not but be struck with her emotions and her journey into her adopted country at the age of seven. Images of paintings from the 80’s come into one’s mind when the poet speaks about “Cobwebs become more sinuous

Entangling my head, body and feet.” As the poet asks, where are we heading, one recalls a conversation with the late Khan Wali Khan who was asked a similar question and he responded, “We are all passengers of a bus where the driver has lost his way”.

Kishwar Naheed agrees to its publication exclusively for The News, after which poet Harris Khlique translated Disgrace into English the originally poem being in Urdu.